OPEN TONNEAU DOOR BRINGS SPILL, 2 DYING

The New York Times
December 19, 1922

Three Others Are Injured as Big Car Overturns in Broadway Early Today.

TWO DIE, TWENTY ARE HURT

Woman Run Down by Taxicab and Driver Flees, but Is Captured After Search.

James O'Connor of 507 East Eighty-second Street lost his hat at Broadway and 237th Street at 1:30 o'clock this morning while returning from Yonkers with friends in a touring car.  William Kahn of 212 East 115th Street, at the wheel, stopped while O'Connor ran back for the hat.  As O'Connor returned and swung onto the running board, Kahn started with the tonneau door still swinging wide.

The door caught against a pillar of the elevated subway structure and, acting as a pivot, swung the big car around so that it turned over, spilling all inside except the driver.

James McCann of 509 East Eighty-second Street got a broken skull.  So did Mrs. May Lisner, a widow of 135 West Ninetieth Street.  Mrs. Lisner's daughter, Jacqueline, got a broken right leg, lacerations and bruises.  O'Connor was slightly hurt and Kahn escaped with bruises.

Albert Bower, a taxi driver, came upon the group and, with the aid of Patrolman Prinz, took them to Fordham Hospital.  There it was feared Mrs. Lisner and McCann would die.  The police said they would hold Kahn, pending further investigation.  Kahn was driving a car belonging to his brother-in-law, Matthew Unger of 539 East Seventy-eighth Street.

Two persons were killed and twenty injured in automobile accidents in the city yesterday.

Charles Gengo, 12, of 1,225 Sixtieth Street, Brooklyn, was crushed to death last night between the rear of an automobile truck and the wall of the K. and K. Wet Wash Laundry, 1,157 Sixty-first Street, Brooklyn.  Jack Schwartz, driver of the automobile, was arrested charged with homicide.

Responding to the call for an ambulance, Dr. Anna McGrath of Norwegian Hospital was shaken up and cut when the ambulance crashed in to a small commercial truck.  She administered "first aid" to herself and continued on her way to answer the call.

James Burke, 9, of 364 Ninth Avenue, was on the way to visit his widowed mother, who is employed in a Twenty-ninth Street loft building, when he was knocked down by an automobile driven by Carl Hamersley, a manufacturer, of 2,050 Broadway.  Hamersley drove the boy to the hospital, where it was said he had a compound fracture of the skull and would not live.

Motorcycle Patrolman August Schealken of the Kingsbridge Station, is in Lincoln Hospital with a fractured skull and may die.  His wife Augusta and son August, 6, are in beds nearby suffering from injuries received as a result of an accident to the patrolman's motorcycle.  Schealken tried to avoid crashing into a truck at 169th Street and the Concourse.  His machine upset and he was thrown on his head while his wife and son were thrown from the sidecar.

Ida Pfeffer, 23, of 59 East 103d Street was struck by a taxicab, receiving a possible fracture of the skull, as she was crossing Fifth Avenue at Thirty-second Street.  Harry White of 597 Fifth Avenue, Astoria, driver, took the girl to the hospital.  Joseph L. Bishop of 1,080 Bryant Avenue, the Bronx, was found unconscious with a possible fracture of the skull in the roadway at Westchester Avenue and Faile Street, the Bronx.  The police believe he was struck by an automobile.  He was taken to Lincoln Hospital.

Louis Zeinstein, 40, of 68 Lewis Street, was struck by an automobile owned by Sidney Gruen, a broker, of 875 Park Avenue at Lafayette and Great Jones Street.  Zeinstein is in St. Vincent's Hospital from a fractured skull.  The automobile was driven by John Scudder of 26 West Ninety-eighth Street.

Three occupants of an automobile were injured and the lives of several score passengers on a crowded Tompkins Avenue car in Brooklyn were endangered in a panic that followed the collision between the car and an automobile driven by Max Danger of 389 Berry Street, Brooklyn.  The car was derailed and the passengers fought to escape.  They were showered with broken glass.

In fixing $15,000 bail in two alleged homicide cases yesterday Magistrate Frederick B. House threatened to hold taxicab drivers and motorists without bail when arrested on that charge.  The bail of $15,000 was said to be the highest set for an automobile accident case. In announcing the high bail in both cases the Magistrate said he was determined to keep down the automobile death rate.

The first case was that of James J. Stevens, Jr., of 754 Washington Avenue, Brooklyn, accused of running down and killing Mrs. Jeannete Hughes, 19, of 224 East Nineteenth Street, yesterday.  According to the police, Stevens admitted that his taxicab struck Mrs. Hughes and that he fled without attempting to help her.  He was arrested three hours after the incident.  He is said to have told the detectives he did not stop after striking Mrs. Hughes for fear that "one of the men in the taxi" would shoot him.  His arrest was due to the activity of John Quinn, driver of a newspaper delivery truck, who chased Stevens's car and saw the number before the cab disappeared.

The second man placed under $15,000 bond was John T. Francis of 1,027 Third Avenue, whose taxicab killed Patrolman Edward J. Fallon of 1,286 Lexington Avenue and Ninetieth Street.  Francis was arrested last week for speeding and spent three days in the Tombs.  He was released Friday night.  He will have a hearing on Friday.