Bicycle Policeman Ajax Whitman, the strong man of the
department, did a stunt on the new Queensboro Bridge, New York,
that those who saw will never forget, and the feat is vouched
for by a large crowd who witnessed the bike cop’s job.
Thomas Jones, of No. 102 Fourth Avenue, and Charles Schoener
went over to the bridge to string lines of flags from the
various towers. Both men are steeplejacks.
Jones went up the north tower of the bridge and Schoener the
south. The men used their little steeplejack seats and pulled
themselves up. They had rigged their ropes and pulleys and were
preparing to pass a line from one to the other to string the
flags across to their respective towers when Schoener saw Jones
suddenly go limp in his seat at the top of the tower flagpole,
fall forward against it and hang there.
“What’s wrong?” called Schoener.
“I’m gradually going,” was all Jones could call back.
Schoener slid down his flagpole as fast as he could, all the
time calling for help.
Down on the roadway below the towers Whitman was walking along
with his wheel. He looked up when he heard Schoener yelling and
then he spotted Jones, who sagged forward in his seat like a
lifeless man. Whitman dropt the bicycle and ran to the little
spiral stairway that leads from the roadway to the top of
the tower. Meantime, a large crowd had been attracted by the
flagman’s peril. All vehicles at work on the bridge were stopt
and people were running in all directions trying to devise some
means of being of use. Whitman suddenly came out at the top of
the tower.
Just as Whitman appeared in sight the seat in which Jones was
sitting became loosened and as the seat started to go downward
the decorator lost his balance and shot out of the seat head
downward. Whitman braced himself against the foot of the
flagpole and held out his arms. Jones’ limp body shot down and
the big policeman acted as a net. The body fell just across
Ajax’s big arms, and then both men went over in a heap as Jones’
weight carried the policeman from his stand against the foot of
the pole.
Jones was unconscious and when the two men fell to the narrow
flooring at the top of the tower he slipt from Whitman’s grasp
and rolled toward the edge, over the river. Whitman made a
desperate grab, got hold of Jones’ coat and held fast. Others
below then regained their wits and ran up with Schoener and
pulled the unconscious man back on the tower platform.
As for Whitman, if it hadn’t been that everybody stopt work to
watch the accident and so blocked the bridge no report would
have been made, but Whitman had to account for the block of
vehicles on the roadway and he did so by stating that “an
accident to a decorator caused a ten minutes’ block of traffic
on the Queensboro Bridge.”
(1403)