New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-02-16
Sick and Dead Imperilled
-Five-Story Jump May
Be Fatal to Man
KEROSENE STOVE
THROWN DOWN HALL
Husband Faints at Sight OF
Body He Thought Was
His Wife'S

where Mrs. Lillian Jackson lay III at
Amsterdam Avenue last night. She
sat up in bed, knowing that in the fiat
overhead the body of her friend, Mrs
Anna Livingston, was being prepared
for burial.
Then the battered wreck of kero-
sene stove came humping down the
stairs and landed with crash against
her door. On the stairs TO the fourth
story the trail of burning oil that II
had showered off in its descent was be-
ginning to crackle on the woodwork
All this Mrs. Jackson saw in the sec
ond that she held the door open. Then
the flames reached in for her, and she
slammed shut the door and tainted.
Fire Blazes Half Hour
In the half hour that followed the
fire killed one woman and drove man
to leap from the fifth floor to the court
vard. In five minutes the whole STAIR
case was ablaze and the residents OF the
tenement were scrambling down tre
escapes or fleeing across adjoining
roofs. The apparatus called by two
alarms quenched the flames only after
they had filled the stairway from top
TO bottom and burned out the second
and third floors.
Before the screams aroused Mrs JACK
son an undertaken had just completed
embalming the body of Mrs Livingston
in her fiat on the third floor. In the room
with him was her son-in-law, John
Fitzpatrick, who lived on the floor
above, his wife, Mamie, and the under
takers assistant. In an alcove stood
the oilstove.
Suddenly-no one knows how-it was
ablaze. Mrs. Fitzpatrick screamed, and
in the confusion some one-no one
knows who-grasped the stove and
threw il into the hall. 1t tumbled TO
the floor below, igniting the whole
staircase. 80.
Meanwhile those in the room with
the dead body were smothering the
rool of burning oil in coats and
blankets. They extinguished this, but
the smoke billowing in through the
doorway and the cracking sound on
the staircase told their story. The un-
dertaker and Fitzpatrick attempted to
lift Mrs. Livingston's body and carry 1t
to the roof, but in the coffin 1t was too
heavy.
Tells Wife to Run
"Run!" the son said to his wife.
while he still struggled to lift the body.
Run to the roof! The place is going
up!"
Mrs. Fitzpatrick fed, and in a few
seconds her husband and the under
taker were forced to dash through the
flames to the roof. The woman was not
there. but they believed that she had
gone down through the adjoining
house into the street.
In the street below Joseph De Pace,
of Amsterdam Avenue, had seen the
smoke volleying from the third floor
windows and turned in an alarm. Be-
fore engines arrived Patrolman Chris
tan had entered the lower hallway and
had been driven out again by the
flames, which were now eating their
way down the first fight Of stairs.
He ran TO 10 Amsterdam Avenue,
climbed out Of second story window
and made his way along ledge to the
adjoining house. As he stepped into
the smoke-flled room he stumbled over
the senseless body of Mrs. Jackson. He
CROPPED his way to the fire escape and
carried her TO the street.
Lived with Mother
On the fifth floor William Mularkey
lived with his crippled mother When
he first heard the roar of the fire be-
low he helped her TO the hall and then
went back to his room to get his insur-
ance papers. When he returned smoke
filled the hall and his mother was gone.
He ran to the roof She was not there,
and he plunged back down the stairs.
where the darkness was growing red
with fire.
As he entered his fat there was a
mighty roar behind him and a billow
of fame came yelling up the staircase.
1t caught him, but he struggled to a
window and jumped.
He was alive when they picked him
up, five flights below. 1t is believed
that clotheslines broke his fall, but
he was so badly burned that he will
not recover.
When Battalion Chief Sherlock ar
rived he turned in a second alarm,
which brought Chief Kenlon. Police
from the West Sixty-eighth Street sta
tion assisted the fremen in guiding the
frightened tenants down the fire es-
capes.
Begs Firemen
Fitzpatrick ran among them, almost
frantic, begging the fremen TO care
for the body of his mother in the fame
swept house, asking the police If they
had seen his wife. For he had not
been able 10 find her when he reached
the street.
The first fremen TO reach the third
floor covered the coffin. A hose stream
kept the flames from entering the room
where the dead woman lay Later, on
the stairway between the fourth and
fifth floors, they found the body OF a
woman.
Its my wife" Fitzpatrick said and
tainted. When he was revived his wife
knelt beside him. She had been found
in the crowd held back by the police
lines. The body on the stairs is be-
lieved 10 have been Mrs. Mularkey, who
became confused by the smoke and lost
her way.
Father Mclean, a Fire Department
chaplain, ran up the still smouldering
staircase and anointed the body.
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