New-York tribune., 1916-07-31

men received treatment IN other j.
I the larger lobster palaces well dressed
men and women poured into the
streets. Into the lobbies of the larger
| hotels, until then settled into slumber
| for the night, poured guests who were
unable TO get answers from the tele,,
| phone switchboards as 10 what had
| happened Subway workers. fearful
| that the structure was about 10 fall
| in upon them, rushed to the surface.
The few policemen on duty-and
Broadway was almost bare Of police
men because of the labor troubles
rushed about their posts, and then
! tried to get the precinct house, and,
failing that, Headquarters. One was
as easy TO get as the other and both
were unobtainable, for with the ex-
plosion calls for Headquarters came
from all sections.
Excitement at the Waldorf.
Further down Broadway similar scenes
were being enacted. In the Prince
George, in Twenty-eighth Street; the
Brotzell. in Twenty-seventh; the I'M
perial and Breslin, in Broadway, anx-
ious patrons besieged the night clerks
on duty with demands for information.
In the Waldorf extra employees were
assigned TO the telephone switchboards
to answer calls from patrons who would
not be satisfied with the meagre infor-
nation at hand.
On the fifth floor Of the hotel, with
his wife and daughter, was Tex Ricard.
the fight promoter, who has lived IN
the earthquake belt and knows some
thing of such matters. When glasses
began tumbling off tables in his room
he decided it was time to get busy.
at was like nothing else | have ever
known but an earthquake shock" he
told the clerk on duty. 81 have been IN
several quakes and know something
about them"
In some hotels il was necessary 70
call the house physicians 10 attend
patrons who had become hysterical. IN
one instance woman who has son
employed in the du Pont plant at Pomp-
tom Lakes insisted that il must be that
concern which had gone up, and her
screams kept the house on edge until
after much difficulty she was reassured.
"Rilly" KLEIN, the baseball umpire,
and his wife came TO the BroZtell short
/ ly after 2 o'clock, Mrs. Klein giving the
patrons there the first idea as to the
distance Of the explosion from New
/ York.
Half an hour after the first big crash
a second shock shook up the hotel dis
trict. This time IL seemed 70 have been
an explosion in Madison Avenue near
the Metropolitan tower.
Myriad Telephone Calls.
Meantime the hotel district, try as it
might. could obtain no definite idea as
to what had happened. Telephoning
was out of the question, for the great
est demand for service In The history OF
/ the New York Telephone Company had
come at an hour when traffic Is usually
at the lowest point OF the twenty-four
hours, and the few girls on duty were
unable to handle the business. Their
tasks were not made any lighter by the
fact that the calls were largely punched
! for Police Headquarters and the news
paper Offices. In two hours ID is esti-
mated that there were 1000 calls for
300 Spring, the police call, alone.
Following the second explosion there
came a long series of detonations like a
bombardment miles away. There would
be quiet for a moment, and then long
roll, as though a string OF immense can
non crackers had let go.
Powder works going up somewhere"
the crowd said.
1t was nearly o'clock when word
came of the nature and location of the
| explosion.
BY that time Broadway ard the l.otels
had gone back to bed.
From Battery Park to Morningside
Heights the force Of the explosions de-
mOlished locked doors and shattered
thousands of plate glass windows. Had
the disaster occurred in the daytime
the city's casualty list would un-
doubtedly have been long, for heavy,
jagged pieces of glass poured down
upon the streets from the topmost
stories of every downtown skyscraper.
The lower end Of Manhattan was
thronged yesterday with crowds Of
/ curious persons, who came from all
over the city and from many suburban
towns. Unable 20 cross the ferry TO
the scene of the explosions, they wan
dered through the streets, gazing into
the shattered windows of banks and
jewelry stores.
Iron window frames were bent, heavy
wire netting twisted out Of shape and
door jambs wrecked by the concussion.
/ How much damage was done to steel
| structures and foundations can prob
ably never be told. The worst blow
fell upon the extreme southern end OF
| Manhattan, but short mile from
Black Tom.
The Whitehall Building, at West
Street and Battery Place, the nearest
skyscraper to the scene of the explo-
sion, probably suffered more severely
than any other building in the city.
Seven hundred of its windows were de-
stroyed and almost every hallway and
floor was strewn with the glass. Doors
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