The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1911-02-02
Lower End Of New York City
Is Badly Shaken and
Panic Follows
VESSEL IN RIVER BLOWN
UP AND DISAPPEARS
Damage 10 Buildings In New York Ii
Heavy as Plate Glass Windows
Are Smashed In All
Directions

New York, February IA cargo of
dynamite in transit from freight car
to the hold of lighter moored at Pier
No. 7, Communipaw, N. j., exploded at
noon today within $50 yards south of
the Jersey City terminal of the Central
Railroad of New Jersey and in the
widespread ruin that followed seven
men are known to have been killed
| seven more are missing. hundreds were
wounded and varying reports leave
from 15 to 20 more unaccounted for
Ihirty seems to be a conservative
| estimate of the dead and property dam
re will hardly fall below $750,000. The
C" Sc Is yariously attributed to the
dropping of case of dynamite and
to boiler explosion on a boat. Just
what was the direct cause probably
| never Will be known
The Jersey Central terminal was
wrecked; three ferry boats in the slips
We're torn and splintered; lower Man
hattan across the river was shaken
from the street level to the top of tina
singer tower; severe damage was done
In brooklyn and Staten Island and TO
the immigrant detention station on Ell
lis Island; the shock was felt at Am
ityville, l.. l.. 35 miles distant and in
New Jersey at Long Branch. As miles
away The damage is so widely scat
| tered that 1t is impossible yet to more
than roughly estimate It, but in Man
haitian alone 1t is placed at 800. o.0Oo.
on ELLIS Island at from $4,000 to s2ks~
600, and in all three quarters of
lion appears to be a fair estimat
Boat Vanishes Utterly
The lighter receiving the dynamite. I,
Katherine W., owned by James Healing
Of Jersey City, vanished with her crew
! of seven men, Including the master. Ed
ward Traver.
Aionsside was the lighter Whistler.
which was so badly shattered that she
sank with her crew of two while tho
Swedish steel barkentine Ingrid was
stripped of her rigging and the lives of
two dock hands snuffed out. Fragments
OF one mans head were found swinging
high on tangled piece of rope.
The Katherine w was tied to the outer
end of the pier and a crew of deck hands
was unloading a. consignment of 80 boxes
from two freight cars to the lighter when
the crash came. One report was to the
effect that the explosive was consigned
to contractors up the river for blasting
along the palisades; another that IT was
bound for Havana
| with the explosion the Katherine w.
disappeared; not splinter of her has
been found. Only the Whistler's flag
pole has been found
| The freight car went up in a puff of
dust. On the rear deck of the barken-
tine Ingrid were found pair of iron
trucks They may be the trucks of tho
dynamite car or one OF the other car.
standing near that was also torn to bits.
| Another Explosion Averted
Fifty yards back stood another car Of
dynamite The explosion ripped the roof
OFF 1t and broke in the doors. but tha
dynamite itself held true and rested
quiescent In its wooden boxes
On board the Ingrid the steel missen-
mast snapped off above the lower yard
and the tangled wreckage came tumblinr
about the decks.
! Everything abaft the missenmast was
leveled. but the steel plates of the hull
held stoutly and showed not even a mark.
For 100 feet the pier end itself was de-
r.aolished. The planking seemed to have
been ground to powder. The few splinters
left were utterly inadequate on account
of its bulky substances of girders, plank
| ing, cross stays and massive framework
OF pier built to uphold locomotives
and loaded trains. Over the broken edges
| twisted the steel rails of track A steal
gondola car on the southernmost track
| looked HE an old hat that had been used
| by boys for football.
| All about were strange freaks of the
explosion. One freight car had the roof
blown inward. as If 1t had been crushed
| by a railing boulder but the sides were
| undamagcd. Tho iron sheathing of the
freight house OH Pier No. 2, to the north.
was pushed inward on the side nearost
the explosion and outward on the farther
side.
Killed by Piece of Glass
In the train shed of the terminal, nearly
the whole southern exposure of the glass
roof collapsed, shtwering the passengers
with broken glass. One man was struck
| by 2o-pound fragment and severely
cut that he did. An engineer in a switch
ing locomotive was blown from his cab
and died of fractured skull. A tugboat
captain was hurled from his wheelhouse
and fshed out of the water 10 minutes
later, swimming about the southern side
| of the demolished pier
| Inside the passenger station, damage
was visible everywhere. Windows 'front.'
| ing on the inner court had been sucked
| from the frames, saslfes and ALL States
We're torn from the roof. The hands Of
tho ferry house clock were torn or The
sCuthern wall hulged like a pasteboard
| box left cut in the 'ain. There were no
sashes left In windows and no glass in
those that had sashes.
Cashiers Experience
The cashier in the station restau-
rant James Mayhue was eating lunch-
con when the explosion came.
| II don't know whether there was
much noise not he said. "A cloud
of dust jumped up from the floor. There
was everywhere the crash of falling
glass and the rush of frightened feet
Children whimpered and women
shrieked
"The sensation of terror was acute,
It seemed as If the earth was being
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