New York, NY Apartment House Fire, Jul 1914

WOMAN AND HER CHILD, KNEELING, PERISH BY FIRE

Three Other Persons Dying as Result of Incendiary Blaze In Crowded Apartment House.

HUNDREDS SAVED BY SPECTACULAR DEEDS

One Policeman, Single-Handed, Swings Family of Six Across Alley to Safety, While Another Dives Into Flaming Room and Takes Out Woman in Faint Fire Guns for Alarm.

NEW YORK, July 3.---Bowed in an attitude of prayer before a window through which they sought to escape, Mrs. Hannah Nicokirl, 45 years old, and her daughter Sarah 19 years old, perished in an incendiary fire that swept a five-story apartment house at Fifth Avenue and One Hundred and Twelfth Street early today.

Three other persons are dying. One hundred residents were saved through heroic work of police and firemen Rousing tenants by firing their revolvers, policemen then stood by and did valiant service Patrolman Schasberger single handed, swung a family of six, one by one, to safety across a five foot chasm between buildings.

Panic stricken, when every exit was blocked by flames and smoke, tenants rushed wildly to windows. Patrolman Hayden saved women by climbing up to a window ledge over an awning, and Fireman Gilchrist dived inside a flaming room to rescue a woman who had fainted on the window ledge.

Semma Nicokiri, husband of the dead woman, is dying in a hospital after making a desperate attempt to guide his wife and child to safety. He toppled over unconscious in an alleyway.

The fire was started in a stairway and the flames shot through this as in a flue, spreading to every part of the building with remarkable rapidity.

Crowds below watched rescue after rescue Horrified they saw Jacob Finklestein jump from a third story window but were relieved when he landed on a double clothes line and spun round and round. A patrolman saved him. Mr. and Mrs. George Phillips and their four-weeks old baby marooned on a fire escape, were saved just as the heat was making them unconscious.

Trenton Evening Times, Trenton, NJ 3 Jul 1914
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Transcribed by Linda Horton. Thank you, Linda!