SNOW BRINGS DEATH AND MANY ACCIDENTS

The New York Times
December 15, 1922

Blinding Flakes and Icy Streets Result in Long List of Auto Victims.

HIGHWAYS QUICKLY CLEARED

Two Liners Crash in Bay During Storm—Delivery of Coal Hampered.

Snow drifting down virtually all yesterday laid itself three inches deep over the city.  Then the reinforced street cleaning corps, aided by the rain, went to work and the snow fled, but not before a sharp increase in highway accidents had been recorded.

Rain probably turning to snow by nightfall is the prediction for today, with the heralded midwestern cold snap due to register here tomorrow.

After the downfall of flakes had been going on for an hour and showed no signs of diminishing, Street Cleaning Commissioner Alfred A. Taylor ordered out 5,000 of his department's regular force, hiring 4,500 extras to assist.  The streets were cleaned by flushing, the use of motor plows and tanks to which were attached small plows and whirling brushes.  The work of flushing was done by 300 men who had been drilled for the emergency.  Motor sweepers in use numbered 370.  Unlike last year, no trouble was experienced through sewers becoming clogged with the slush, said Commissioner Taylor, screens preventing this.

In Brooklyn, Deputy Commissioner Laura said that he had 6,000 men out with shovels supporting the mobile snow removers and that he expected to have all the streets cleared up by this morning, when 700 wagons and 160 automobile trucks will begin the task of removing the snow piles.  He said he had fifty-three snow ploughs and sixty sweepers on service in Brooklyn and that a new type of powerful sweeper had proven itself a success in clearing off the roadways on the East river bridges.

Transit Lines Kept Clear.

While the work was going forward, inquiry at the offices of the surface and elevated transit lines brought reports that there had even little or no interruption of schedules throughout the day, due to snow.  The B. R. T. reported that sixty-five sweeps had kept the tracks so well cleared that plows had not been necessary.

What was said to be the beginning of a vigorous police campaign this Winter against snowballers, came when three young men who the police charge were pelting passersby at 171st Street and Brook Avenue, the Bronx, were arrested last night after a chase by Patrolman John Morrell of the Bathgate Avenue Station, and charged with disorderly conduct.  They said they were Frank Resa, 17 years old, of 1,522 Brook Avenue; Sam Sklar, 17, of 1,472 Washington Avenue, and Joseph Borkowski, 18, of 1,522 Brook Avenue.

Morrell said he saw the three youths throwing snowballs at passersby, lampposts and other targets, and that they ran when he started toward them.  The chase led south to a store a block away, where Morrell overtook the three.

The dangerous condition of the streets, despite the work of the cleaners, resulted in accidents that caused the death of one and injuries to more than a dozen.  While running across 149th Street, near Amsterdam Avenue, last night, his sled held up ready for a slide, James Dobbins, 9 years old, of 2,798 Eighth Avenue, was struck and killed by a motor truck operated by Max Hirzfeld of 252 East Seventy-seventh Street.  According to the police the boy ran directly in the path of the automobile.  Hirzfeld was arrested on a technical charge of homicide.

A fall when she slipped on the snow while crossing Fifth Avenue at Thirty-third Street caused the death in Bellevue Hospital last night of an unidentified woman about 60 years old.  She was still conscious when Policeman Joseph Steinwald sought to get her name.  She was about 5 feet 6 inches in height, weighed about 170 pounds and was dressed in black.

In the case of all the injured, they were able to go to their homes after treatment either at the scene of the accident or at hospitals.

Struck by an Automobile.

The first accident to be reported as due to the slippery condition of the streets involved Salvatore Jaloff, 39 years old, of 361 Eighth Street, Brooklyn.  Jaloff and an automobile were at Whitehall and South Streets and both endeavored to dodge the other, but Jaloff lost his footing and got a grazing blow from the car as it went past.  He was treated by a surgeon from the Broad Street Hospital.

Crossing Amsterdam Avenue at Ninety-fourth Street, Jennie Cohen, 52 years old, of 687 Amsterdam Avenue, was struck by an automobile and received severe lacerations of the scalp.  Similar injuries came to Elizabeth Mathias, 53 years old, who was struck at Lawrence and 125th Streets.

Owen Moran, 60 years old, of 2,231 Third Avenue, was fixing a hub on his delivery wagon at Madison Avenue and 120th Street when an automobile skidded on the snow and ice and knocked him down.  Moran was carried to Harlem Hospital, receiving treatment with Richard Roberts, 7 years old, of 314 East 126th Street, who was hit by a motor truck at Second Avenue and 120th Street.

As Martin Lipmann, 28 years old, of 2,033 Creston Avenue, the Bronx, was crossing Lexington Avenue at 120th Street he was injured by an auto, and a few blocks further downtown and east, at Park Avenue and Ninety-sixth Street, two-year-old Dorothy Ciapputo of 51 East Ninety-sixth Street was slightly hurt by a car.

Injuries to Helen Amend, 7 years old, of 264 East 152d Street, the Bronx, came as she stepped from the curb at Morris Avenue and 152d Street, while Patrick O'Reilly, 51 years old, of 335 East Ninetieth Street, was injured by a trolley car at Broadway and Eighty-sixth Street.  Another trolley car victim was Lucia Mancini, 22 years old, of 228 Washington Street, West New York, N. J., who slipped while alighting at Madison Avenue and Thirty-fourth Street.

Run Down by Taxicab.

A taxicab struck William Irwin, 15 years old, of 540 West 136th Street, at West End Avenue and Seventy-second Street.  An icy pavement in front of a garage at 1,043 Prospect Avenue, the Bronx, caused injuries to the ankle of Minnie Adellan, 40 years old, of 1,075 Bryant Avenue, the Bronx.

Clarence Peterson, 53 years old, of 402 East Sixty-fifth Street, was struck by an automobile truck driven by Joseph Replin of 952 First Avenue as he was crossing Second Avenue at Fifty-sixth Street.  He was taken to Bellevue Hospital.

While crossing Third Avenue at Eighty-seventh Street, Josephine Saverise, 7 years old, of 165 East Eighty-seventh Street, was knocked down by an automobile driven by Jacob Suffern of 593 East 136th Street, the Bronx.  Suffern took the little girl to the Presbyterian Hospital, where she was attended for contusions.

Five men had a narrow escape near Freeport, L. I., when their large Hudson touring car skidded on ice and snow sheathing the Merrick Road and overturned.  The men were thrown clear of the machine and landed unhurt in a snow drift.  Assisted by his companions, Royal Jackson of Bay Shore, driver of the automobile, righted it and continued their trip.