Broome street between Ridge and Attorney streets was still buzzing late last night with eye-witness accounts of the Big Fire, which came so near having tragic consequences.
The accounts are at odds quite often, but there are facts on which there can be no difference of opinion. The time was between half past one and two yesterday morning. The habitants of 147 Broome street were awakened by smell of smoke and cries of “Fire.” Most of the twelve tenants of the three family house were able to leave in safety without trouble. But Mr. and Mrs. Louis Ehrlich, both seventy, on the top floor were trapped by flames and smoke. With difficulty, firemen assisted the couple across a narrow ledge to a neighboring building and safety.
Mr. Ehrlich has quite recovered from the shock of the excitement. His wife has gone to the country to visit members of the family. The aged man told a Jewish Daily Bulletin reporter yesterday that his plans for the future are very indefinite. He said that he was waiting for the landlord to tell him if he could stay in the very badly damaged second-floor apartment of the building.
Doubts were expressed about the landlord or the Fire Department giving their consent because the building is so completely ruined.
During the height of the fire, flames leaped across an area to 149 Broome street, where Edith Freeman, 18, and her sister, Rose, 21, awakened to find their bed ablaze. They fled the house with members of the other eighteen families of the tenement.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
