Evening star., 1932-02-23
WORKMAN KILLED
ASMYSTERY BLAST
WRECKS BUILDING
Body Found in Ruins Nine
Hours After Structure
Is Blown Down.
CAUSE OF EXPLOSION
STILL UNDETERMINE
Auto Wreckers' Plant Demolished.
Employe Apparently Spent
Night There.

Nine hours after he was burned t.
death, when a mysterious explosion de,
molished the Penn Auto Wrecker'
Buildings at 1900 Eleventh street
southeast, Frank Price, 40-year-old col
ored employe Of the firm, was extri-
Gated by firemen from the debris of the
wrecked building.
Price was identified by the son Of
the owner of the building Firemen
did not know the man was in the build
ing when it was leveled about O'Clock
this morning by an explosion the
source of which is undetermined
Flames Immediately followed the ex-
plosion.
When Price failed to show up for
work at his usual hour this morning
police went to his home in Fairmont
Heights, Md, and there learned he had
not come home last night. Shortly be-
fore noon they discovered the dead
mans automobile parked near the
wrecked building and a short time
later firemen located the badly charred
body in the smoking ruins.
Inquest Probably Tomorrow.
Firemen of No. Is Truck Company
chopped through the burned timbers
and removed bits of the crumbled walls
to release the body, which was removed
to the District Morgue for an inquest
probably tomorrow.
Price apparently had returned alone
to his place of employment to sleep in
-iolr hull lnC ir1f
At late hour today the cause of the
explosion was still unknown.
Immediately following the explosion
which occurred at 2:40 o'clock, fire
broke out in the debris and was still
burning at a late hour today. fed by oil
and waste material. Firemen had poured
water into the wreckage for hours with
out putting out the blaze.
Value Put at s35,O0o.
The force of the explosion jolted
residents of nearby buildings from their
beds, shook pictures off the walls and
blasted the plate glass of the building
front across Eleventh street and rs
yards into the Navy Yard reservation.
The explosion is believed to have oc-
CURED near the front of the building,
as the only thing left standing was a
section of the rear wall.
The owner, Jake Levin, of 280l Thir-
ty-third street southeast, estimated the
demolished building and its stock of
secondhand automobiles and acces-
ories to be worth $4,000. Levin said
he had $4,000 insurance on the build
ing and $500 on the stock, which he
valued at twice that amount.
Levin could offer police and firemen
no clue as to what might have caused
the explosion. He said there was no
gasoline stored in the building or other
explosive material beyond a few bar
rels of lubricating oil and what gasoline
may have been in the tanks of four
secondhand automobiles
Firemen Felt Blast.
While admitting the possibility that
dynamite may have been set of in the
building, Levin said this was unlikely
since he had no personal enemies and
had never heard of any explosives being
near the place.
Ffremen of No. 18 engine company
had just returned to their engine house
at Ninth and K streets southeast from
battling three alarm blaze downtown
when the explosion shook the neigh
borhood. Although the engine house
vas four or five blocks from the scene
the force OF the explosion was almost
enough to knock the firemen from Their
feet, they said