Boston, MA Subway Fire, Jan 1949

BOSTON SUBWAY FIRE CLAIMS TWO WOMEN.

Boston -- Two women were killed, six other persons were felled by smoke and about 300 commuters escaped by an emergency exit today in an elevator shaft fire in the Atlantic Subway station.
Panic, flames and smoke apparently caused the deaths of the two women, whose bodies were found jammed together on a narrow stairway in the tower of the elevator that rises about a story and a half above the street level.
The elevator is used to carry subway passengers to the street at this first stop outside the tube that extends under Boston Harbor from Maverick Station in East Boston to Atlantic Avenue in the city proper.
An unidentified policeman, enroute to work at the height of the morning rush hour, performed heroically in averting panic among the estimated 300 persons waiting beneath the street for the arrival of the elevator.
As smoke began pouring down the shaft into the subway, he led them to an emergency exit by which they climbed six flights of stairs to the street outside.
At least seven persons were at work in an office in the tower being used by a construction company that is remodeling the station. THOMAS S. TUCKET, forty, of Dorchester; JAMES MORAN of South Boston; LAWRENCE KILROY and FRANK BRODERICK were carried out by firemen and hospitalized with smoke inhalation. It was during this rescue process that the bodies were discovered.

Middletown Times Herald New York 1949-01-28
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Researched and Transcribed by Stu Beitler. Thank you, Stu!