1918 — Nov 1, Speeding Brooklyn Rapid Transit train derails, tunnel mouth, Brooklyn, NY-93-<100

— >100 American Red Cross. The Red Cross Bulletin, Vol. II, No. 46, 11-11-1918, p. 2.
— <100 NY Times. “Claims on B.R.T. to be Paid by B.-M.T.” 6-16-1923, p. 13. (“Nearly” 100.) -- <100 NY Times. “Malbone Awards $1,200,000.” 12-23-1919, p. 20. (“Nearly” 100 deaths.) -- <100 NY Times. “No Money To Pay B.R.T. Wreck Claims.” 3-20-1921, p. 42. (“Almost” 100) -- 100 New York Times. “The Brooklyn Calamity.” 11-4-1918, p. 12. -- <100 New York Times. “Wreck Before Grand Jury.” 11-26-1918, p. 6. --93-100 Roberts. “100 Years After New York’s Deadliest Subway Crash.” NYT, 11-1-2018. -- 97 Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters. EM DAT Database. -- 97 Cornell, James. The Great International Disaster Book (Third Edition). 1982, p. 438. -- 97 Critchett/Reschke. “Subway Wreck, 97 Killed!” Railway Stories, 20/5, Oct 1936, p.91. -- 97 Nash. Darkest Hours – A Narrative Encyclopedia of Worldwide Disasters 1977, p.67. -- 97 Shaw, Robert B. Down Brakes: A History of Railway Accidents… 1961, p. 485. -- 93 Rivoli. “Transit Officials Memorialize Worst Subway Crash in NY History.” 11-2-2019. -- 92 Holen. “The History of Accident Rates in the United States.” 1995, p. 102. -- 91 New York Times. “Wreck Motorman’s Training Was Brief.” 11-8-1918, p. 11. Narrative Information American Red Cross: “Running at high speed, an express train on the Brighton Beach line of the Brook¬lyn Rapid Transit System, jumped the track on a curve a block below the Pros¬pect Park station at 7 p. tn. Friday even¬ing, Nov. 1, side-swiped the wall of the tunnel for about one hundred feet, and then piled up in a splintering heap. The gloomy tunnel was quickly converted into a shambles. “Dr. Thomas J. Riley, of the Brooklyn chapter, immediately took charge of the Red Cross end of the relief work. At his request the New York County chapter immediately sent six ambulances to the scene. Stretchers were lowered into the tunnel and the injured were lashed to them so that they could be taken out. Valiant work was done by the women of the Motor Corps who went into the tunnel to comfort and succor men, women and children who were alive and con-scious, but pinned down by the wreckage so that they could not be removed. “Dr. Riley organized on Saturday a corps of eighteen visitors from the Brooklyn Home Service, Brooklyn Bu¬reau of Charities and New York Charity Organization Society, which are institutional members of the Red Cross. “These visitors located fifty injured people who had been taken to various hospitals, and helped in the identifica¬tion of the over one hundred dead. The homes of the injured were then visited, beginning with the addresses in the poorer quarters of the city. It was found that few cases needed financial as¬sistance, but that in some instances it was necessary to use the Red Cross influence in order to obtain caskets, which were scarce because of the recent epidemic of influenza.” (American Red Cross. The Red Cross Bulletin, Vol. II, No. 46, 11-11-1918, p. 2. Critchett and Reschke: “On Friday, November first, 1918—ten days before the World War armistice was signed—a strike was called, on the lines of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Com¬pany, which joined Brooklyn and Manhat¬tan, in New York City. The men struck be¬cause the company refused to reinstate twenty-nine employees it had discharged for joining the Amalgamated Association of Street and Electric Railway Employees, even after the War Labor Board had recommended that they be taken back. “Early that evening, when the rush hour was just about at its height, one of the Brooklyn trains met with a frightful acci¬dent. The train involved was a five-car Brighton Express, the middle three cars of which were old-time wooden trailers and the two end cars were motors. What was most important, the train was manned by a green "scab" motorman, who, because he was green, forgot to light the markers which designated the route of his train. “His name was Edward Anthony Luciano -- he had-adopted the name Lewis -- and he was a crew dispatcher, not a motorman. In fact, he had never been one; hired by the B. R. T. as a guard in 1914, he had been promoted to crew dispatcher four years later. “Because of the strike another green man, Peter Gorman, regularly a conductor, was acting as towerman at Franklin Avenue and Fulton Street, Brooklyn, with the re¬sponsibility of operating switches and sig¬nals, sending Brighton Beach trains around the curve there and Fulton Street trains straight ahead. Gorman saw that the marker lights were not lit on this particular train, but, as he admitted later, he "guessed" it was a Fulton Street train, and he set the sema¬phore and pulled the switch accordingly. Since it was up to the company's mechani¬cal department to see that the marker lights were in order and up to the train crew to see that they were lighted, he declared, it wasn't part of his job. “As for Luciano, he was pretty good as a crew dispatcher, but ignorant of the operation of trains over that division—or any division, for that matter. He had al¬ready put in ten hours on his crew dis¬patching job that day: When evening came, he should have gone home. Instead, he "volunteered" to act as a strike-break¬ing motorman when the problem was put up to him by Benjamin J. Brody, the train-master at Culver Station, Coney Island, and T. F. Blewitt, superintendent of the Southern Division. “Brody knew.—and admitted later on the witness stand at the investigation—that Luciano had never been given regular in¬struction in running a train and had merely picked up a smattering of the technique involved in the course of his thirteen years of service with the company. “When Luciano accepted the tower-man's signal and ran a short dis¬tance past the signal, and when he found that his train was going up Fulton Street he stopped and notified the towerman that his train was destined for Brighton Beach. “Then, in order to get his train onto the Brighton Beach track without operating in the face of traffic, Luciano reversed his train and ran west across the crossover. Leaving Park Place and accelerated by a down grade, it gained momentum. With ever-increasing speed it shot past the Con¬sumer's Park station, and into the mouth of the Malbone Street tunnel, with its re¬verse curve, protected by a fixed yellow board and speed restriction of six miles an hour. “Passengers looked at one another in alarm. Suddenly the five-car train jumped the track with a lurch and crashed against an iron and cement wall two hundred feet far-ther on. With three wooden cars in the middle, the train dou¬bled up like a. jack-knife and collapsed about a hundred feet from the mouth of the tunnel in a mass of screaming humanity, jagged splinters and broken steel. “Later, at the investi¬gation, testimony was given that the train was making about thirty miles an hour at the time of the catas¬trophe. Luciano said he applied the air brakes but they failed to work. Of course, in that tangled wreckage it was impossible to determine whether or not the air brakes had been defective. Even if they had been in perfect condition, the speeding train on the down-grade could not have "stopped on a dime," no matter how great the emergency. “Bleeding and hysterical passengers fought their way to the tunnel's mouth. Outside the tunnel, the crash of train against abutment and the subsequent screams of panic-stricken men, women and children had been heard for at least two blocks, and pedestrians rushed to the scene to render aid, together with police reserves and many ambulances from miles around. Fire companies, too, were called; and pass¬ing motorists found their cars pressed into service as temporary ambulances. “Shortly afterward Mayor John F. Hylan arrived on the scene with two detectives for a personal investigation. Hylan was a former railroad man. He had been employed as a locomotive engineer on the Brooklyn Rapid transit Company in the days when it was operated by steam power and was reported to have been dismissed for taking a curve at excess speed. “Meanwhile, fully a thousand policemen, firemen and other res¬cuers had attempted to make their way into the pit of death, but were hindered by dark¬ness. Men rushed to nearby residences and ripped out electric wires and carried away electric bulbs, with which they rigged up a battery of lights to brighten the scene be¬low. They found that the force of the impact had sheared off the en¬tire roof of the second car, while the third and fourth, also wooden, were reduced to timber and twisted metal. The rescuers made their way over crushed bodies and crying men, women and children. “The scab motorman, in a daze bordering on nervous collapse, was found uninjured, standing beside the first car. Sam Rusoff and Michael Turner, the two guards on the train, said he had been operating with a reckless disregard of speed restrictions. “Edward F. Kenny, an honorary deputy fire chief connected with the New York Edison Company, led in the rescue work by rushing the electric company's trouble wagons to the mouth of the tunnel and turning upon the scene four searchlights. Without this powerful illumination the rescuers would have been hampered. “The fact that the wrecked train had run into the single-tracked tunnel, paralleling the older and wider tunnel which was double-tracked, added to the horrors of the smash-up and the difficulties of rescue. The newer tunnel was com¬posed of reinforced concrete, and the lateral beams of steel projected three or four inches from the walls and roof. These projections tore the roofs and sides of the wrecked cars. Moreover, the tube was so narrow that the first car completely blocked the passageway, and the following cars piled up on it, crushing the first three. “When the casualties were finally added up, there were 97 dead, 225 injured. “Mayor Hylan, being familiar with rail roading, presided over the official investi¬gation. Charges and counter-charges of graft, corruption and inefficiency flew be¬tween the mayor, the Public Service Com¬mission and the B. R. T. Hylan said: A man operating a stationary steam boiler must have certain experience before a license is issued by the city authorities. Why not a motorman? At present there are no restrictions on the employment of men to operate these trains. If the com¬pany wishes, they can take a man from the sidewalk and put him in charge of a train, practically as they did last night, and endanger the lives of thousands of passengers. “The mayor made that statement in a letter to Al Smith, president of the city’s Board of Aldermen, who was at that time running for Governor – to which he was elected a few days later. Newspapers said that the issues raised by this subway catastrophe were partly responsible for Mr. Smith’s victory on November seventh. “In December a grand jury indicted the transit company and William Dempsey, vice president in charge of operations, and Division Superintendent Blewitt and other officials on a charge of manslaughter; but the officials successfully defended them¬selves when the case came to trial. “The first damage suit against the com¬pany was filed on November 20th amount¬ing to $25,000 for the death of one of the passengers, a young girl. Then other suits were filed, totally running into millions of dollars. The amount was so staggering that it forced the company into bankruptcy, from which it emerged years later as the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corporation, now claiming to be the world's safest rail¬road, with a complete modernized system of block control and all-steel cars. “Since the opening of the Montague Street tunnel with uptown New York, that sec¬tion of the line is used for shuttle service only. Further memory of the great catas¬trophe has been removed with the changing of the name of Malbone Street to Empire Boulevard. Consumer's .Park station, formerly the site of a brewery and summer garden, has been abandoned. “Then, too, the excitement over the World War armistice, and the election of Al Smith, coming as they did a few days after the Malbone Street disaster, helped the public to forget the fact that the world’s greatest electric railroad disaster was caused by the use of a scab motorman on a job for which he was not qualified.” (Critchett, N. A. and John Reschke. “Subway Wreck, 97 Killed!” Railway Stories, 20/5, Oct 1936, pp. 91-94.) Cornell: “The Brighton Beach Express jumped the track near the Malbone Street tunnel in Brooklyn, killing 97 people in New York’s worst subway disaster.” (Cornell, James. The Great International Disaster Book (Third Edition). 1982, p. 438.) Nash: “A five-car Brooklyn Rapid Transit train, just entering the Malbone Street Tunnel on the evening of November 2 [1st], 1918, derailed, obviously out of control, and the resulting crash killed ninety-seven persons, mostly women, on their way from work, and injured ninety-five more. Motorman Edward Anthony Lewis, a conductor, and a guard were arrested for negligence, but were later acquitted on the grounds of brake failure.” (Nash, Jay. Darkest Hours – A Narrative Encyclopedia of Worldwide Disasters 1977, p. 67.) Rivoli: “Brooklyn, N.Y. -- Ninety three people died and 250 others were hurt when a five-car wooden subway train derailed near where the Prospect Park station stands today…. “The crash was so traumatic that officials soon renamed most of Malbone Street, Empire Boulevard…. “After the crash, reforms were put in place. Wooden cars were phased out for sturdier models that included steel, stringent training requirements were implemented for motormen, and controls that stop trains from operating at unsafe speeds were added….” (Rivoli, Dan. “Transit Officials Memorialize Worst Subway Crash in NY History.” NY1 Spectrum News, 11-2-2019.) Shaw: “On the evening of November 1, 1918, Towerman Peter Gorman at the Franklin Avenue and Fulton Street junction of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company was puzzled by an approaching outbound train. It was Gorman’s job to line the switches either straight ahead for Fulton Street trains or into Franklin Avenue for Brighton Beach trains. The appropriate instructions were given him by signal lights on the front of each train. But this train had no lamps in front of it at all. And as schedules were entirely disrupted Gorman had no hint of the train’s destination. Accordingly, he left the switches lined straight ahead for Fulton Street. If this were wrong it should not have caused more than a momentary delay; the junction was clearly marked with signals that indicated the direction of the switches, and a train destined to Brighton Beach had only to stop a few feet before the junction until Gorman reversed the switch. “But this train seemed to hesitate, then continued forward, and finally stopped only when it had passed the junction with its full length. The conductor and guard of the five-car train then scrambled to the rear for a confab with the towerman. It was a Brighton Beach train, and should have turned down Franklin Avenue. After the customary recriminations Gorman and the crew addressed themselves to the problem of returning the crowded train to its proper route. It was decided not to back it along the outbound track, which was signaled for movements in one direction only, but to run it on ahead to the nearest crossover, to move over on to the opposite track, and then run back again in the direction of traffic to the nearest crossover on the Manhattan side of the junction. After some maneuvering this was finally accomplished, and ten or fifteen minutes later Gorman breathed a sigh of relief as this train again traversed his junction and passed out of sight down the Brighton Beach line. “Although annoyed, Gorman was not at all surprised by this mixup. For the regular motormen, members of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, had gone on a wildcat strike that morning, taking advantage of the wartime shortage of labor to advance their demand for recognition upon the company. The management, equally determined to resist the claim, hastily mobilized whatever non-union motormen remained, together with other employees who had had experience operating trains. Among the latter group was a twenty-nine-year-old crew dispatcher, listed on the company’s payroll as Anthony E. Lewis, but whose true name was Luciano. Luciano had entered the employ of the B.R.T. in December, 1914, as a guard, and had been promoted to his current position in January, 1918,. In September, two months before the strike, he had also qualified as a motor switchman, but had never actually handled trains except in the yards. On the day of the strike he had responded to the call for supervisory employees with operating experience, but then objected mildly at being assigned the Brighton Beach run, over a line with which he was totally unfamiliar. These circumstances made it possible to say afterwards, with partial truth in both cases, either that Luciano had volunteered for the run, or that he had been forced to take it over his own protests. “Leaving Park Row a few minutes before seven o’clock with a train packed with impatient homeward-bound commuters, Luciana was delayed further by the mixup at the Fulton-Franklin junction. But as his train was finally headed properly down the Brighton Beach branch he saw some opportunity to make up lost time. “Now, the Brighton Beach line which came down to ground level after leaving Fulton Street, was generally straight, but at level after leaving Fulton Street, was generally straight, but as Malbone Street it curved rather sharply to enter a short section of subway which had recently been constructed at the right of the original track. The speed limit on this curve 00 6 m.p.h. – was indicated by signs 280 feet and 130 feet from the mouth of the tunnel. “While Luciano was not familiar with this curve most of his passengers were, and they were already alarmed as he approached it without slackened speed. His actual speed at the tunnel entrance became, of course, a matter of dispute, but he himself later admitted it was as high as 30 m.p.h. A naval officer on the train estimated it at 70 m.p.h. This was certainly an exaggeration, but it does seem clear that Luciano began to accelerate just at the point where trains usually slowed down to a crawl. Survivors declared that some passengers had already fainted of fright even before the crash. “Sweeping around the curve at this excessive speed, the second car was derailed almost precisely at the tunnel entrance. The third car, and then the first and fourth were quickly dragged off the rails as well. As the train plunged on into the tunnel divergence to either side was prevented by the concrete wall to the right and a row of steel pillars separating the two tracks to the left. Ordinarily, it is true, a derailed train will not suffer severe damage unless it strikes an irresistible object in its path, but in this case the cars were swept by their momentum against the right-hand abutment, in which heavy iron uprights had been imbedded. These acted as a giant rake, which simply ripped the flimsy wooden cars apart. “The train finally came to a stop about 300 feet from the point of initial derailment, with the rear of the last car seventy-five feet inside the tunnel entrance. This last car was only slightly damaged, and the first car, although swept off its trucks, was not crushed. The second, third and fourth cars, however, were severely shattered, the third, from which sixty bodies were recovered, being reduced to kindling. The precise death toll is uncertain, but is usually stated as ninety-seven.” (Shaw, Robert B. Down Brakes: A History of Railway Accidents… 1961, pp. 425-427, 485.) Roberts: “….Even before the crash, critics complained of lax oversight of the profit-making lines, which had already been cutting corners because elected officials insisted on maintaining the five-cent fare. The Malbone Street wreck could have been easily avoided if the appropriate technology, which was available at the time, had been put in place. “After the accident, timed signals and automatic braking mechanisms were installed on most curves and inclines (all trains would not be equipped with speedometers or even headlights until decades later, though)…. “The 1918 crash also prompted the formation of a city Transit Commission in 1921, which would lead a decade later to the first municipally-owned subway (the Independent Line)…. “And as unprepared as Mr. Luciano was on his maiden run as a motorman, the equipment itself was defective. Its five cars were incorrectly coupled: two of the lighter ones were placed together, which intensified the impact of the crash and produced more casualties. “A blown fuse had disabled the identifying colored signal lights on the front car, so the tower operator at Franklin Avenue failed to switch the train to the Brighton Beach Line (now the D and Q) tracks. Backing the train up to correct the mistake took an extra eight minutes — another setback for the novice motorman, who was already behind schedule and hoping to impress his bosses with his punctuality. “Mr. Luciano stopped at Dean Street and Prospect Place, but perhaps to save time, bypassed the Consumers Park station, which meant that he may never have applied the brakes as the train descended a 70-foot incline from Crown Heights to the tunnel in an open cut near the Willink Entrance to Prospect Park. “Motormen were supposed to slow to 6 miles per hour to accommodate the serpentine curve, but had he seen the speed limit sign it would have been too late to decelerate. Mr. Luciano was said to have been going closer to 30 m.p.h. as he thundered into the tunnel…. “One passenger, Charles Darling, a lawyer, was so terrified by the speeding train that moments before the crash he instinctively dropped to the floor and braced himself. When he confronted Mr. Luciano at the scene and asked what had happened, the stunned motorman replied plainly: ‘I don’t know. I lost control of the damn thing. That’s all.’ “Most of the fatalities (strangely, there was no official count, but the estimate ranged from 93 to more than 100) were caused by skull fractures…. “Mayor John F. Hylan, who as a young man had been fired as an engineer by a predecessor to the B.R.T., capitalized on the crash in his unrelenting campaign for public ownership of the subways. He personally oversaw a grand jury investigation into who should be held accountable. “Mr. Luciano, the son of Italian immigrants (whose father had changed his surname to Lewis to guard against discrimination), and five B.R.T. supervisors and executives were indicted on a charge of manslaughter. “After the defense demanded a change of venue, the trials were shifted to Long Island. None of the defendants was convicted. “Survivors and victims’ families filed civil suits and, once the railroad (whose slogan was “Be Careful, Safety Always”) emerged from receivership, in 1923 a successor company (the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Co.) paid out $1.6 million in claims. The relatives of those who died were awarded amounts ranging from $500 to a top settlement of $40,000 — about $650,000 in today’s dollars, to the widow of 47-year-old Floyd G. Ten Broeck, a Brooklyn engineer who designed and built power plants and paper mills…. “Billy Lewis changed his name back to Luciano. He moved first from Sunset Park to Queens Village, where he became a house builder under the name of Anthony Lewis, later to Albany to be near his wife’s family, finally retiring in Tucson. Mr. Luciano lived there with his daughter and grandchildren and died in 1985 at the age of 91. “His granddaughter, who is 67, recalled the other day that he said he had been an architect in New York, and that she never knew that, for 28 minutes on one night a century ago, he had been a subway motorman.” (Roberts, Sam. “100 Years After New York’s Deadliest Subway Crash.” New York Times, 11-1-2018.) Newspapers Nov 2: “A Brighton Beach train of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company, made up of five wooden cars of the oldest type in use, which was speeding with a rush-hour crowd to make up lost time on its way from Park Row to Coney Island, jumped its track shortly before 7 o’clock last evening on a sharp curve approaching the tunnel at Malbone Street, in Brooklyn, and plunged into a concrete partition between the north and south bound tracks. “Nearly every man, woman, and child in the first car was killed, and most of those in the second were killed or badly injured. Rescue work in the wreckage, jammed into the narrow tunnel, was extremely difficult, and the counting of the dead proceeded slowly. At 11 o’clock eight-five bodies had been taken from the wreckage, and the police announced that no more bodies were in the tunnel. The names of many of the injured were not obtained, but the police estimated that at least 100 had been injured. “District Attorney Lewis announced at midnight that the train was being run by a train dispatcher. This man had been pressed into service in the rush hour because of the strike of motormen, which began in the early morning. At 2 o’clock this morning, as a result of the wreck, the motormen called off the strike, leaving the adjustment of their grievances to the Public Service Commission. The District Attorney ordered all the officials of the B. R. T. who could have been responsible and members of the train crew put under arrest. He said the B. R. T. officials had withheld the name of the man who operated the train. “Mayor Hylan arrived at the Snyder Avenue Police Station shortly after midnight and consulted with District Attorney Lewis and Commissioner Enright as to what steps should be taken in ordering the arrest of the officials of the B. R. T. “Just before one o’clock this morning, the missing motorman, Anthony Lewis, who is 29 years old, was arrested at his home, 160 Thirty-third Street, Brooklyn, by Detectives McCord and Conroy, and brought to the Snyder Avenue station, where he was immediately taken into a room to be questioned by the District Attorney, Mayor Hylan and the Police Commissioner. “After Motorman Lewis had been escorted to the Snyder Avenue Station and questioned, it was stated than his story indicated criminal negligence in hiring him to run the train. Mayor Hylan said: ‘This man confessed he had never run a train over that Brighton Beach line before. He also admitted that, when running around that curve, he was making a speed of thirty miles an hour.’ “A post on the curve warns motormen not to go faster than six miles an hour in this part of the road. When he was asked at the examination why he had taken a job for which he was unfitted, Motorman Lewis replied: ‘A man has to earn a living.’ He said that the only experience he had had in running a motor was in switching about a year ago, but that he had been taking instruction for two days on the B. R. T. before running the train yesterday. “On the way to Flatbush the motorman said he had no intention of running away. He said he remembered nothing until he found himself at home, following the accident. He does not know how he managed to get out of the wreck, nor how he got home. He says he has in indistinct recollection of having boarded a trolley car but cannot remember what car it was. He was seated in a chair, pale as death, when the detectives reached his home. He was very nervous and seemed to be on the verge of a collapse. “After a conference with District Attorney Lewis at the Snyder Avenue Police Station, Mayor Hylan said: ‘I have ordered Police Commissioner Enright to station policemen in every terminal and carbarn from which trains leave, with instructions not to permit any green motormen to take out a train. No man will be permitted to run a train unless he has had at least three months’ experience.’ “Mayor Hylan said that he did not wish to discuss the legal and possible criminal phases of the accident until he had completed his investigation. “District Attorney Lewis, after his conference with Mayor Hylan, said: ‘I have ordered Colonel Timothy S. Williams, the President of the B. R. T., and Vice President John J. Dempsey to appear at my office today and give an explanation of Lewis’s running the train.’ “A few minutes before the accident the motorman missed a switch, according to passengers, went some distance on a wrong track and then backed up and switched again to the Brighton Beach line for Coney Island. After that the train moved at such high speed as to frighten many passengers. Some thought the motorman had lost control of the train, and others supposed he was going at unprecedented speed to make up for time he had lost. A naval officer who was a passenger said the train was making fully seventy miles an hour when it left the track….” (New York Times. “Scores Killed or Maimed in Brighton Tunnel Wreck.” 11-2-1918, pp. 1 and 6.) Nov 4: “The loss of a hundred lives and the mangling of hundreds of passengers on the Brooklyn Elevated Railroad, a section of the dual subway, call for fixing of blame and admit of no extenuation.. There is blame enough to go around. The hand of the inexperienced motorman who sent the train at excessive speed around a curve on a route unfamiliar to him was the immediate cause of the disaster. But how came he there? He was put there by his superiors. He took the duty put upon him in a wearied condition, and probably reluctantly. He was there because of a strike on a public utility, contrary to the agreement of Government and labor representatives that there should be no strikes in wartime. Such strikes may be explained but cannot be excused, whatever the cause. The strike was wrong, as the company also was wrong in not reinstating twenty-nine discharged motormen, according to the award of the National War Labor Board. Two wrongs are far from making a right. Both company and strikers should have complied with the agreement, which was made for both. The company now in bitter repentance does what it should have done, but it cannot make amends for what the disaster will prevent its justifying, whatever the facts. Presumably the union also regrets the strike, which it cannot justify any more than the company can justify itself. Now both must face public resentment of such bitterness that neither will be heard as they might have been but for the disaster. “There will be no patience with explanations of the principles underlying the dispute, which will be repeated in the future as in the past unless both parties are taught moderation and self-control, however difficult. Public attention will not wander from the facts of this case into the merits of the award. It left the trouble to be settled by an ‘accommodation’ which was not reached in time. More will be heard of this fundamental issue at another time, but it will not be listened to now when the facts are in dispute. They will be brought out indisputably in the trial of the man whose hand sent the train around the fatal curve. That will settle the responsibility as no other method can. “The fixing of the responsibility ‘higher up,’ beyond that of the motorman, must come, and must be placed without fear or favor. Meanwhile public alarm may be moderated by the thought that the transit systems of the city are safer now than before this horror, and they have been marvelously safe over many years. Discipline will be stricter, unions will be wary of increasing resentment against themselves, companies will be considerate of their workers as never before.” (New York Times. “The Brooklyn Calamity.” 11-4-1918, p. 12.) Nov 8: “Motorman A. E. Lewis, or Luciano, who drove the train which was wrecked last Friday with the loss of ninety-one lives in the Malbone Street tunnel on the Brighton Beach line of the B.R.T., had not taken the usual course of instruction as a motorman and was never officially certified as a motorman, according to instructors of motormen on the B.R.T., who were called by District Attorney Lewis of Kings at the hearing before Mayor Hylan, sitting as a Magistrate. “Joseph B. McCann, of 4,909 Eleventh Avenue, Brooklyn, who has been a motorman and instructor on the B.R.T. for seven years, said that he had given Lewis only two hours and a half of mechanical instruction. He said he usually gave twelve hours, including training in the handling of brakes, before he considered a man qualified. McCann said that he had given orders that Lewis should receive the regular training by riding at the side of motormen on trips over the various lines, but he did not know how far his instructions had been carried out. “Motorman Lewis failed to put on the brakes, on his first trip as a practical motorman, which ended in the catastrophe in the Malbone Street tunnel, according to several witnesses, although it has not been established yet whether he took the curve at the tunnel with terrific speed in order to make up for lost time due to a previous blunder, or whether he was incapable of handling the mechanism of the brakes. “McCann explained that his failure to give more thorough instruction in the mechanical part to Lewis was because Supervising Motorman Wilbur Lewis and Division Superintendent T. A. Bluette had told him that, on account of the shortage of motormen, the period of instruction should be shortened for train dispatchers who were seeking to qualify as motormen. He said he had been told to cut down the period of instruction only for this class of candidates. ‘But isn’t a train dispatcher’s work merely like that of a clerk?’ asked District Attorney Lewis. ‘It is,’ replied the witness. ‘Does the train dispatcher get any experience in his position in the operation of trains?’ ‘No.’ “McCain said that the usual course of training included instruction for several hours in handling brakes under his supervision, after which the candidate was turned over to a motorman to study further in the practical operation of a train. Generally, McCann said, the man was returned to him at the end of the period of instruction for a thorough testing out. If the man appeared to be fully competent he was then made a motorman. ‘Did you give any final instruction to Luciano?’ asked the District Attorney. ‘No.’ “‘Did you certify Luciano as a competent motorman?’ “‘I did not.’ “‘Why not?’ “‘I had no instructions to do so.’ “Mayor Hylan asked McCann how much time he devoted to instructing men in the use of airrakes. McCann said he have them lessons of two and a half hours each on six days. Mr. Lewis asked McCann if he thought that ten hours of mechanical instruction was sufficient to teach him the operation of the electrical controller, the airbrakes, and other operating devices. McCann said it would qualify some men, but not all. “In a statement issued yesterday Public Service Commissioner Travis H. Whitney virtually accused Mayor Hylan of not trying to elicit any information in the wreck inquiry that might reflect upon the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, which had called a strike of the B.R.T. motormen. The statement said: At the hearing on Monday last one of the witnesses testified that, because they were short of motormen, Lewis (or Luciano) was allowed to take out the train in Question. Magistrate Hylan then asked why they were short of motormen, and the witness replied because there was a strike. Why didn’t Magistrate Hylan then ask the next logical question? If the Mayor of New York, who had notice that a strike was to take place, had secured a postponement of the strike, would it have been necessary for Lewis to have operated a Brighton train? Will he ask that question today?” (New York Times. “Wreck Motorman’s Training Was Brief.” 11-8-1918, p. 11.) Nov 26: “Without waiting for the close of the John Doe investigation by Mayor John F. Hylan, as a sitting Magistrate, to fix responsibility for the Malbone Street tunnel disaster on the Brighton Beach line of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company, in which nearly a hundred persons lost their lives, on Nov. 1. District Attorney Harry E. Lewis yesterday submitted the matter to the Kings County Grand Jury for its consideration. Although Mr. Lewis would not divulge his plans, it is said that he feels confident of obtaining indictments against at least two persons high in the management of the railroad. Indictments are expected to be returned either late this week or early next week. “After the proceedings before the Grand Jury were well under way. District Attorney Herbert N. Warbasse in charge of questioning witnesses, and hurried to the office of Mayor Hylan, where he was closeted with the Mayor for more than an hour. When he returned to Brooklyn the District Attorney asserted that although the decision to lay the question of responsibility for the disaster before the Grand Jury was rather sudden, the Mayor was in hearty accord with his action. ‘The Major and I discussed freely certain phases of the evidence,’ said Mr. Lewis. ‘We also discussed certain sections of the law applicable to the case.’ “When asked if any of the officials of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company would be held responsible for the wreck, Mr. Lewis said: ‘I believe the evidence criminally involves some one high up in the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company. Who I will not say.’ “Many passengers on the wrecked train and employes of the B.R.T. appeared as witnesses before the Grand Jury. Among the latter were William Brody, trainmaster at the Culver Depot at Coney Island; Wilbur Lewis, chief instructor of motormen, and Joseph McCann, instructor of motormen. Brody and McCann at the John Doe proceedings before Mayor Hylan testified that Thomas Blewitt, Division Superintendent, was responsible for sending out Andrew Luciana as motorman of the ill-fated train. Luciana was present in the County Court House, but it is not believed that he will be called as a witness. Mrs. Luciana, his wife, was with him, and although subpoenaed was not called as a witness. The Grand Jury proceedings will be continued today. “The fact that the Grand Jury has taken up the matter will not interfere with the John Doe proceedings before Mayor Hylan. These will be continued today, but are expected to come to an end by this evening or early tomorrow. At the close of this hearing the District Attorney may ask for warrants for arrests or he may ask Mayor Hylan to reserve his decision in the matter pending the outcome of the hearing before the Grand Jury. It is thought that the latter course is the one more likely to be pursued.” (New York Times. “Wreck Before Grand Jury.” 11-26-1918, p. 6.) Dec 13: “The five officials of the B.R.T., for whom Mayor Hylan issued warrants after sitting as a Magistrate to fix responsibility for the Malbone Street tunnel wreck on Nov. 1, pleaded not guilty to the charge of manslaughter in the Adams Street Court, Brooklyn, yesterday afternoon and were released after furnishing $10,000 bail each. They waived further examination. “The men arraigned were Colonel Timothy S. Williams, President of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company: John J. Dempsey, Vice President and Superintendent of the company’s elevated lines; J. H. Hallock, President of the New York Consolidated Railroad Company, which operates the Brighton line on which the wreck occurred; W. S. Menden, assistant to Colonel Williams and Chief Engineer of the New York Municipal Railways Company, and Thomas F. Blewitt, Superintendent of the Southern Division. “Though Mayor Hylan in his decision attacked not only the B.R.T. officials, but the members of the Public Service Commission as well, and recommended that District Attorney Lewis undertake a Grand Jury investigation to determine whether any of the Public Service officials had been guilty of manslaughter in the second degree. Mr. Lewis announced just before the arraignment of the traction men that he would not act on the Mayor’s suggestion at this time. ‘I have my hands full just now and I can give His Honor’s suggestion no consideration at the present time,’ was all the Kings County District Attorney would say on that phase of the investigation. Placed Under Technical Arrest. “All the defendants whose arrest Mayor Hylan had ordered appeared in person. The first to appear were Colonel Williams and Mr. Hallock, who entered together just before the court convened at 2 o’clock. They were accompanied by Attorneys Meier Steinbrink and George D. Yeomans. Superintendent Dempsey soon came with his lawyer, Stephen Baldwin. Menden and Blewitt followed. As each defendant entered the court room door, he was placed under technical arrest by Detectives Roebling and Murphy. “Two interested spectators of the proceedings who appeared just before Magistrate Steers ascended the bench were Edward Luciano, motorman of the wrecked train, and his wife. Luciano is at liberty on $5,000 bail waiting the action of the Grand Jury on a charge of manslaughter in connection with the wreck. He took no part in the proceedings. “‘Mr. District Attorney,’ said the Court, addressing Mr. Lewis. ‘I have here information charging Timothy S. Williams and others with the crime of manslaughter in the second degree. I take it for granted you know the others.’ “‘Yes,’ replied Lewis, ‘I’ll call them.’ “Mr. Lewis called off the five names and each of the defendants, without any show of nervousness, presented himself at the bar. The court, informed of the names of the various attorneys representing the men before him, turned to the group of lawyers and said: ‘I understand you are all familiar with what is contained in this information?’ ‘Yes, we will waive reading it,’ Mr. Steinbrink replied. ‘Well, how do you plead?’ Magistrate Steers asked. ‘The defendants all plead not guilty and waive further examination,’ the attorney answered. ‘I ask that they be held for the Grand Jury in $10,000 bail each,’ Mr. Lewis suggested, and the Court replied: ‘It is so ordered.’ Will Oppose Change of Venue. “The five B.R.T. officials with their lawyers walked over to the court clerk’s desk, swore to bonds prepared in advance for them by the National Surety Company, and were released. “Persons in the court room commented upon a seeming change in mutual attitude on the part of Colonel Williams and Mr. Lewis. Hitherto they had appeared to be on terms of cordiality, but during the brief scene in the Police Court, they did not seem to recognize each other. “Asked after the proceedings if he had any statement to make for any of his clients, Mr. Steinbrink said: ‘Certainly not; we will leave the making of statements to the Mayor, the Public Service Commission, or any one else who cares to make them.’ He added that it would be idel for him to say at this time whether anything would be done at this time toward getting a change of venue, saying: ‘I think it would be best for us to wait and see who, if anybody, is indicted, and what the indictments contain.’ “Mr. Lewis discussed yesterday a possible move on the part of the five men to get a change of venue to some other county on the ground that there was too much prejudice in Brooklyn for them to get justice in King’s county. The District Attorney aid he was ‘not interested,’ in the outburst of Mrs. Bella Silverman of the People’s League, who attacked the B.R.T. officials in court on Wednesday after Mayor Hylan had announced his decision. ‘If counsel for the B.R.T. officials want to make capital out of that,’ he added, ‘they may do so. This much is certain, though, if a change of venue is sought, I will oppose it strenuously. The B.R.T. has been operating in Brooklyn and drawing its profits from Brooklyn. Therefore it should answer for this disaster to those who have supported the system.’ “There was no forecast yesterday as to just when the Grand Jury will act in the cases of the B.R.T. men for whom Mayor Hylan ordered warrants.” (New York Times. “Hold B.R.T. Officials in $10,000 Bail Each.” 12-13-1918, p. 24.) Jan 6: “At a meeting held yesterday at Erasmus Hall High School, in Brooklyn, members of the Brighton Elevated Wreck Victims and Passengers’ Protective Association resented the action of Brooklyn Rapid Transit officials in using newspaper reports of a previous meeting of the organization as one of their grounds for asking change of venue. “The meeting referred to by the railroad officials took place on Dec. 8. During the proceedings a cry of ‘Kill them! Shoot them! Was heard in the hall. When this was called to the attention of the members yesterday all present denied that any one belonging to the organization was responsible for the outbreak. “In order that there should be no mistake as to the intentions and purposes of the organization and to place itself on record as not being vindictive or revengeful the following resolution was adopted unanimously: Whereas a mistaken impression appears to prevail among certain persons regarding the purpose of this organization therefore, be it Resolved. That the Brighton Elevated Wreck Victims and Passengers’ Protective Association place itself on record as being absolutely free from any revengeful or vindictive purpose; that it aims simply and solely to protect the interests of the bereaved members; that it pledges its support to the city officials in their attempts to see that the course of justice is carried out and that it seeks to enlist the co-operation of all civic and community organizations to bring about such an improvement in the transportation facilities of our city that there will be no possible chance for a repetition of the disaster of Nov. 1, 1918, and that the comfort, convenience and safety of the traveling public be carefully guarded in the future. “It was voted to send a copy of the resolution to District Attorney Lewis of Kings County and to Lindley M. Garrison, receiver for the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company…. “District Attorney Lewis spent yesterday examining the affidavits offered by the attorneys of the B.R.T. officials under indictment for the Malbone Street wreck in support of their application for a change of venue. Many of the affidavits were made by persons who had signed the cards circulated recently by the B.R.T. among its patrons asking an expression of their opinion of the guilt of the indicted men. Mr. Lewis said he had reason to believe. Charles Jerome Edwards, a Brooklyn life insurance man, was among those who had made a deposition that he did not believe the B.R.T. officials could get a fair trial in Kings County, according to the prosecutor. “Mr. Lewis said that tomorrow he and Assistant District Attorney Herbert N. Warbsse would examine the mass of records which he had subpoenaed from the B.R.T. after the company’s officials had failed to produce them. Among these papers he hopes to find the motormen’s time sheet for the Southern Division, which embraces the route where the accident occurred. If he documents desired are found to have been destroyed District Attorney Lewis said that he intended to take steps to punish the guilty persons. “The trial of John J. Dempsey, Vice President and Transportation Superintendent of the New York Consolidated Railroad, under indictment for manslaughter, which is scheduled to start tomorrow in Brooklyn before Supreme Court Justice Kapper, will be adjourned until after the decision is rendered on the application for change of venue. About seventy-five witnesses have been subpoenaed to be in court tomorrow.” (NYT. “Deny Animosity to B.R.T. Officials.” 1-6-1919, 22.) Jan 29: “Justice Callaghan in the Supreme Court in Brooklyn yesterday granted the change of venue application of Timothy S. Williams, ex-President of the B.R.T., and the other officials and employes indicted for manslaughter in connection with the Malbone Street wreck on Nov. 1, and ordered trail held in Nassau County [Long Island], at Mineola. It that county is not satisfactory to District Attorney Lewis or to the defendants, Justice Callaghan aid he would name any other county on which the parties might agree. “Stephen S. Baldwin in his argument last week asked the court to name a county ‘as distant from Kings County as possible.’ Mr. Baldwin contended that the people of any county near Kings would be prejudiced almost as strongly against the defendants as were the people of Kings. When asked if he was satisfied with Nassau County, District Attorney Lewis said: I am not satisfied with any county except that in which the crime with which the defendants are charged is alleged to have been committed. The defendants were not entitled to a change of venue and I did not expect they would get it. Now that I am ordered to another county for trial I shall try the case in that county. I am not responsible for the change. “Mr. Baldwin was out of town, and Meier Steinbrink, Williams’s attorney, refused comment. “Justice Callaghan in his decision said: It is difficult for me to understand how a campaign for the conviction of these defendants could have been carried on with more effectiveness than that which has been carried on in this county. It rivals the efforts of a well-organized corps of propagandists. A public hearing was held by the Mayor, sitting as a Magistrate. The newspapers have announced that it was the Mayor’s intention to ‘reach the men higher up.’ The hearing conducted before him was given the widest publicity, photographs were taken of the defendants on arraignment and published in the newspapers. In fact, the defendants were tried and convicted in the eyes of public opinion before an indictment was found against them. An organization was formed in this county from among the relatives of the victims of the wreck, and a desire for vengeance had been expressed in public meetings by the members of this organization which has, by resolution, declared that it would do everything in its power to bring about a conviction of the defendants. “The B.R.T. officials and employes under indictment are Timothy S. Williams, Vice President John J. Dempsey, J. H. Hallock, President of the New York Consolidated Railroad Company, which operates the Brighton Beach line; W. S. Menden, assistant to Williams; Thomas F. Blewitt, Superintendent of the Southern Division of the system, and Edward Luciano, a train dispatcher, who, as an emergency motorman, was operating the train.” (New York Times. “Indicted B.R.T. Men Get Venue Change.” 1-29-1919, p. 24.) March 6: “Mineola, L.I., March 6. – When the prosecution had disposed of several witnesses at the opening today of the trial of Thomas F. Blewitt, Superintendent of the Southern Division of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company, the first official of the road to be prosecuted on the charge of manslaughter in connection with the loss of ninety lives in the Malbone Street tunnel wreck, Brooklyn, it was intimated that the defense would attempt to prove that the accident was due to something thrown upon the tracks. District Attorney Lewis will seek to convince the jury that an incompetent motorman was responsible for the wreck, and that Superintendent Blewitt should be held responsible for the acts of the employee. “District Attorney Lewis began his statement to the jury with the assertion that it was ‘Blewitt’s duty not alone to have qualified men, but to see that there existed on this road proper signs as warning to motormen operating trains.’ Mr. Lewis said that when the strike started on Nov. 1, Blewitt was more concerned in getting trains moving than he was in the question of the safety of passengers. ‘Human life meant nothing to him,’ continued the prosecutor. “Ex-Judge Oeland, of counsel for the railway company, objected to the latter part of this statement on the ground that the District Attorney was summing up instead of presenting his case. Justice Seeger sustained the objection. “On the cross-examination of Police Inspector McElroy, who had testified about conditions at the wreck, Judge Oeland brought from him the admission the Police Lieutenant Fay had reported the finding of a chisel near the rails of the tunnel. The defense made much of this, indicating that it offered a clue to the accident.” (New York Times. “B.R.T. Trial Opens.” 3-7-1919, p. 18.) May 21, 1919: “Mrs. Anna D. Ten Broeck, widow of Floyd G. Ten Broeck, who was killed in the Malbone Street wreck on Nov. 1 last, yesterday received permission from Surrogate Wingate, in Brooklyn, to settle her claim against the New York Consolidated Railroad as a result of the death of her husband for $55,000. Mr. Ten Broeck was a consulting engineer. He lived with his wife and four children at 1,421 Glenwood Road. Mrs. Ten Broeck brought suit to recover $150,000. “The trial of the suit against the railroad company brought by Mrs. Eloise Know Porter for $100,000 for the death of her husband, Edward Erskine Porter, was brought to a sudden close yesterday in the Supreme Court, before Justice Isaac M. Kapper, when it was announced that the company had made a settlement satisfactory to the plaintiff. The trial was begun on Monday and was well under way when the settlement was announced. Counsel for the railroad company told the court that responsibility on the part of the company was conceded and that the only question to be decided was the amount of damages. Neither side would state the amount agreed upon. The trial was the first of the cases against the railroad company that was brought to court.” (New York Times. “B.R.T. Pays Wreck Claims.” 5-21-1919, p. 12.) Jan 17, 1921: “Mineola, L.I., Jan. 17. – On motion of District Attorney Harry E. Lewis of Kings County, Supreme Court Justice Edward Lazansky today dismissed indictments against former officials of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company, growing out of the Malbone tunnel wreck on Nov. 1, 1918. In an affidavit signed by Mr. Lewis and Herbert N. Warbasse, his assistant, he told the court: Many important witnesses for the people are connected with the railroad company or with one of its allied companies, and have either withheld important information, or colored facts which they disclosed. I deem it a practical impossibility to secure conviction on the trial of the other indictments. Therefore I can find no excuse for incurring the expense that would be involved in such trials. “Those under indictment were Timothy S. Williams, ex-President of the company; John H. Hallock, John J. Dempsey, former General Superintendent of Transportation; Thomas F. Blewitt, Division Superintendent, and William S. Menden, Chief Engineer. Edward Lewis, also known as Anthony Luciano, motorman on the train, was named in one of the indictments.” (New York Times. “B.R.T. Wreck Cases Dismissed by Court. Action Taken on Request of Prosecutor, Who Believes Conviction Impossible.” 1-18-1921, p. 6.) March 20, 1921: “Joseph T. Griffin, President of the Passengers’ Protective Association, which is looking after the interests of those having claims against the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company for damages resulting from the Malbone tunnel disaster in which almost 100 persons were killed, has received a letter from Receiver Lindley M. Garrison in reply to one asking when a settlement might be expected. “Mr. Garrison said that the New York Consolidated Railroad Company, the subsidiary which operated the line, had guaranteed a mortgage of $60,000,000 which was in default and under foreclosure; that it owed accumulated interest on the mortgage amounting to $2,372,170.20, and that another item for which the company was responsible consisted of $13,000,000 in receivers’ certificates. They Mr. Garrison’s letter read: All of the above sums, in addition to others not enumerated, are liens upon the property and income of the receivership prior to claims against the company arising before the receivership. The damage claims arising out of the Malbone Street accident were prior to the receivership. It has always been the hope of Judge Mayer and the receiver that in the reorganization, which undoubtedly will be necessary, some way would be found to provide funds or other means of compensating these unfortunate victims of that accident. Until such time, however, the receiver has no funds which in any way could possibly be paid for such damages, and therefore the expenses of receivership do not come out of moneys which in any event under existing circumstances could go to pay such damages. “Mr. Griffin’s letter to Mr. Garrison, written after published statements that the expenses of the receivership had exceeded $472,000 said in part: “As you very well know the company has made no restitution to any of the victims of that disaster. Even claims for small sums, for directors’ and undertakers’ bills, have not been paid. You may understand, then, how bitter is the sentiment of these people when they are lead to believe from newspaper stories that such vast sums of money have been paid to one or two individuals as legal fees while just and honorable claims sanctified by every consideration of charity and law, have been allowed to go unliquidated through all these weary months that have elapsed since the accident.” (New York Times. “No Money To Pay B.R.T. Wreck Claims.” 3-20-1921, p. 42.) Sources American Red Cross. The Red Cross Bulletin, Vol. II, No. 46, 11-11-1918, p. 2. Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters. EM DAT Database. Louvain, Belgium: Universite Catholique do Louvain. Accessed at: http://www.emdat.be/ Cornell, James. The Great International Disaster Book (Third Edition). New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1982. Critchett, N. A. and John Reschke. “Subway Wreck, 97 Killed!” Railway Stories, 20/5, Oct 1936, pp. 91-94. Holen, Arlene. “The History of Accident Rates in the United States.” Chapter 9 in Simon, Julian Lincoln. The State of Humanity. Blackwell Publishing, 1995. Digitized by Google. Accessed 11-23-2017 at: http://books.google.com/books?id=DrgN0AvFGL0C&dq=1917+Eddystone+PA+Munitions+Plant+Explosion&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0 Nash, Jay Robert. Darkest Hours – A Narrative Encyclopedia of Worldwide Disasters from Ancient Times to the Present. New York: Pocket Books, Wallaby, 1977, 792 pages. New York Times. “B.R.T. Pays Wreck Claims.” 5-21-1919, p. 12. Accessed 7-31-2020 at: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1919/05/21/96306362.html?pageNumber=12 New York Times. “B.R.T. Trial Opens.” 3-7-1919, p. 18. Accessed 7-31-2020 at: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1919/03/07/97081142.html?pageNumber=18 New York Times. “B.R.T. Wreck Cases Dismissed by Court. Action Taken on Request of Prosecutor, Who Believes Conviction Impossible.” 1-18-1921, p. 6. Accessed 7-31-2020 at: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1921/01/18/103534438.html?pageNumber=6 New York Times. “Claims on B.R.T. to be Paid by B.-M.T.” 6-16-1923, p. 13. Accessed 7-31-2020 at: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1923/06/16/issue.html New York Times. “Deny Animosity to B.R.T. Officials.” 1-6-1919, p. 22. Accessed 7-31-2020 at: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1919/01/06/102846255.html?pageNumber=22 New York Times. “Hold B.R.T. Officials in $10,000 Bail Each.” 12-13-1918, p. 24. Accessed 7-31-2020: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1918/12/13/97050920.html?pageNumber=24 New York Times. “Indicted B.R.T. Men Get Venue Change.” 1-29-1919, p. 24. Accessed 7-31-2020 at: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1919/01/29/97065063.html?pageNumber=24 New York Times. “Judge Mayer to End B.R.T. Receivership Raise $34,000,000.” 2-10-1923, p. 1. Accessed 7-31-2020 at: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1923/02/10/105846472.html?pageNumber=1 New York Times. “Malbone Awards $1,200,000.” 12-23-1919, p. 20. Accessed 7-31-2020 at: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1919/12/23/96869721.html?pageNumber=20 New York Times. “No Money To Pay B.R.T. Wreck Claims.” 3-20-1921, p. 42. Accessed 7-31-2020 at: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1921/03/20/112676755.html?pageNumber=42 New York Times. “Scores Killed or Maimed in Brighton Tunnel Wreck.” 11-2-1918, pp. 1 and 6. Accessed 7-30-2020 at: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1918/11/02/97039913.html?pageNumber=1 New York Times. “The Brooklyn Calamity.” 11-4-1918, p. 12. Accessed 7-30-2020 at: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1918/11/04/97041083.html?pageNumber=12 New York Times. “Wreck Before Grand Jury.” 11-26-1918, p. 6. Accessed 7-31-2020 at: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1918/11/26/106216777.html?pageNumber=6 New York Times. “Wreck Claims to be Paid.” 9-15-1923, p. 14. Accessed 7-31-2020 at: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1923/09/15/104968190.html?pageNumber=14 New York Times. “Wreck Motorman’s Training Was Brief.” 11-8-1918, p. 11. Accessed 7-30-2020 at: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1918/11/08/98274154.html?pageNumber=11 Rivoli, Dan. “Transit Officials Memorialize Worst Subway Crash in NY History.” NY1 Spectrum News, 11-2-2019. Accessed 7-30-2020 at: https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2019/11/02/transit-officials-memorialize-worst-subway-crash-in-ny-history Roberts, Sam. “100 Years After New York’s Deadliest Subway Crash.” New York Times, 11-1-2018. Accessed 7-30-2020 at: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/01/nyregion/100-years-after-new-yorks-deadliest-subway-crash.html Shaw, Robert B. Down Brakes: A History of Railway Accidents, Safety Precautions and Operating Practices in the United States. London & Geneva: P.R. MacMillan Limited, 1961. Additional Reading Cudahy, Brian J. The Malbone Street Wreck. NY: Fordham University Press, 1999.