The Waterbury Democrat., 1937-08-12

someone, ne SalQ, tore uOWn 70 shack behind the building and left debris which Hurley believed had clogged the storm sewer and kept the waters from draining away.
 The hundreds of policemen and firemen digging in the debris were hindered by sections of flooring which they had to hack away. Fresh recruits kept arriving to replace exhausted comrades, one, a fireman, was not told that anyone was killed. He learned there had been when he found the bodies of a man and baby.
 The bodies, as quickly as they were found, were carried to a filthy shack on Jersey street plastered with posters which read:
 "See the Circus"
 Pretty Young Woman
 One was that of pretty young woman in a plain house dress. Her legs were bare. Police had to tie her hands (, oss her breast with piece of rope in order to get the body out.
 Three of the victims-Mrs. Bud- nick, Mary Hurley and Beatrice Malicki-were sisters. Mrs. Budnick and her children were visiting the Hurleys when the house crashed.
 Three persons escaped from the wreckage alive. They were Louis Peterson, fl; James Mitchell, 72, and Mrs. Marie Coral, 26, whose husband was killed. They were taken to a hospital suffering from severe injuries.
 More than 300 firemen and police" men searched the debris. AS they worked pathetic evidence of poverty battered bathtubs, old and rotten mattresses, once dilapidated and now 'splintered furniture-came into view.
 Plaster tumbling into the water filled cellar became a sticky mass which covered the bodies of the dig gers, most of whom were stripped to the waist. Twisted pipes pierced the sections of foorings and held the mass together.
 When the structure fell 1t broke clean from an adjacent dwelling which fronts on Jersey street, leav- ing four patches of wall covered with soiled green and pink wall paper.
 The crashing building ripped the wall away from the structure on the other side, @ warehouse, leaving the rooms exposed.
 Hurley and Joseph Budnick, who lost all but one member of his fam fly, were overwhelmed by grief and bitterness.
 Budnick Hears of It
 Budnick, a former WPA worker, was down around the docks" while his wife and children were visiting Mrs. Hurley. The first he knew of the disastetr, he said, was when someone came up and said Your sister in laws house just caved in'."
 He hurried to New street believ- ing his family and the Hurley's had gone to the movies. When he got | there, Budnick said, he was told that Your wife and children are in there"
 Budnick looked at the bodies in the morgue and said his family had been drowned-"Drowned like rats without a chance to get out"
 The other surviving member of the family is Joseph Budnick, Jr., who was at the home of his grand- mother.
 Hurley, 8 WPA worker with Hess than 10 cents in my pocket" said he had lived for nine months in the old house, owned by William Irving but would have moved out if he could have afforded to.
 Three weeks ago, water stood 15 to 20 feet in the deep sub cellar of the building.
 The tenants complained at the time, he said, that the clogged storm sewer made the house unsafe.
 Building Condemned
 Budnick asserted that the build ing had been condemned some time ago and Hurley added that T knew this was going to happen some time but there was nothing could do about it."
 Hurley said the few dollars he had utlu AlAo hlodAaAASS PoPSAo "SAS A the house when 1t fell. The money | was in Mrs. Hurley's poocketbook | and God knows where that is," he said.
 Both men pointed to galvanized iron fence on Henry street, a sec- ton of which had been ripped out ! by the water three weeks ago.
 You can imagine what 1t must have been like last night Hurley said.
 Hurley said that IS years ago families inhabited the brick sub cellar but were forced to move out because water accumulated in it.
 Wife Doesn't Know
 New York, Aug. l2-(UP)-Mrs. | Alice McGreen lay in Staten Island hospital today, her l0-day old boy beside her, and wondered about the injured being brought in from the New Brighton building crash.
 She did not know and nurses would not tell her that her hus- band, Patrolman Joseph J. McBreen, had died in the collapse while carry ing two little girls and leading seven other persons.
 McBreen was first on the police list for sergeant, and probably would have been promoted Saturday. Mrs. McBreen had been scheduled to go home tomorrow.