A four‐man board of in quiry from the Fire and Buildings Departments will meet today to start investi gating the high‐pressure steam explosion that killed seven persons Wednesday on the 36th floor at 80 Pine Street.
The board will seek to de termine causes of the rup ture of an expansion joint in a riser leading to air‐condi tioning equipment on the roof.
It will hear first a com mittee from the New York Association of Consulting En gineers, furnishing technical information on heating and ventilating systems. The ses sion will be at Fire Depart ment headquarters, at 110 Church Street, beginning at 2 P.M.
To be questioned later, are the Rudin Management Com pany, owner of the building; Consolidated Edision, which supplies steam, and the en gineers who designed the pipe system.
The expansion joint itself is “the prime suspect right now,” according to Buildings Commissioner Joseph Stein, who appointed the board jointly with Fire Com missioner Robert O. Lowery.
The two‐foot joint was taken to the Police Depart ment laboratory yesterday. It will undergo metallurgical tests for flaws and metal stress.
Close‐mouthed experts and nervously talkative office workers were at work at 80 Pine Street yesterday. Some 4,000 occupants had been evacuated the previous day.
In the building’s mechani cal areas and in the offices of General Public Utilities Cor poration, where the explosion occurred, squads of city of ficials and insurance men joined engineers and other management personnel in poring over blueprints and peering into shattered walls.
All but four of the utility company’s 30 employes who escaped uninjured from the blasted floor were at work. They were surrounded by clean‐up carts piled high with rubble and some tragic re minders, such as the blood stained attache case of one of two visiting auditors who were killed.
“Life goes on and you have to get back and get started as soon as possible,” said Mrs. Kay Drew of Staten Is land, whose office was only slightly damaged.
Richard Schmidt, chief en gineer of the building, was “being called to offices all over the place to reassure people,” one of his staff re ported.
In elevators and hallways, however, the mood was fairly calm.
“I’m sure they wouldn’t let us come in the building if it weren’t safe,” said Mrs. Doro thy Elliott, a clerk on the 15th floor.
A young woman said: “I still don’t feel in as much danger here from fire or steam—or you could even say freezing to death—as I do in most of the crummy” apartment houses I’ve lived in in New York. But I wouldn’t want my parents to hear that.”
