Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1911-03-27
SKY SCRAPERSI
MUST GO
Terrific Holocaust in New
York Was Caused by
Cigaret Stump
RIGID INVESTIGATION ORDERED
Death Proof and Not Only Fire
Proof Buildings Is Latest
Slogan.

Slogan.
! New York, March 27-Eighty-six
bodies of the hundred and forty-one
victims in the ten story loft building
on Washington Place on Saturday
have been identified. Sixteen of the
bodies were men. District Attorney
Whitman started an official investiga-
tion to fix the responsibility for the
horror. The building department has
been called upon fd' report on the
burned building and every other de-
partment in any way concerned will
be required to make a detailed report.
1t is now definitely known that the
fire started on the eighth floor under
the cutting table on a scrap heap and
is thought to have been started by "a
cigarette.
Great crowds assembled at the
morgue this morning to view the
bodies. fifty-two in all. At least half
/ of the corpses were unrecognizable
and only a small trinket or shred of
clothing will help to show who the
unfortunates were. Some bodies nev-
er will be claimed. The fact that
| there was only one fire escape on the
building will be rigidly investigated.
Relief contributions are pouring in.
They are headed by Mayor Gaynor
with a hundred dollars. In midst of
all this comes the ominous declara-
ton of Fire Chief Croker. Give us
not merely fire-proof but death proof
| buildings" This is the slogan start
ed by him and which bids fair to be-
come a municipal issue. Il do not
| hesitate to say that more appalling
| loss of life in the office buildings and
| big stores is likely to come upon New
York at any moment, because of the
| lack of safeguards" Fire insurance
men are inclined to urge a complete
revision of the New York building
laws, and the limiting of the height
of all buildings and even tearing down
the existing sky-scrapers is recon-
mended. Four or five stories should
be the legal maximum where manu-
featuring or industrial pursuits are
| followed.
Gruesome Scenes.
A signet ring, found clinging to a
shred of flesh on a little girls fin.
ger, made Identification possible
where all other means would have
failed A man who had stood in line
six hours wandered aimlessly among
the bodies seeking his missing daugh
ters until with a groan he identified
heap of charred clothing as their
garments. He collapsed and sought
tc kill himself but the police pre-
vented him, and he continued the
i search for his wife, also missing.
:; A pale girl bent over a misshapen
mass long and doubtingly. Then with
final effort she grasped hand
which protruded from beneath the
canvas, and, with a shrek collapsed
The blackened mass she sobbed, had
!, been her sweetheart, to whom sh;
the disasted. A ring on his finger
told her of his identity. She asked il
the dead man had had watch. They
brought it to her, she opened it anG
gazed at her own portrait.
Twenty Sicilian women became
hysterical upon recognizing their kir
in the pine coffins. A man whose
face was marked by a scar o
flames found his brother among tht
dead. The two had worked side by
side pouring water upon the fire.
cutter identified his dead sweethear
by their engagement ring and he
purse. 1t contained her weeks wages
three dollars.
The bodies of two sisters, horri
bly, mangled, sat propped up in thei
t coffins while sobbing brother lef
4 them to search for his aged mother
: who also had perished. The fire hat
3 left him without a relative.
r Picked up by fireman on tn.
! eighth floor, a blackened hand still
+ clenched a pitiful purse in its grasp
: They pried the fingers away and re
. leased the bag. 1t contained small
t sum of money. keys and receip
: made out to A. S. Cimmels. A youn
t man found his sweetheart burne'
d and blackened. and fell across the col
n fins in a faint.
!, Sobbing women became so hyster
L cal that an improvised hospital war
e was fitted up on the pier, manned b
nurses from Bellevue hospital. Hys
terra ran riot and nurses were bus
. tending those who collapsed.
All day there rumbled a stead
stream of dead wagons along the al
; proach to the pier taking away thos
that had been claimed. The air wen
i; stale with an odor of burnt flesh an
for a a time the pier was cleared, du
ing the brief recess, heavyeyed a
tenants rearranged the baskets {
) personal effects belonging to the vi,
Il tins. There were more than $3.50
q in cash in the pockets and purses {
q. the dead. One woman had $500 i
her stocking.
Hospital doors were stormed b
hundreds during the day and nigh
NJ A cutter, (whose sister worked fe
NJ feet away from him in the doome
yo factory, inquired for her every ha
h. hour at St. Vincent hospital. Sh
al died between his visits and he becam
so violent that the police had to r