Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1917-02-10
FIRE IN BOSTON HOTEL;
GUESTS BARELY ESCAPE
BOSTON, Feb. 10


Fire swept through the Hotel Lenox, one
of Boston's finest hotels. early today. rae
ing with such rapidity from the third floor
to the roof that many guests were trapped
in their rooms and were rescued by fremen
from fifth and sixth story windows.
Many guests had narrow csCapcE among
them being former Mayor Samuel Green,
now nearly ninety years Of age, and Nali
Nalli, the actress.
Four alarms brought most of the ap-
paratus of the city TO the scene. EX-Gov-
ernor David / Walsh. who was also a
guest at the hotel. was prominent in the
rescue work.
After three hours the fire was brought
under control All of the 225 guests in the
hotel when the fire broke out We're ac-
counted for
The fire started at $40 o'clock on the
second rioor Immediately il was seen that
the fire was beyond control Of the hotel
employees. The telephone operator started
ringing the call bells in every room in the
hotel. Soon there wild panic among
the guests.
The halls were filled with smoke and
those who rushed to the elevators found
this means of escape cut OF. The fire shot
up the elevator shaft from the third to the
tenth floor and then worked downward.
outside the mercury was ten above zero
and a fifty-mile gale was blowing. The
guests fleeing in light clothing suffered
severely from the cold.
With the arrival Of ladder trucks, women
and children were taken down ladders from
the sxth-story windows.
Former Governor David l. Walsh was
asleep on the second floor He aroused
other guests on the floor and worked until
nearly exhausted helping women and chill
dren from the hotel
William McCoach, OF Philadelphia, who
occupied a room on the tenth floor did
NaI IN work N "a nd
children from the top floors to the sixth
floor where they were taken down ladders
by fremen.
The loss probably will reach S1OO, 900.
Joseph Collins, OF Revere, caught on the
tenth floor of the hotel believed he was
doomed for time. Repeated efforts to
make the extension ladders reach his win
dow failed. He finally made a rope out of
his bed clothing and, before hundreds of
Mortified spectators he swung himself out
over the ledge, fastening one end of his
improvised rope to a steam radiator.
Firemen shouted to Collins to remain
where he was, but he began sliding down
his slender life line When he reached
the ninth floor he swung himself and
kicked in a window He rested for a
minute on the ledge and then continued his
perilOus journey. He reached the seventh
floor windows and again kicked in the glass
and managed TO rest himself lie then
threw himself into the smoky room and
was found there by firemen. who declared
he was on his knees praying for strength
to make the rest of the trip.
Captain Donohue saw several women high
up on the eighth floor waving their arms
and screaming for help. He ran an aerial
ladder up against the building, but it was
about ten feet short. He tucked a pompey
ladder under one arm and long rope under
another and made his way up the aerial
He placed his pompey on the sill and gained
the floor where the women We're. He then
lowered thm, six in all, one by one, to the
aerial ladder.