The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1911-03-27
SHATTERED BODIES
STRENED THE STREETS
I4s LIVES LOST IN 4 NEW YORK
FIRE
Scores of Girls Smothered, Burned or
Dashed to Death on the
Sidewalks


New York, March 26.-One hundred
an dforty- eight persons nine-tenths of
them girls from the East Side. were
crushed to death on the pavements.
smothered by smoke or shriveled crisp
yesterday afternoon in the worst fire
New York has known since the steam
ship General Slocum was burned to
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.
Nearly all. if not all. of the victims
were employed by the Triangle Shirt
waist Company, on the eighth, ninth
and tenth floors of a ten-story loft
building at No 90 Washington Place.
| Falling Body Was First Warming
| Pedestrians going home through
Washington Place to Washington
| Square at ten minutes to were cat
tered by the whiz of something rush
! ing through the air before them
| there was a horrible thud on the pave
ment and a body hattened on the flags.
| Wayfarers on the opposite side of
the street shaded their eyes against
the setting sun and saw the windows
Of the upper three floors of the build
ing black with girls crowded to the
sills. There were no fire escapes.
| 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
of their own fears were too strong.
They began to fail TO the sidewalk in
In the office buildings across Wash
| ington Place, scores OF men, detained
beyond office hours. worked at their
desks. One of them saw a girl rush
to a window and throw up the sash.
| Behind her danced a seething cur
tain Of yellow flame.
| She climbed to the sill, stood in
black outline against the light, hesi-
tating, then with a last touch of fu-
tile thrift, slipped her chatelaine bag
over her wrist and jumped. Her body
went whirling downward through the
| woven wire glass of a canopy to the
tagging below.
/ Her sisters who followed famed
through the air like rockets. Their
path could be followed, but their
screams hardly heard.
i 1t was S5 feet from the eighth floor
to the ground. 95 feet from the ninth
floor, lis feet from the cornice of the
roof. The upward rush of the draught
and the crackle of the flames drowned
the cries Of the falling girls.
In such a horrible stream did the
bodies overflow from the windows tha
the fire nets, stretched by the frs
company to arrive, were soon gorgeC
beyond capacity. Twelve bodies
/ ..rk~. ~ Il
but the bodies kept on tumbling t,
the pavement, through meshes tha
could no longer support them.
Six girls fought their way to win
dow on the ninth floor over the bodie
of fallen fellow workers and crawle.
out in single file on an eight-incl
stone ledge running the length of tn,
building. More than a hundred fee
above the sidewalk, they crawle,
along their perilous pathway TO al
electric feed wire from Washington
Place. The leaders paused for thei
companions to catch up at the end o
the ledge and the six grabbed tn
wire simultaneously. 1t snapped lik
rotten whip cord and they smashe,
down to death.
13-year-old girl hung for thre
minutes by her fingers to the sill o
a tenth floor window. A tongue O
flame licked at her fingers and sh
dropped into a life net. held by fire
men. Two women fell into the net a
almost the same moment. The string
parted and the three were added I
the death list.
One girl threw her pocketbook. the
her hat, then her furs from the tent
story window. A moment later he
Interior Was an Inferno
How the fire started will perhap
never be known. A corner on tn
eighth floor was its point of origi
and the three upper floors only wer
swept. On the ninth floor fifty bodie
were found; sixty-three or more per
sons were crushed to death by jump
ing. and more than thirty clogged tn
Elevator shafts.
Seven hundred persons. 500 of ther
women, were employed by the shir
r waist company. They sat in rows a
: their whirring machines, the table
before them being piled with films
cloth. the floor Uttered with lint. tn
u air itself full Of iniammable dus
\ The first rush of flame was almost a
explosion. Operators died in the
. chairs, their lungs scared by inhalin
flames. Others were crowded into III
M elevator shafts after the cars ma
made their last trip. Still others wel
u pushed off the inadequate interior fl
q escapes.
u Squads of fremen stormed the stail
r ways and gained access TO the build
ing at o'clock. Two searchligh
q from buildings opposite lighted II
/. way OF the fire fighters as they a!
l. cended to the top floors. Fifty roas
ed bodies We're found on the mint
floor. They lay in every possible pO
ture. some so charred that recogn
N tion was impossible. \ half doze
were nude. with the flesh hanging
v shreds to the bones
Women with their hair burned ava
with here and there a limb burned 81
tirely off and the charred stump Wis
BILE. were lifted tenderly out OF u
debris. and lowered by pulleys TO Il
street.
COLD, LaGRIPPE,
THEN PNEUMONI