The Sentinel=record., 1911-03-26

New York, March 25.-One hundred
and fifty persons-nine-t of them
girls from the East Side--were crush
ed to death ON the pavements, smoth l.
cred by smoke, or shriveed to a crisu
this afternoon in the worst fire New
York has known since the steam
ship General Slocum was burned 10
the waters edge off North Brothers
Island in 1904.
One hundred and forty one bodies
had been removed from the ruins at
midnight, and seven of the forty in
jured had died in hospitals. This, it IS
believed, completes the list of dead,
most Of whom are unidentified.
Grief erazed relatives besieged the
morgue as the bodies were laid out
Nearly all. If not all, of the vic
TINS were employed by the Triangle
Waist Company on the eighth, ninth
and tenth floors of ten story loft
building at No. % Washington Place
on the western fringe OF the down
town wholesale clothing. fur and mil
iinery district. The partners of the
firm. Isaac Harris and Max Blancnk,
escaped unscathed from the office on
the tenth iicor carried with them over
an adjoining roof. Blanck's two young
daughters and governess. There was
not an outside fire escape on the
building,
How the fire started will perhaps
never be known. A corner on the
eighth floor was its point of origin,
md the three upper floors only were
swept. On the ninth floor fifty bodies
were found; sixty three 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
Pedestrians going home through
Washington Place to Washington
Square at ten minutes to five. were
scattered by the whiz of something
rushing through the air before them;
there was horrible thud on the pave
ment and body fiattened 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
stills. There were no fire escapes.
Don't jump; don't jump" yelled
the crowd. but the girls had no al
tentative. The pressure OF the mad
dened hundreds behind them and the
urging of their own fears were too
strong. They began to fall to the
sidewalk in terrible rain of flesh
and blood.
Four alarms were rung within 10
minutes Before the engines could re-
spond, before the net could be stretch
ed, or the ladders raised, five girls
had fallen from the eighth and ninth
floors 80 heavily that they broke
through the very streets into the
vaults below. In an hour the fire was
out; in half an hour 1t had done its
worst. Probably the death list was
full in twenty minutes.
The h.xtrltx,r otands 0u a corner
with exposure on two sides, but the
only fire escape was in the interior
opening on a light and airshaft. III
all there were seven exits-the SIN
gle fire escape, two freight ele'a
tors at the rear, two passenger eie'
vators in front and two stairways. Al
'of them proved almost useless ah0
practically all who escaped, either
climbed to the rocf and scramble
thence to the roof of the building oc'
tnpied by the American Book Com
Sany adjoining or fed in the first rusf
GDr safety before the crush and the
smoke grew too thick.
The building stands tonight VIII
she'll intact and barely scarred--naea
y only smudged.
The partitions of architectural tiiins
:between floor and floor are sound a''
It Ia impossible for one who did no
see 1t to imagine how the flames y
- L.xr