The evening world. Newspaper, December 19, 1910, Page 1

ee ee we FULL ‘PAGE OF PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE EXPLOSION BY WORLD EXPERTS ON PAGE SER ORG yy ORD aL UTE ewe woe 77 YEE > ra) GAS EXPLOSION AT GRAND CENTRAL _ KILLS S 14, HURTS 400, SPREADS RUIN WEATHER—vUnsettiea coaiil ama Geesiag, ites a ST aa z S Tk; FI NA PRICE ONE ‘CENT. WEATHER -Cosetiied to-night and Tuesday; colder, 19, 1910. 22 PAGES _PRICE ONE beets sKie Sketch of ae by Leuk Piedermann 1 Made Especially for The eee” World Drawn by the Famous Sunday World Artist from Descriptions Furnished by Eye-Witnesses. FROM G0-F00T SCAFFOLD ——_—-+4-——-— ing Adjoining Wrecked Structure Flung Over Wall. | alr, The scaffold rose under their t and tilted rdly like the upper closing up. ‘Phe y-flve bricklayers work- s scaffold, sixty feet in the air Wae equally distributed ete 1 of the scaffold and the FLECTH R 10 SP Hs : e from death, th me reroea |e Ait with trowel In thele jp y the explosion, hoisted the lover the wall head first like a troupe of ee teRiAY it Inwardiy and |trained acrobats and landed head first sa the ve men over the wal lies of brick and mortar on the in- Li they were building and upon another |side. affold on the Only one wa an the way the scat- seea y meal ed, Andr m, and he £0! fate of t pressure, up- the stronger scaffold would © in the employ of ractor, W erhouse in f and the men n through thelr pro- anvas and rope and Fire Chief Believes Train Ramming Buffer im Broke Pipe and Workman’s Tool Short- Circuited Third Rail Current Under Power-Fiouse. ” ‘The bullding 1s 0 truction and t y ICUDAHY LEFT $11,000,000 | TO FAMILY AND CHARITIES. | OHICAGO, f did not be- ything to do with it, Dynam as stored in the |Whole Gang of Bricklayers at Work on Build-|* | third rail, There was an electric flash and then the explosion | because of glass pee into their eye lon its side ed tand t +} put at least two hundred more men at we oot "DEATH AND GREAT HAVOC IN TERRIFIC EXPLOSION IN N. Y. CENTRAL YARDS ' Trolley Car Hurled Over, Pinning Passengers Beneath and Killing Four---Several Victims Probably Blown to Pieces---Streets Filled With Injured ---Roofs Torn From Great Buildings, Homes Wrecked, Big Hotels Shaken--- N. Y. Central Employee Arrested. ‘s & gas pipe, the on rom which penatrated the lower part of ti tion power house and there becoming ignited from some cause unknown. Policeman Joseph Toumey of the Bast Mifty-lirst street station was York Central’s auxiliary power house at the southwest corner of L ExINStON | egeorting ¢wo little. girls aotees- Lenlogton: avenue when he was sideelle avenue and Fiftieth street exploded at 8.15 o'clock this morning with! blown twenty feet in the air, The little girls were blown in the opposite direction, The little girls were badly injured. Battalion Chief Willlam J. Duffy of Hook and Ladder No. 2 was taking juring more than one hundred. le bath when the upheaval came, A slab of marble was blown on him, but The power house, which extends over the gus supply station, where | he scrambled out, cut and bleeding. Disregarding his wounds he jumped ‘into his clothes and rushed out to the work of rescue. Bricks and splintered | glass fell about him while he dressed. yard, bre: Gas that had been escaping for half an hour from the Pintsch | ighting tanks beneath what is known as the “battery wing” of the terrific force, spreading disaster over a wide area, killing fourteen and in- trains are backed in to have their tanks filled, was demolished by the ex- | plosion. Lexington avenue and nearby cross streets were strewn with dead When District-Attorney Whitman arrived he was Informed by railroad i a fat “i fficials that there was no dynamite in the building. The police had been red. Score: s were wrecked and the path of destruction | i and injured. Scores of buildings were wrecke t y Itotd beforehand thetthere wae 100 gotnds otidynemite in a clases aie extended a mile south and a mile north on Lexington avenue. the gas tanks. A railroad conductor told an Evening World reporter that The force of the explosion followed a stratum of rock that underlies) he had seen the dynamite delivered early this morning ' A In scores of hospitals, hotels, homes and schools whose foundations Lexington and Madison avenues. A trolley car passing the power House | rest on that rib of rock under Madison and Lexington avenue ceilings when the gas exploded was blown off the track and overturned. Four of | came down and windows blew in. Several emergency lospitals were | the passengers were killed outright and as many more dangerously hurt, | edulpped in all possible haste to ald in caring for the injured. The ambu- be }lances and patrol wagons could not begin to carry away the victims of CENTRAL MOTORMAN ARRESTED. | the explosion fast enough for their safety, At least a dozen of the Injured The Fire Department, the Police Depariment, the District-\tlorney/ in hospitals are believed to be mortally hurt. Hundreds suffered minor and the Coroners held separate investigations this afternoon, At thie} damage. conclusion of the investigation before the Board of Coroners and Deputy | BABIES HURLED FROM CRIBS. Police Commissioner Driscoll in the Fifty-first street station this atter- In the Bables’ Hospital at Fifth-fifth street and Lexington avenue the noon Motorman Albert Seagroai, a New York Central employee, was pee were airing the dormitories when the explosion occurre Many arrested. babies were blown out of their erlbs, nurses were thrown down with bables Seagroat backed a train: into the cut under the wing of the power-}!" their me and 2 we cases anit were blown out of bathtubs ag tf house and overran a buffer. In the smash that followed a pipe connected sti yee Sete Bi pieces a not theaultits ea with the Pintsch gas tanks was disconnected, allowing the gas to escape. the explosion occurred that it would be at le Half an hour later, when the gas had mingled with sufficient air to give} to the bottom of the debris, where several m it the explosive intensity of lyddite a workman dropped a ool on the} be. There is @ great inass of tangled steel to ot : It is not thought that any In the ruin can possibly survive. ‘ Within fifteen minutes after the explosion ambulances and fire appa ate ard Coroners that he los r while The motorman told the Board of Coroners that he lost his air while] paris were rushed to the scene from every hospital and fire house within backing his train under the power-house, He had no sandbox and could} the radius of a mile. No one could tell how many had been killed in tho not stop. He saw that the gas pipe had heen ¢ the accident. Then he got his train out and was in an the cut when the upheaval occurred. The investigators could not learn just what work was done to repair the severed pipe Cornelius Vanderbilt, one of the VicePresidents of the New York} — Central, was early on the scene of the disaster and promised the city otli | FIRE HOUSE WRECKED. | Opposite t a day before he could get ! victims are believed to ict the work of digging. sconnected and reported} power house or in the railroad cul. The building was practically blown er part of | tO pieces. It was a three-story structure of steel and brick construction The fires in the furnaces were blown out through the walls and up through the roof. Great dlocks of stone were projectiled against opposite houses, tearing through the walls power house is the house of Hook and Ladder No. 2 and ¢ Hat | the headqua of Battalion Chief William J. Duffy. Every window was investigation. blown out of this structure and the roof torn off. The trolley car, whic! MANY VICTIMS DEAF OR BLIND. was blown over was passing the hook and ladder quarters going north, 1 That many of the injured who were taken to hospitals will die was] Was car No. 1711 of the Lexington avenue line, in charge of Motorman \ declared this afternoon by Dr, Marvin Palmer, chief sur 1 of the Police Grate Bohylley of No, 110. Wash Miasraeoend: etree) aot Cond oaier sam 2 ¢ He added that many of the injured would be totally blind FBAR Of No. S85. Exgapech ATemiei: Alta | Department. e added any The car was lifted from the rails and spun in the atr, crashing down and striking as it fell a touring car of the Edison Electric Light buildings | Compan: ven by Frank Smith, i There were seven pa gers in the car and four were instantly killed, 9 walls were I idle 1 by flying missiles. N " treet or in buildings within halt a dozen blocks of the Paters house escaped injury, | The ear went to pieces Ike @ cigar box and the dead were mangled wit hd | broken timbers and twisted rods of steel wt the injured became totally deaf and their deafness may be per-| ; Mony ot the injured be ll The Edison Company automobile, a seven-passenger touring car, wat manent | running alongside the trolley car, in the same direction, Frank Smith, the At 1 o'clock District-Attorney Vain: he railroad people to) chautfeur, deserfbed his experience after he had been taken to thy Ney g ‘or bodies in the ruins,| York Hospital, suffering from a broken nose, five broken fingers ané, lacer ms and legs ede cials that he would give them every opportunity to make an exhaustive fhe tremendous force of the explosion unrooted The orders for such a force were at once given, The fire hose lines were | @tons Of tie ming 1s and : ‘ ; zed that th had been an e on,” lifted over the street car tracks on Lexington avenue on hi ta nt there fi heen an explosion,” he said, ‘ papers pan a rain of bricks and mortar began to descend on me and then a six-foot street car trattic was resumed at about half-past 1 o'clock, Conductors | raver sho 1 out of the sky like a perpendicular arrow. I had one foot e instructed not to stop or to permit passengers to board or leave the the brake and the other foot on the accelerator, My legs were spreat Jcars betw oriy-fifth and Fitty-third streets. wide apart, Nhe plece of timber passed directly between my knees and EXPLANATION BY CENTRAL OFFICIALS. jsmashed through the floor of the car. Then the trolley car toppled over ve aan fe . he ; nu me and pinned me beneath a mass of wreckage. fhe New York Central officials this afternoon gave out the lowing statement CHAUF 'R’S MIRACULOUS ESCAPE, A careful investigation made by Chief Engineer Xittridge, Construc- Th ler saved my life, for it prevented one of the trucks of the tion Engineer Marwood, Blectrioal Bugineer Kappe and Manager Whaley vielnity, he said, t remote from the]! ‘ * 1 ; at " Pr he ow Lj A Joseph MeM n piace ' 1 ia ile depended upo: who were land 1 afu IEMA nOnL WAGES Blass fede 1 Many can be " we t ‘ 1 5 nth aid 4 H two and even t explo: som. ? Oe i say thi t Was loud, the i AGA other like an echo, Ot 1 | muse 1 the first ¢ as mild compared ; : ‘ F - < sia with the second ; ar MoM » John ¢ ' ; Believes Gas Was to Blame. w : i \ sifting all the stories 1 could | ing, you might . rhe ayers. Say raln er nal fear and looking over the wreck," said | #8# mixed with damp, heavy at dich S te eee ee pet the Chief, "I think the damage was Short Circuit Responsible, ee BUDO AAR AS 8 Fla tan One of the \ done in one big explosion of Pintach | gooey stuel t Spilled Over the Wall. sy eepne gas. The gas in itself is not destnuc- | ES Even before the sound reached the hb private “rooms, | $h. but when mixed with alr in the (Continued on Second Page.) | Ate sfve wbn they felt an upward rusia BAe ys hiropodies 4@ tion Engineer Marwood, Mlectrioal Bagineer mappe ang monoger Warley | car from reaching my body. I was pinned in the mess pf timber and steel gouult of an electrical train backing over @ bumping post in the storage for about five minutes. Two priests pulled me out for dead and began ad: {