New-York tribune., 1911-03-26
PASSING BELL RINGS OUT
Weird Alarm as Bodies OF Young
Girls Are Lowered to Street.
WORK UNDER SEARCHLIGHT
Crowd Sees Coffns Filled, Then
Borne by Patrol Wagons
Toward the Morgue.

A broken burglar alarm somewhere up
In the hollow building. somehow statte'
into life by broken wire. rang ana rang
Nobody thought 10 stop Il. Nobody thoueh'
10 investigate " was the knell of a nun
dred and half Young girls who .yester-
day worked on tho eighth. ninth and tenth
floors Of No. - Greene street and last night
we're lowered down from the windows ot
those floors in black shapeess bundles
Nine. TO- II o'clock still the work went
on in the ghastIy glare which four search
lights. rivoted m two fre engines. shed
Watchers on the ground saw hrst an almost
indis'ineuishatle mass appear IN VIM
dow. then pair of helmeted heads behind
H. and then the mass slowly descend ~ the
sidewalk. dangling in the cold night breeze
Across the street pile Of rough WOODEN
collins stood surrounded by thin line
of patrolmen Their number diminished
gradually as each received body. which
was placed unuept unmarked into the wait
ing patrol for transportation "a the East
2sth street Morgua Now and then another
patrol drove up md added - the pile. But
still the bodies came down from above
over in Washington Square suhdued
crowd stared vacsntly a. the windows
few Youngsters who could not realize TIE
horror Of II all directed their attention 70
the pufing engine. but even they We're
swed into silence by tho feeling that some
thing not quite natural had happened Here
and there knot Of older people gathered
! closer around one who had 2 story 70 tell
! A little woman in calico dress, with
worsted shawl over her head. folded
i .ke l1r-a1 nf
ample waist L vas lust coming home
AZ o'clock she said N was frign'ful
I shall dream Of il for months.
The poor girls were dropping from the
windows when rounded TIE corner. They
| did not seem 70 he able 10 lump. They
JUS, hung in the windows until they could
hang no longer. and then they fell. ]
could not help thinking. What II my girl
! were there
The ladders didn't reach up 10 the fire
AZ all They arrived Just little after
did. and they only reached m 70 about
| the seventh floor. didn't see ANYBODY
! taken down nv the ladders. But then II
wouldn't have done much good II they
had reached They were too late The
whole thing was over N about three
minutes IL seemed 70 me-"
Standing hv the engine across the street
vas young fellow in the blue coat of a
fireman "Oh. I'm lust a sub" he said. IN
reply 70 query as ~ his identity DID
I see t. We'll. got here on the third
alarm With the fire patrol. It's tho worst
I've ever seen and I've seer some pretty
stiw fires too. They we're caught like rats
in trap There was a stairway all right,
but with Hve or six hundred people on a
floor. how could YOU expect them 10 get
down one stairway
What can't understand Is why they
| Jumped out of the fourth and fifth stories
| / suppose they were Just scared plain slf
when they saw the fire. 10th above and
below them. When we came up the boys
we're trying 70 work the life nets. but what
| good did II do? Two or three If them
would Jump az once and all land In the
| same place There were fellows with
blankets there. too. and teamsters holding
| tarpaulins over the sidewalk. ] saw several
| saved that way. But most Of them went
| through"
II must have seen thirty of those girls
,mp in Greene street" said Young fell
low in the midst Of the crowd. Sometimes
they jumped. and sometimes they Just
seemed 10 spill out Of the window all in
a bunch One girl though. went clean
! across the street think she dived
through glass and all. ! know some Of