30 MARCH 18, 2021 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
Recalling the Triangle Shirtwaist fi re and its ties to Queens
BY THE OLD TIMER
OUR NEIGHBORHOOD: THE WAY IT WAS
EDITORIAL@RIDGEWOODTIMES.COM
@RIDGEWOODTIMES
Every year, prior to the COVID-
19 pandemic, Christ the King
High School in Middle Village
played host to a commemoration of
the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire
in Manhattan — one of the worst
tragedies to hit New York City in
the 20th century.
The longtime chairman of Christ
the King’s board of directors, former
state Senator Serphin Maltese,
along with his brothers Vincent and
Andrew, organized the annual memorial
service. The Maltese brothers
lost three members in the tragic
blaze — Caterina, their grandmother,
and Rosaria and Lucia, two aunts.
“We’re hopeful that this is a rejuvenation
of their memory. If we
honor their memory, we’ll ensure
that nothing like that ever happens
again,” Serphin Maltese said during
the 2011 ceremony that marked the
centennial anniversary of the horrific
blaze.
The tragedy occurred on March
25, 1911, 110 years ago this month.
The victims of the tragedy were
mostly immigrant workers who
endured horrific conditions to
earn a paycheck for their families.
It was those horrific conditions
that wound up contributing to their
deaths on that fateful day — and
spurred a modern labor movement
to ensure future tragedies could be
avoided.
Cemeteries across Queens, including
All Faiths (nee Lutheran) and
Mount Zion Cemeteries in Middle
Village and Maspeth, respectively,
serve as the final resting places for
some of the 146 garment workers
who lost their lives.
Before the horrific events of Sept.
11, 2001, the Triangle Shirtwaist factory
fire was considered by some to
be the darkest day in the history of
New York City.
The terrorist attacks on the World
Trade Center, 20 years ago this September,
and the tragic sweatshop
fire in 1911 bore one particularly
morbid resemblance.
In both incidents, numerous
victims — trapped by flames many
stories above ground and with no
path to safety available to them —
chose to leap to their deaths rather
than succumb to the heavy smoke
and fire that surrounded them.
Newspaper accounts of the Triangle
Shirtwaist fire described the
horror and shock expressed by onlookers
as they witnessed body after
body fly out of the upper floors of
the factory to the sidewalk below.
Ninety years later, that same
horror and shock was felt by the
thousands of New Yorkers near the
World Trade Center who saw people
take fatal plunges out of the burning
Twin Towers.
Although the nature of the attacks
on the World Trade Center
left so many victims hopelessly
trapped, many of those who died
in the Triangle Shirtwaist fire had
perished needlessly — as the exits
they tried to use to get out of the
burning building had been locked
from the outside.
It was one of many safety hazards
commonplace among American industry
at the time that would only
be remedied years later, spurred
by the outrage of New Yorkers and
labor leaders in the wake of the
Photo via The Villager
deadly inferno.
THE HORRIFIC TIMELINE
The Triangle Shirtwaist factory
began at around 4:45 p.m. on Saturday,
Mar. 26, 1911 inside the upper three
fl oors of the Asch Building at the corner
of Greene Street and Washington
Place in Greenwich Village. Inside, 500
workers — mostly teenage, immigrant
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