New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-06-14
Explosion Wrecks
Sugar Refinery;
100 in Hospitals
500 in Burning Seven Story
Building in Brooklyn;
Many Trapped

An explosion ripped open the seven
story building of the American Sugar
Refining Company, between South Third
and Fourth Streets and Kent Avenue
and the East River. Brooklyn, last
night. Five minutes after the blast,
which threw tons Of brick, timber and
plaster down into the street, the struct-
ure was on fire from roof to cellar.
Fed by the sugar. with which the
very walls were impregnated, the
flames threatened to wipe out the en-
tire plant. All available apparatus in
Brooklyn was called to the scene and
an interborough alarm was turned in
calling engines from Manhattan.
There were 500 men in the building
when the explosion occurred, at 1l:4o.
How many of these are dead will not
be known until officials can check up
those who have been taken TO the hos
pitals and those survivors who were
not hurt.
One Hundred Taken to Hospital
Comparatively few came out Of the
structure unscathed. The injured in
the hospitals numbered more than a
hundred at 1890, and every ambu-
lance surgeon in the region was still
working on manned and burned bodies.
The explosion tore out the northeast
corner of the building between the
fifth and seventh floors. On the Kent
Avenue side, il left a hole fifty feet
wide On the South Third Street side
IL kicked out gap seventy-five feet
wide. Both throughfares were COW
cred several feet deep with rubble.
beneath which may lie the bodies Of
many men. There were fifty Poles work
ing on the sixth floor, which was ap-
parently the centre of the blast. 1t
is doubtful if any Of them escaped.
Almost Immediately after the explo-
sion the structure took fire. In less
than minute the great breach in the
side of the building was spouting
flames. Fire ran from floor to floor
with terrible rapidity. BY the time
the first OF the fugitives reached the
street the two upper stories we're
ablaze.
Employees in Panic
Between the plants building on the
rorth side of South Third Street and
the one on fire, a platform stretched
on which the men were accustomed to
walk back and forth. This was on the
fifth floor. 1t fell shortly after the
explosion, dragging down TO the street
electric light and telephone wires.
The men who rushed out of the build
ing were bewildered. Mostly foreign
ers, they were terrified and without
any idea of what they should do. Some
of them were horribly burned.
Catholic priests of the neighborhood
gave first aid TO the injured.
They herded them into saloons
across the street from the blaze. and
plundered neighboring tenements for
-four, in which they rolled the scared
bodies. They also notified headquar-
ters Of the seriousness Of the fire. In
ten minutes every ambulance from that
section of Brooklyn was on its way to
the plant. =,
When the first fire engines arrived
the building opposite the one on FIRE,
on South Third Street, was also
smouldering.
A number of barges, loaded with
cane. and freighter OF the Bull
Insular Line were moored to the dock
nj the foot OF the burning structure.
Their crews cut the hawsers and al
lowed them TO drift out into the
stream.