The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-05-04
BOMB ExPL ODED ! IN OLD BOROUGH
 HALL OF BRONX
Men and Woman in Building JaPred By Crash That
 Wrecks Office.

New York, May 1.-The most pow e1fu1 bomb which the police of New York have yet gained knowledge of exploded just before 8. o'clock last night in a court of the Bronx Munici- pal building, at Fremont and Third avenues, and blew the Department of Highways room into a dusty mess Fortunately there was no one in the rooms which were most seriously af-. fected. but the few persons in the and almost stihed by the a,crid smoke which poured up through a great hole In the highways room floor.
 The force of the explosion broke windows on a passing elevated train. more than 200 feet away. the ticket chopper in the Fremont station was thrown from his chair and a man go- ing up the elevated steps was thrown down. Many persons within 8 block of the building were partly stunned by the crash of the explosion. There was rush of thousands to the build ing and it took the reserves Of three police stations to handle the crowd
 The only persons in the building when the crash came were William H. Thompson and N. Harris Piser, watch men; Thomas Dolan. an attendant in Borough President Matheson'sa office; Chief Engineer John W E. Bennett. and Mrs. Mary Cahill of 40 west 162nd street. who was waiting to see Mir Matheson. Bennett and Dolan were in the borough presidents office on the second floor. while the others waited in a room on the first floor at the opposite side Of the building from the highways room
 The building is really two buildings. three stories high, and separated by a wide court, which runs parallel to the front The highways room is on the court on the first floor at the southern end of the front building, with Mr. Matheson's room directly above
 Pfser places the time of the expIo- sion at 7:55 o'clock. It seemed to him that the building was lifted and then Ien timbers and cracking of shattered glass Glass rained in the halls and rooms on all floors of the building like hail
 Mrs. Cahtn was badly frightened and ran about crying for help until she found her way to the front door and ran out and down the long flight of steps to Third avenue Piser. his legs shaking under him, made for the Deparement of Highways room, from the broken door of which poured vol unaes of thick, yellow smoke and dust Fumes blinded him and he turned back.
 When the smoke had subsided a bit Piser and policemen who had rushed to the building began to explore the Tu4iS OI Cu6 n1SnWayS room. It had the appearance of an abandoned at tic Broken furniture was piled and thrown about in heaps, and partition walls leaned crazily, with glass blown out cIeanIy.
 In the centre Of the room the floor had been lifted four feet from the SUD- porting floor beams which had been cracked through. and a hole ten by five feet showed the interior of the record room beneath, the records torn and scattered about Looking down through the hole one could look out through the space where the area door had been, against which the bomb had been placed.
 The terrific force of the bomb. which Inspector Owen Egan thinks must have been composed of five or six sticks of dynamite tightly wrapped, was full ly shown by the shattered and powder- ed stone against which it had rested. A short flight of stone steps lead down to the area. door, and at the bottom iss a. bluestone threshold for the door six inches thick. An irregular piece oF this, a. foot and a half long and siv inches deep, had been torn out and ground. to dust,
 It was the confined space in which the bomb rested that gave it it's tre-i mendous upward driving force In spector Egan thinks. Five feet above where the bomb exploded was a stone weighing 200 pounds, which held a protective railing. The stone had been thrown more than a foot away and the railing bent down like paper.
 The upward force of the explosion