New York, NY Explosion And Fire In Tunnel, Jan 1902

EXPLOSION CAUSES DEATH AND RUIN.

SPREADS HAVOC OVER NINETY BLOCKS IN NEW YORK CITY.

SIX KILLED AND OVER 100 INJURED.

A Lighted Candle Sets Fire to a Shanty Where a Quantity of Dynamite Rested -- Two Hotels Ruined, a Hospital Wrecked and Residences Damaged -- Property Loss Estimated at $1,000,000.

New York City -- Dynamite cartridges in a frail shanty on a platform over the west shaft of Section 4, of the subway tunnel in Park avenue, just south of Forty-first street, exploded through a fire which started among paper in the shanty just after noon on Monday with fatal, maiming and injuring results and wide destruction of property. Six persons were killed by the disaster and more than 125 were injured, few, however, of them having more serious hurts that cuts inflicted by glass or wreckage.
The list of the dead is as follows: CYRUS ADAMS, cigar man, at the Murray Hill Hotel; JAMES CARR, a waiter employed at the Murray Hill Hotel; LAWRENCE HINE, twenty years old, of Ansonia, Conn.; J. RODERICK ROBERTSON, of Nelson, British Columbia, a guest at the Murray Hill Hotel; JOHN H. THOMPSON, assistant engineer, and THOMAS TUBBS, master mechanic.
MOSES EPPS, one of those injured seriously and who is a prisoner in the Flower Hospital, made a statement which fixes the cause of the accident and places the responsibility for the presence in the shanty of more dynamite than the law permits more or less directly on the contractor for the work in Section 4, Major IRA A. SHALER, who was arrested shortly after the accident. EPPS stated that while the law permitted only sixty-two pounds of dynamite to be kept at one time in the shanty there were in it when he discovered that paper on the floor was on fire 583 pounds of the explosive.
The explosion practically wrecked the Murray Hill Hotel, killing a guest and two employes, ruined the facades of the Manhattan Eye and Ear Hospital and the Grand Union Hotel, and seriously damaged the Forty-second street front of the Grand Central Station.
Minor damage was done for blocks around, chiefly in the item of broken glass and plastering, and the effects of the explosion were experienced in this way over a large area in the neighborhood. The total of property loss is about $1,000,000. The damage to subway property was comparatively slight, and may be repaired within a week.
The explosion was spoken of by all who heard it and who saw its immediate results as the most violent in point of noise, force and widespread destruction that has occurred in the United States from any cause. Several had experiences in disasters of a similar nature and with fearful accidents from gas, high explosives and gunpowder.
One said that in many respects it resembled the explosions due to gas mixed in explosive proportions with air in mains in the Tottenham Court Road, London, in July, 1880. Another said that the only parallel to it in point of force exhibited and fatalities and damage was the explosion on the steamship Mosel at Bremerhaven in December, 1875. This came of criminal design, and the explosion was declared instituted by Dr. Thomas, who committed suicide.
District Attorney JEROME, was prompt in beginning an investigation of the disaster. The investigation will be thorough, and one of its results is likely to be the discovery that high explosives have for a long time been stored along the subway where rock blasting operations are conducted without regard to legal limitations as to quantity.
There was a clash of the authorities whose duty it is to investigate the responsibility for the disaster. Coroner GOLDENKRANZ, on hearing of the explosion, empanelled a special jury to decide what should be done with the three men who first were placed under arrest. Dirstrict Attorney JEROME, after leaving the scene of the accident, insisted that the Coroner was proceeding illegally. As a result of the dispute there was a personal encounter between the District Attorney and a Coroner's clerk.
Of the five persons who were placed under arrest two are held as important witnesses. The others are IRA A. SHALER, who has the contract for that section of the subway, his foreman and his assistant forman. Pending the result of the inquest they were held by the Coroner each to $10,000 bail.

Chateaugay Record New York 1902-01-31
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Researched and Transcribed by Stu Beitler. Thank you, Stu!