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McHENRY PLAINDEALER Section A Wednesday. August 14,1985 Page n Nation Subway clerks demand safety By Philip Newman United Press International , NEW YORK -- A woman who works in a subway token booth said she is so afraid she spends her days reciting the 23rd Psalm and another broke down and wept during a union news conference demanding more protection for clerks. . A Transport Workers Union offi­ cial Monday said the situation was qt "epidemic levels" with attacks on seven clerks in the past month. One was shot and killed and others were held hostage, threatened with guns, stoned and robbed. Vivian Smith, who works in a sta­ tion in Brooklyn, told of two attacks rin her station and was asked if she Nwas afraid. i "I repeat the 23rd Psalm all day when I am on the job," she id. Smith said the most recent inci­ dent occurred about 11:45 a.m. on July 10, when thugs hurled paving £tones into the window of her booth, pending splinters of glass that caused injuries for which she re­ ceived 21 stitches. i Wendy Cameron said she had sur­ vived two attacks and had been receiving psychiatric treatment, tut still could not go back to work. J "We are trapped in the booths," she said. "The criminals know we }ave to come out onto the platform £ collect the tokens sooner or ter." I As Cameron spoke, her voice fi­ nally broke and she wept, unable to finish the tale of her experience.' j Jose Pagan, 26, was shot last month after only 15 days oh the job ifc the Bronx. He died Friday. • $ Storms possible off Cuba k *MIAMI (UPI) - A tropical de­ pression that was expected to devel­ op into a tropical storm failed to strengthen off the Cuban coast ay but forecasters warned it 1 could become dangerous in the warm Gulf waters. Top winds were only 35 mph, still 4gnph short of the 39 it would need U} become Tropical Storm Danny, the season's fourth named storm. •The tropical depression passed oter the western tip offcluba over­ night and was located at noon Tues­ day just off the western tip of Cuba in the southeastern Gulf of Mexico, ai| advisory said. It was moving toward the northwest at 12 mph, a course it was expected to continue fcir 12 to 24 hours. ^'Satellite pictures this morning s!k>w that the depression in the ex­ treme southeastern Gulf of Mexico is- still very disorganized and the ejected strengthening has been de­ lated," the advisory said. Meanwhile, Hurricane Claudette was causing few problems over the ti Atlantic. audette was located at latitude 35^5 north, longitude 59.5 west or about 380 miles from Bermuda and moving harmlessly toward the st at 25 mph. Weathermen it would lose strength by orecasters said they weren't ex- Sy sure why the depression did intensify as expected when it red into the southeastern Gulf of Mtxico. tit's because we don't understand fully everything that happens in the trqpics," said Bob Case of the hurri- caae center. "We have about three orfrour items we look for that we are neccessary for develop- t. Yet, there are times we see variables occurring, but noth- happens." $ase said the biggest problem th$ inhibited growth seemed to be a tack of flow of warm air into the sy$em at low levels "at the surface wtere we live." He said forecasters weren't sure why that wasn't taking pUfce. 8e said the storm could still be­ come Danny and menace the Gulf Jt still has the expanse of the Giflf to go across," Case said. "Con­ ditions aren't completely ideal now, buf the most foolish thing to do at this time of. year is to turn our back onlt. That would be the time it would explode in your face," Case said. casters advised operators of smhll craft in western Cuba and the soixheastern Gulf to stay near port. {he tropical Repression formed Sunday night and early Monday, growing out of a tropical wave that pushed through the Caribbean dur­ ing the weekend. £ Wt Dî im tip some isavings* "Buy US. Savings Bonds. T ' : Robert Fulton, vice president of Local 100 of the union, said TWU President Sonny Hall met earlier Monday with Mayor Edward Koch and Police Commissioner Benjamin Ward and delivered a proposal to improve security for the clerks. "Our 4,000 railroad clerks are stit- ting ducks and open targets," Hall said. "Attacks and holdups against clerks have reached epidemic levels." He called on the Transit Authority, t o h i r e 4 0 0 g a t e g u a r d s immediately. "Their uniformed presence will not only be a crime deterrent... but it would slash fare beating, which I estimate to be as much as a 50 percent loss in some of the sta­ tions," Hall said. Hall also asked for more police to patrol stations and the installation of one-way glass in booths. Fulton held the news conference in the 109th Street station of the IND Eighth Avenue line, which TWU of­ ficials called "a criminal's haven and one of the worst subway sta­ tions mUhe system." Disaster recurs in ghostly way JAMESTOWN, Calif. (UPI) - A historic hotel with a colorful Gold Rush past keeps bursting into flames. Its owners blame an arsonist -- one that's been dead 100 years or so. . Ghost experts say it could be the work of a grudge- bearing, bald-headed, pajama-clad spirit who may have caused the great Jamestown mining disaster in the 1850s that killed 23 people. In the past decade, the 123-year-old Willow Hotel has been struck by mysterious fires five times. Flames nearly burned it to the ground in 1975 and the most recent blaze, July 20, destroyed the former two-story hotel-restaurant's 80-year-old annex. "I said to myself, 'Oh no, not the ghosts again," said Deanna Mooney, who bought the hotel with her hus­ band Sean in 1972. Former bartender Mike Cusentino, 55, said he first saw the apparition in 1973. "I woke up one night in one of the eight hotel rooms upstairs and there's this little gray guy right at the door, about 6 feet away from me." he said. ' He was in his 60s, bald-headed with a fringe of hair around the top wearing pajames and a bathrobe. The Willows was once the pride of the "Gateway to the Mother Lode," as the Sierra foothills town of Jamestown was known during its wild mining days, and" boasted gunslingers such as Bat Masterson among its guests. I 8 (A #1 • M r Jt. A - S v! b * ni