[The 1911 fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York
killed 146 workers, mostly young immigrant women, and galvanized the
U.S. labor movement. After 112 years, there is finally a striking and
permanent memorial on the site.]
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AFTER 112 YEARS, TRIANGLE SHIRTWAIST FIRE VICTIMS GET A MEMORIAL  
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Lola Fadulu
October 11, 2023
New York Times
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_ The 1911 fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York killed
146 workers, mostly young immigrant women, and galvanized the U.S.
labor movement. After 112 years, there is finally a striking and
permanent memorial on the site. _

A fragment of the narrative at the opening of the Triangle Shirtwaist
Fire Memorial, photo credit: xxxxxx

 

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911 was one of the most
notorious fires in New York City history, trapping workers, primarily
young immigrant women, who had endured poor conditions on the job in a
burning building they could not escape. In all, 146 workers
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in the blaze.

The fire helped galvanize a budding U.S. labor movement, but for
decades, the only memorial to its victims in the Greenwich Village
neighborhood where the factory once stood was a bronze plaque. Until
now.

On Wednesday, a striking memorial was unveiled at the building that
once housed the factory, at an event that drew descendants of the
victims and a range of public officials, including the acting labor
secretary of the United States and the governor of New York.

Gov. Kathy Hochul said that New York was “the birthplace of the
workers’ rights movement because of what happened right on this
block. That is something we tout to the rest of the world.”

The memorial — which features horizontal stainless-steel plates on
two sides of the building bearing the victims’ names and ages and a
reflective panel with survivor and eyewitness testimony — was the
result of more than a decade of work
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the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition, a group made up of labor
advocates and victims’ relatives.

“It is gratifying for all the family members of those who died in
this tragic fire to know that through the memorial, this and future
generations will learn about the fire and its significance in labor
history,” Suzanne Pred Bass said during the dedication ceremony,
which drew a crowd of hundreds. Two of her great-aunts worked at the
factory, and one of them, Rosie Weiner, died in the fire.

The building where the factory once stood is now owned by New York
University and is used mainly for its biology and chemistry
laboratories.

A second phase of the memorial, which will be completed this winter,
will feature a stainless steel ribbon reaching up to the ninth floor
of the building, from which more than 50 of the workers jumped to
their deaths.

The fire broke out on the eighth floor on March 25, 1911. There were
no overhead sprinklers in the factory, and the flames spread rapidly.
The factory did not conduct fire drills, and its managers were slow to
notify workers of the fire; they had also locked a door to one of the
staircases, preventing many of the workers from escaping.

Though the factory’s employees worked on the eighth, ninth and tenth
floors of the building, the Fire Department’s ladders reached only
as high as the sixth. Workers filed onto a poorly constructed fire
escape that collapsed.

Most of the victims were young immigrant women from Eastern Europe and
Italy who worked as many as 84 hours a week for as little as $7.

“We can imagine the black plume of smoke up in the air, the flames
that spread from floor to floor, the panic of the workers who ran and
found closed exits and broken fire escapes,” Julie Su, the acting
labor secretary, said Wednesday. “Their cries for help and then the
thud of bodies as they began to jump one after another.”

Ms. Su noted that one of the people who had “looked on in horror”
as the building burned was Frances Perkins, who happened to be nearby
and who went on to become the first woman to serve as labor secretary.

After the fire, New York began requiring automatic sprinklers in tall
buildings and fire drills in large workplaces.

Several speakers alluded to the worker protections the fire helped
usher in, including safe working conditions, fair wages and the right
to organize.

“Tragically, many of these protections are being eroded by
unscrupulous employers as greed continues to endanger workers,”
Lynne Fox, the president of Workers United, said.

Speakers mentioned the SAG-AFTRA and United Automobile Workers members
who are currently on strike, and those working to unionize at
Starbucks, Amazon, Trader Joe’s and elsewhere.

“So many of the changes that have happened in this great city have
happened as a result of tragedy, and that is not the way that it
should happen,” said Rebecca Damon, executive director for labor
policy for SAG-AFTRA’s New York local.

“But when it does happen, New Yorkers say, ‘No, we will not accept
this and we will give dignity to workers,’” Ms. Damon said.

The Triangle Shirtwaist memorial was designed by Richard Joon Yoo and
Uri Wegman, who won a design competition in 2013. New York State
offered $1.5 million for the memorial, and labor unions and
foundations also offered financial support.

Erica Lansner, 65, who attended the ceremony with her cousins, said
that it was “a great honor” to see their great-aunt Fannie
Lansner’s name etched on the memorial and to know that she was not
only a victim but also “part of a legacy of change in labor history
and fire regulations.”

Her great-aunt, an immigrant from Lithuania, helped bring other women
to safety before the elevator stopped working, Ms. Lansner said. She
jumped to her own death once it became clear that she could not
escape.

Rob del Castillo, 57, was there on Wednesday to honor his great-aunt
Josie, who had come from Sicily and was just 20 years old when she
died in the fire.

“It is incredibly poignant and compelling,” he said of the
memorial. “It’s also a reminder that although we’ve come a long
way as far as workers’ rights, in some respects we still have a long
way to go.”

Elizabeth Yuan contributed reporting.

_Lola Fadulu [[link removed]] is a general
assignment reporter on the Metro desk of The Times. She was part of a
team that was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in 2023 for coverage of
New York City’s deadliest fire in decades. More about Lola Fadulu
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* Triangle Shirtwaist fire
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* Immigrants
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* industrial safety
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* Labor Organizing
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