Hurl Themselves From Upper Floors of 10-Story Down Town Fire Trap
Bodies Piled By The Score In The Street
Blaze Started in Triangle Shirt Waist Co.’s Plant
Worst In The City’s History
Chief Croker Blames Municipal Building Department
New YorkYork, March 25.—A fire that spread like a spark in a powder train, trapped 2,000 employes of the Triangle Shirt Waist company, on the eighth, ninth and 10th floors of the 10-story loft building at Waverly place and Greene street, at 5 o’clock this after noon.
More than 175 lives were lost. The police figures at midnight were 150 dead and 75 injured. One hundred and fifty had been taken to the morgue up to midnight. There were at that hour still 12 bodies on the ninth floor, according to Chief Croker, who was directing the work of removal. Three victims had died in St. Vincent’s hospital; three in Bellevue and one in the New York hospital. There were still a number of bodies in the basement and sub-basement of the structure, but it was said by the chief that it would be impossible to tell before morning just how many as the sub-cellar was completely filled with water and the cellar was waist deep. The water was being pumped out but this was an all night task.