FIRES

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 32, 15 October 1912, Page 8

FIRES

■ ■■ ■* •BLAZE IN AUCKLAND. , ARTISTS' ' STUDIOS DESTROYED. Ivi TKLEORAPH— PBKSS ASSOCIATION.] AUCKLAND, This Day. A fire on " the top floor ' of the Palmerston Buildings, Queen-street, about 1 o'clock this. morning, _ was confined to what is known as the artist flat, which, eXcepting'.for" one 'studio, was completely gutted. The studios destroyed were occupied by .Messrs. More-Jones, Armin Schmitt, C. Kingsley Smith, F. Langmuir, M. Levy, H. Devere, Percy, and Misses Kit Turner and Vera Jacobsen. The loss ' in pictures alone is estimated at £1000. Considerable damage from water was done to, premises in the lower portion of the building. Almost every office in tho building suffered. The are was extinguished forty minutes after the outbreak. The -caretaker's wife retired at 11 p.m., and later heard an unusual noise, and found the t studio occupied by Miss Turner ablaze. She at once gave the alarm. The insurances are: Palmerston Buildings {top flat gutted), £17,000 in the Guardian office ; . English and Foreign Piano Company's stock (badly damaged by water), £7600 in the United office} Woolbridge and Bauchan, £350 in the Atlas (total loss) j and Schmitt, £300 in the Atlas (total loss). [Some of the artists whose studios have been destroyed are showing pictures at the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts exhibition now being held in Wellington.]