Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1911-03-31
Known Dead in New York
Horror is I43.
.P|T|FUL SCENES At MORGvE
walk and Pick Up Arms and Hands
Sight of Charred Victims.

Fire that destroyed the Asch bui d.
Ing, at Washington place and Greene
street, in New York, cost the lives of
| 143 employees of the Triangle Shirt
waist factory, which occupied the
| three upper floors of the building.
Nearly all the dead are giils.
How the fire started will perhaps
never be known. A corner ON the
eighth floor was its point Of origin
and the three upper floors only were
swept On the ninth floor fifty bodies
were found; sixty rec or more per-
sons were crushed to death by jump
ing, and more than thirty clogged the
elevator shafts. The loss to property
will not exceed 100000.
First Danger Sign Hideous.
Pedestrians going home through
Washington place to Washington
square were scattered by the whiz of
something rushing through the air be-
fore them-there was a horrible plop
on the pavement and a body flattened
on the flags.
Wayfarers on the opposite side of
the street shaded their eyes against
the setting sun and saw the windows
of the three upper floors of the build
ing black with girls crowding to the
sills.
Don't jump! Don't jump" yelled
the crowd. but the girls had no alter
native. The pressure of the maddened
hundreds behind them and the urging
nj
They began to fall to the sidewalk in
terrible rain of flesh and blood
Four alarms were rung within fifteen
minutes. Before the engines could re-
spond and before the nets could be
stretched or the ladders raised, five
girls had fallen from the eighth and
ninth floors so heavily that they broke
through the glass and iron roofs of
the subcellars and crashed through
the very streets into the vaults below.
In an hour the fire was out; in half
an hour it had done its worst; prob
ably the death list was full in twenty
minutes.
Firemen who had begun to wade
through he water in the bas ment
before it 'ad been pumped out felt
arou I'd in the WAGER under a hole in
the sidewalk vault lights of Greene
street, hole made by falling bodies,
many times, but discovered nothing
beneath the surface of the water. One
Of the firemen happened to look up
ward while passing the spot and so
found two bodies of young women
beneath which he and his companion
had walked many times. The two dead
girls were lying on lattice of steam
pipes about four feet below the hole
in the vault lights. The girls bodies
had broken the concrete and glass
vault lights of the pavement and had
fallen through the sidewalk hole to
the steam pipes.
Twelve hours later firemen working
In the cellar of the building came
across body at the foot of the shaft
of the two freight elevators on the
north side of the building. 1t was so
badly burned and mutilated that the
firemen were unable to tell whether
it was the body of man or that of
woman.
Find Fragments of Bodies.
Charles Aichman, of fire patrol No.
12, found part of an arm and shoulder
near the north end of the cutting
room of the eighth floor, where the
fire started beneath pile of west plas.
ter and bits OF warped sewing ma
chimes. Shortly after this hand was
found on the window ledge of the
fifth floor, evidently broken from the
wrist of fall.n5 Goay. Two charred
arms and burned foot were found on
the ninth floor.
The windows of the burned floors
begin so close to the floor that the
sills are just few inches below the
knees of one standing by the window
1t was evident that many girls, there
fore, whether they wanted to jump or
not, must have been showed out of
the windows by the press behind
them.
Max Blanck, one of the proprietors
of the Triangle company, said it was
against orders to smoke in their lofts.
The reporters while clambering over
the debris on the eighth floor where
the fire started, saw amidst the half
burned pocketbooks, shoes and other
bits of clothing, scorched cigarette
box. In another part of the building
were number of half-smoked cigar
cites lying on the floor.
Chief Croker said he believed the
fire was caused by smoker who
tossed either match or a lighted
cigarette .on the floor among the piles
of inflamable fiimsy stuff used in the
manufacture of waists and lingerie