The Birmingham age-herald., 1922-01-30

seat filled at that hour and nearly 2,ooo persons was it's capacity The same unprecedented snow fall which brought death to the venturesome few, kept the many at home. Street car traffic had been abandoned and the streets and sidewalks were all but impossible with drifts
 Entire Building Wrecked
 There has been no time set as yet for official inquiry as to the cause of the disaster. The ruins themselves disclose, however. that the entire mass of steel held concrete thai formed the roof had come down. The crash swept the supports out from ,sv.siv5f -rre balcony, apparently and l this hinged down at an angle or f5 degrees. adding the tangled mass of {, wreckage on the floor below.
 The building stands in an acute ansled corner at Eighteenth street and Columbia road. northwest, the heart of the most favored residence section of the city. The narrow niche of the stage on which the screen was hung was backed into the cornsr angle while to the left from the stage. the line of the auditorium wall run. in straight line for some 200 fsst down Eighteenth street. To the right. the wall follows fse sfoN curve of the Columbia road fes about the same distance and a. the end paralleling the stage front, rs haek wall complies the auditorium. proper also about 200 feet in length. This whole space stood roof
 less to the sky a moment after the
 first bissinE sound of the break ing roof gave warming above the
 music of the orchestra. There Is 1 only one survivor thus far who
 has told of having heard that
 warning and seen the first pow
 dery handful of snow sift down { over the bend of the orchestra
 leader in time to make his es- cape uninjured. From his seat
 well forward on the main floor, ! he raced for the doors at the back.
 A great blast of air expelled as
 the roof came down hurled him
 out through the doorway to
 safety.
 Most of the bodies were recovered from the floor of the pit beneath the front of the balcony itself. Follow ing the rule of motion picture audi ences and with an almost empty house to pick from, those on the main floor had grouped themselves in the rows of seats just below the front of i the balcony. They were back far enough to see well and the front and back rows were almost empty.
 Doubiy Dangerous
 At the point they had chosen, the 1 danger proved to be just double. Few | of those seated there could have 1 escaped. Even if the falling con crete slabs and steel work of the roof missed them, the solid mass 0. the balcony front came down on the first wreckage with crushing weight. The gleaming brass rail that adorned the balcony front lay spread over the wreckage of the roof Is feet below lwhen rescuers reached the scene.
 Those farther back on the main floor probably all escaped. The beams that supported the back end of the balcony did not let go theii clutch on the wall. The wide sweep of seats they supported tilted down until the wreckage below took the weight of the front end, then stood covering the back rows of the main floor like at tent.
 The front rows of the balcony were ground to . twisted mass of
 ruin In the fall. There was no
 wood In the structure. IL was all
 steel and concrete. hut the enor-
 nous weight of the balcony was
 itself sufficient to wind the tor-
 tured beams Into fantastic shapes. Here again the weather played : part in reducing the number of vic tins. The front rows of the bal-
 tContinued on Page Two.S