Word: smokes
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...grew as if it were fed by celluloid and gasoline. In five minutes it crumbled marble, melted doorknobs, roared up the multiple chimneys formed by the elevator shafts and the stair wells of the 22-story building. Walls took fire on the first five floors. Superheated gases and choking smoke blew through corridors all the way to the roof. But for what seemed a long time the streets outside stayed as dark and quiet as if nothing had happened. Then, at last, glass shattered and tinkled and a woman screamed. Fire trucks raced up, sirens moaning...
Upstairs, hundreds of people had been awakened to horror. Some were called by room telephones-a 44-year-old operator named Mrs. Julia Barry stayed at the switchboard, managed to work a few minutes before she died. But most of the guests were awakened by screams, the smell of smoke, the noise. Almost automatically they opened corridor doors and were driven back by heat and smoke. They ran to their windows, looked down the clifflike side of the building at the silent crowds in the street...
After that, numbly or with blind desperation, they tried to stay alive. The lights went out on many floors after a while, but scores of people crept out into the hot, dark, smoke-filled corridors hunting for fire escapes. Gasping dozens suffocated, lay still after going a few feet. A few people shut themselves into bathrooms. Most stayed at their windows, screaming, waving sheets, tossing down lamps and bric-a-brac to attract attention...
...Heroes. But there was still heat, smoke and fearful confusion upstairs. Firemen worked until they dropped in dark, furniture-cluttered labyrinths. Nameless heroes appeared. A tall, well-dressed man knocked on scores of doors, chatted coolly and politely, led the terrified to safety. A sailor roamed the smoking corridors knocking out fear-maddened men, dragging them limply to fire escapes. And there were more furtive figures-looters moved in the confusion, rifling suitcases and running their hands carefully over the dead...
Just six hours before Dickey took over the Yanks, Chicago had a managerial upheaval too. It was twelve years ago that gabby James J. Dykes blew a smoke ring, calmly stabbed it with a pudgy forefinger and became manager of the Chicago White Sox. Since then he has averaged 15 cigars a day, and six seasons in the second division, and got stomach trouble worrying along his mediocre players. After the White Sox lost their 10th game in 13 last week, Jimmy Dykes quit under pressure. His successor: 45-year-old Ted Lyons, the Sox's veteran Sunday pitcher...