Seven Teenagers Hurt
In Crash In Brookline
1934 Auto Smashed
Broadside Into Pole
Seven teenagers were injured, three
critically, when their auto smashed broadside into a utility pole in
Brookline shortly after midnight.
To help the victims, twelve police
cars and ambulances were sent to the scene on Brookline Boulevard.
Five bystanders in the large crowd
that gathered were arrested for interference.
The injured are:
Carl Weber, 16, of 1320 Milan Avenue,
Brookline, the driver, in South Side Hospital with a broken left arm and
leg.
Peter Rauch, 15, of 1636 Reamer Street,
Brookline, in the same hospital with a compound skull fracture.
Richard Cea, 16, of 1530 Reamer Street,
in Mercy Hospital with a fractured skull.
Peggy Lou Lester, 16, of the Chappel
Avenue Trailer Camp, in Mercy Hospital with a broken hip, shock, and possible
internal injuries.
Fred Ober, 17, of 310 Chalfont Street,
Mount Oliver, in South Side Hospital with head injuries.
Martha Unitas, 15, of 2413 Bazore Street,
Brookline, in South Side Hospital with internal injuries, scalp cuts and hip
injury.
Frederick Zuck, 16, of 1013 Mt. Oliver
Street, in Allegheny General Hospital with head injury and shock.
Most seriously hurt are Rauch, Cea and
the Lester girl, police said.
Youth Given Blood
Attendants at South Side Hospital said
young Rauch was given oxygen and blood plasma throughout the night. His father,
Leonard, is a South Hills contractor.
Nicholas Cea, father of the Cea boy, is
head waiter at Kaufmann's Department Store restaurant.
The injured were strewn around the street
by the terrific force of the crash in front of 1160 Brookline
Boulevard.
The crowd that quickly gathered, including
patrons of a corner saloon, tried to help the unconscious victims.
Crowd Restrained
Police had to restrain them, not allowing
the injured to be moved until the ambulances arrived.
Five police ambulances took them to the
hospitals.
In keeping back the throng, police arrested
the five bystanders for disorderly conduct.
Homicide Detectives Edward Koch and Francis
Flannery said that only the Unitas girl regained consciousness soon after reaching
the hospital.
Were in 1934 Packard
But she was too dazed to remember even who
was driving the 1934 model Packard.
Police learned, however, that the five boys
had gone in a movie early in the evening and later stopped at the weekly Friday
night dance for teenagers in Cedar of Lebanon dance hall.
They met the girls there and were taking
them home when the crash occurred.
The detectives found two witnesses to the
crash. Thomas Leonard, 15, of 1572 Greencrest Drive, and Clark Presti, 15, of
Bellaire Place.
Boulevard Was Wet
They said the car was traveling about forty
to forty-five miles an hour when it went into a skid on the rain-click boulevard
and crashed into the pole.
The five men arrested were fined $5 each
today by Magistrate William Redmond for disorderly conduct.
They are John H. Thomas, 45, of 2129
Pioneer Avenue; Charles Goldbach, 33, of 1837 Dunster Street; Norman C. Meyer,
55, of 1633 Creedmoor Avenue; George Stranas, 39, of 718 Dunster Street and
John B. Irelan, 50, of 1206 Wareman Avenue.
Interfering With Police at last night's
crash cost these men $5 each today at a hearing in police court.
Left to right: John Thomas, Charles Goldbach, Norman Meyer, George Stranas
and John Irelan.
Officers Threatened
Patrolmen Clifford Baxter and James J.
Leone said they first arrested Thomas. As they were taking him to a call box,
a voice from the crowd shouted.
"We ought to kick the hell out of those
cops."
This stirred up the throng, resulting
in the arrest of the four others, Thomas told the magistrate:
I was excitied. I'd had an accident
at that pole myself once and we'd been trying to get it removed. I suppose I
did get out of bounds last night."
Each paid the fines.
* Copied from
the Pittsburgh Press - May 23, 1953 *
The "Bad Spot" - This intersection of
Brookline Boulevard, Whited Street and Merrick Avenue
is termed the danger spot in the Brookline tussle with City Council over
traffic conditions
in the area. The white-striped utility poles form the chief basis for
contention.
Brookline Parents
Beg City To End Traffic "Slaughter"
Delegation Attends Council
Meeting, Demanding Elimination of "Death Corner"
Brookline's teenager auto accident has
crashed into City Council chambers.
Community residents, including the
father of a severely injured child, demanded safety measures from Council at
a hearing yesterday..
One member of the delegation warned that
death always lurks at the corner, where seven teenagers were injured early
Saturday morning.
Blame Utility Poles
A nearby tavern owner said there had
been so many injured at the spot that his place has become an "evacuation
center."
Most of the delegation blamed a cluster
of utility poles into which motorists crash when they are compelled to make a
sharp left turn in crossing the trolley tracks.
The danger spot is located at the
intersection with Merrick Avenue, where the outbound lane of the boulevard
abruptly ends by turning across the track. Removal of the utility poles was
demanded by the delegation
Seven Hurt In Crash
It included Leonard A. Rauch, of 1636
Reamer Street.
Mr Rauch had tragic grounds for calling
it a "bad spot." His 15-year old son, Peter, suffered compound fractures of
the skull when an auto hit one of the poles Saturday.
Six other teenagers were hurt in this
crash, which has aroused the community into demanding that the City take steps
to halt the slaughter.
In an emotional plea before the Council
chambers, Mr. Rauch described the effects of the last accident. He
said:
"You are having accidents all over, but
this is a very bad spot. This accident will cost thousands of dollars in
operations and restoring the health of these children."
Mr. Rauch described the hospital scenes
after the accident, with children lying in emergency rooms,
adding:
"My boy, with the grace of God, will
come out of this, but he is in a very critical condition."
He described the location of the
utility poles, used by the Pittsburgh Railways Company, which stand at the
end of the outbound lane where it turns across the trolley track. Declared
Mr. Rauch:
"Every accident is caused by a car
hitting a pole, not hitting other cars. The real reason (for the accidents)
is definitely the poles."
He suggested that Council insist on
the removal of the poles by the trolley firm.
Thomas J. Gallagher, chairman of
Council's Hearing Committee, and a resident of Brookline, promptly said
that Public Works Director James S. Devlin would ask the company to removed
the poles.
After listening to further complaints,
Mr. Gallagher appointed a special council committee to work out the safety
plan with the trolley firm.
Some of these complaints were strong
enough to shake Council, including a reference to the number of motorists
injured at the spot.
Milton Denmark, who runs a tavern
at 1162 Brookline Boulevard, said:
"I own a corner tavern (where the
accidents occur). It has become a point of evacuation, as all the wounded
people are brought in."
"The slightest bit of rain will make
the roadway slippery. If you brake your car, you start drifting. If you
start sliding down the hill, even at twenty-five miles an hour, you will
wrap your car around a pole."
At a protest meeting over the near-fatal
car accident last Friday night involving seven teenagers. These Brookline
residents gathered to list demands that will be placed before
City Council today by Elmer Steuernagel,
president of the Community Council. The meeting was held at Frank F. DeBor
Funeral Home.
The recent accident record was
reported to Council by Elmer Steuernagel, of 380 Lamarido Street, president
of the Brookline Community Civic Council.
He claimed there had been eight
serious accidents in the last three years, including "one of our doctors
who skidded and hit a pole, and dislocated a shoulder.
Mr. Steuernagel said parking on the
boulevard, just before the turn, cramped motorists into a narrow lane,
making it especially dangerous and slippery.
He added that police had put on a
four-day campaign by tagging parking violators, but this "has died
away."
Councilman Patrick T. Fagan, also
a Brookline resident, jumped into the discussion by asking how fast the
unidentified doctor was traveling.
Mr. Fagan supplied his own answer
by asserting that the doctor's car "was wrapped around the pole" and that
would mean the car had been traveling "fifty to sixty miles an
hour.
Mrs. Dorothy Domostoy, of 1115
Brookline Boulevard, retorted that the doctor "had not been speeding,
although his car was completely banged in.
"Somebody is going to get killed
there," Council was warned by John H. Thomas, of 2129 Pioneer Avenue, who
said he was representing "the general public."
Mr. Thomas was one of the five men
arrested at the time of the teenager accident, and fined $5 each for
disorderly conduct.
Got "Out Of Bounds"
He admitted at the time that he had
tried to get the pole removed, and had got "out of bounds" when the police
arrived.
Mr. Thomas suggested that a traffic
light, erected a block away, would "slow down motorists."
Mr. Rauch also suggested that the
boulevard be continued on down the hill, and around to Route 51, as
previously requested by Brookline delegations.
But this was disapproved by
Council President Gallagher, who said the project would cost "about
one-half million dollars," adding:
"Council would be happy to do it,
but the money is not there."
He appointed Bennett Rodgers,
chairman of the Committee on Public Works; William H. Davis, chairman
of the Public Safety Committee, and Emanuel Schifano, chairman of the
Committee on Public Service and Surveys, to confer with the trolley
company. Possibility of installing a red blinker will be studied by
the Bureau of Traffic Planning.
Mr. Rodgers said that if there
was no cooperation from the trolley firm, Council will consult with the
Law Department to see what can be done.
* Copied from
the Pittsburgh Press - May 26/27, 1953 * |