Smyrna times., 1911-03-29
Known Dead in New York
Horror is I45.
PITIFUL SCENES At MORGUE
Firemen Find Bodies Beneath Side
walk and Pick Up Arms and Hands
In Building-Women Hysterical at
Sight of Charred Victims.

Searchlights on fire apparatus play
ed into the holes that once were win
dows of the Asch building, at Wash
ington place and Greene street, in
New York, until daylight, while fire.
men carrying lanterns searched the
ruined shirtwaist factory floors. The
firemen found three more bodies,
which brought the number of dead up
to las.
How the fire started will perhaps
never be known. A corner on the
eighth floor was its point of origin
and 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.
First Danger Sign Hideous.
Pedestrians going home through
Washington place to Washington
square were scattered by the whiz of
something rushing through the air be-
fore them-there was a horrible plop
on the pavement and body tlattened
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
sills.
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 fall to the sidewalk in
a terrible rain of flesh and blood.
Four alarms were rung within fifteen
minutes. Before the engines could re-
spond and before the nets could be
stretched or the ladders raised, five
girls had fallen from the eighth and
ninth floors so heavily that they broke
through the glass and iron roofs Of
the sub-cellars and crashed through
the very streets into the vaults below.
In an hour the fire was out; in half
an hour it had done its worst; prob
ably the death list was full in twenty
minutes.
Firemen who had begun to wade
through the water in the basement
before it had been pumped out felt
around in the water under a hole in
the sidewalk vault lights of Greene
street, hole made by falling bodies,
many times, but discovered nothing
beneath the surface of the water. One
of the firemen happened to look up.
ward while passing the spot and sc
found two bodies of young women
beneath which he and his companion
had walked many times. The two dead
girls were lying on lattice of steam
pipes about four feet below the hole
in the vault lights. The girls bodies
had broken the concrete and glass
vault lights of the pavement and hat
fallen through the sidewalk hole tt
the steam pipes.
Twelve hours later firemen working
in the cellar of the building came
across a body at the foot of the shat
Of the two freight elevators on thu
north side of the building. 1t was 81
badly burned and mutilated that tn
firemen were unable to tell whethe
it was the body of man or that o
woman.
Find Fragments of Bodies.
Charles Aichman, of fire patrol Nc
IL, found part of an arm and shoulde
near the north end of the cuttin
room of the eighth floor, where tn
fire started beneath a pile of west plas
ter and bits of warped sewing ma
chimes. Shortly after this a hand wa
found on the window ledge of tn
fifth floor, evidently broken from th
wrist of a falling body. Two charre
arms and a burned foot were found O
the ninth floor.
The windows of the burned flool
begin so close to the floor that tn
sills are just a few inches below tn
knees of one standing by the windoy
1t was evident that many girls, ther
fore, whetheI they wanted to jump {
not, must have been showed out
the windows by the press behir
them.
Max Blanek, one of the proprieto
of the Triangle company, said it W;
against orders to smoke in their loft
The reporters while clambering ov
the debris on the eighth floor whe
the fire started, saw amidst the hs
burned pocketbooks, shoes and 9th
bits of clothing, scorched cigaret
box. In another part of the buildil
were a number of half-smoked cigt
cites lying on the floor.
Chief Croker said he believed t
fire was caused by a smoker W
tossed either a match or a light
cigarette on the floor among the pil
of infiamable fimsy stuff used in t
manufacture of waists and lingerie.
When the body found at the fl
of the freight elevator shaft had be
sent to the morgue there was a r,
of fifteen pine coffins stretched alo
the south side of the covered pier a
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