The Birmingham age-herald., 1922-10-23
FIFTEEN PERSONS LOSE THEIR LIVES
 IN NEW YORK FIRE
17-Year-OId Youth Saves Lives of Nearly Score of Others Most of Dead
 Are Children
Rr AssocIntrd Press

By Associated Press
 New York, Octover 22.-Fifteen persons, most of them children. lost their lives early today in fire be- lieved by city officials to be the work of a pyromaniac. The flames swept with murderous audiences from cellar to attic of a five-story brick tenement at Lexington avenue and 10th street in the thiekly popu- lated East Side.
 The blaze apparently started In q baby carriage under the stairs in the lower hall under almost identical circumstances as the recent incen- diary fire in an upper West Sido apartment house which resulted in seven deaths. So quickly did the flames shoot through the building that a number of the dead were found in bed, burned or suffocated without the slightest opportunity to escape.
 Nathan Silver and four of his chill dren were among the victims. Mrs Silver escaped. Mir. and Mrs. Abraham Matilsky and Sidney and Catherine Sugerman, brother and sister of Mrs. Matilsky, also perished.
 
 Shortly after 1 o'clock City Mar shal Joseph Lazarus saw smoke is- suing from the building. He ran to the next corner and turned in an alarm. When he returned the whole building, the ground floor of which is occupied by stores. was in flames. and exit by the stairways was cut off. Most of the persons on the sec ond floor made their way down the fire escapes, but those on the up- per floors had to battle their way through smoke and flames pouring out of the windows.
 One aged woman, Mrs. Mary Ing lass disregarded the warning of fire men and leaped from the fourth floor, receiving injuries which caused her death tonight. While the firemen were at work on the second floor the third floor collapsed. but not be- fore a warning roar had sent the firemen to safety.
 Youth Is Hero
 Nearly score of persons owe their lives to 17-year-old James O'Donnell. a mechanics helper, who was eating at nearby restaurant when he heard a woman cry for help. Running to the street, he saw the woman leaning out of the window on the second floor of the burning tenement. with two small children by her side. The young man clambored on the sill of a store window, jumped and caught swinging sign and pulled himself up to the window. He led the three frightened tenements down the fire escape to the street and then ran back and rescued the womans ls- month old baby. Later he went to the root of an adjoining building and by throwing E board over the alley space made 1t possible for a number of tenements, who seemingly had been cut off from escape on the roof, to cross to safety.
 William Connors. 2f, who lives with his mother across the street from the burned building, also rescued a num- Der of persons from the third floor, including Mrs. Silver. He was badly burned when a gust of flames burned the clothing from his back as he was walking down the fire escape with a woman in his arms.
 Everything points to the fire being of incendiary origin" Assist ant District Attorney Hennis. who is conducting an investigation, said to- night. Mir. Hennis has noted the fire and that In the West Side apart ment house several weeks ago. when seven persons were burned to death.
 Fires Are Similar
 At that time, in doorway next to the building burned, a tenant re- ported that just before the fire, he had discovered a blazing baby car riage in the hall. He extinguished 1t, and as he did so. saw a man, un- known to him. come from the pas sage to the cellar. He questioned the stranger and the latter an- swered:
 q just thought there might be a fire, so I came to see. Then he dis appeared.
 The charred frame of baby car riage was found in the ruins of the building burned today. Taxicab drivers, lounging in their machines at the curbing, turned 6o- mile-an- hour samaritans. Scores of them voluntarily carried the injured to hospitals. Later they were com mandeered to bring relatives to the morgues, where the bodies of the dead were lying.
 Finds Fiance
 Tn one morgue. Edward Pine hur- ried to the body of his fiance, Sa- rah Silver, and identified 1t. A party had been planned today at which the engagement was to have been an nounced.
 Miss Silver, survivors say, had once passed the danger point in the hall- way. on her way to safety, when she returned to her room for her en- gagement ring. In a moment, the flames blocked the corridor. Miss Silver jumped from a window. She died of fractured skull.
 Police estimate that 300 persons lived in the five-floor building. Many of them lost all they had. A relief committee is tonight making provi- sion for the care of the homeless and providing them with temporary funds from public collections.