NYC★ WORKS
CELEBRATING LABOR IN THE BIG APPLE
NEVER FORGET: Students placed fl owers for each victim of the fi re during the 2018 event memorializing the tragic Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fi re, which killed 146 factory workers back
in 1911. Remember the Triangle File Coalition
Remembering a fi re that changed the city
Locals, unions mourn the lives lost in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory blaze
By Maya Harrison
They’re remembering
these victims more than a
century after their deaths
changed history.
Families and members
of the Workers United/
SEIU will gather on March
25 at Washington Place
and Greene Street — the
site of the former Asch
Building, whose top three
floors were once occupied
by the Triangle Shirtwaist
Company — for the 108th
anniversary of the 1911
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory
fire, one of the deadliest
industrial disasters in U.S.
history.
On March 25, 1911, a fire
killed 146 factory workers in
the building, which lacked
a sprinkler system and had
several doors sealed shut to
prevent theft, according to
the New York Daily News.
Family members will
read the names of perished
workers — nearly all
immigrant girls aged 13 to
23 — commemorating their
lives by placing flowers
at the sight of the tragedy
while a bell tolls.
During the memorial
event, a fire-truck ladder
will be raised to the sixth
f loor of the building, the
highest point the ladder
could reach in 1911, though
the fire engulfed the eighth,
ninth, and 10th f loors.
More than 40 of the
Continued on page 34
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