Scores of New Yorkers from trade unions, community groups, and school children gathered just off Washington Square in Greenwich Village on March 25 to commemorate the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911 and remember those who died in the fire, many of whom were young immigrant workers, most of them women.  The ceremony was held outside the building that housed the factory back then, which is now part of the campus of New York University.  Speakers included local trade union leaders, public officials, clergy, and first responders, including Rabbi Michael Feinberg of the Greater New York Labor-Religion Coalition, Stuart Appelbaum of the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Workers, NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer, and NYC Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito.  Specially-featured speakers were leaders from the “new labor organizing movement” that focuses on fast-food workers, airport workers, and “car washeros”, many of whom are immigrants and work in potentially-dangerous circumstances.

Members of Workers United, a successor union to the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, held aloft on poles dresses and shirts each bearing the name of one of the casualties of the historic fire.  At the end of the ceremony, a stream of people read off their names and placed a white carnation for each at the foot of the building adjacent to a fire truck with its ladder raised against it.  A uniformed fire fighter rang a bell for each name as a recording of bag pipe music played in the background.  Among those reading off the names were public school students, immigrant trade unionists, and some descendants of those who died in the fire, who directly referenced their own ancestors.  Following those names, red carnations were added for the many garment workers who’ve died in similar factory fires and accidents in Asia in recent years.

146 workers, 123 women and 23 men, perished on the late Saturday afternoon in 1911 when a fire engulfed floors eight through ten of the Asch Building on the corner of Washington Place and Greene Street. Though firefighters responded promptly, their ladders only reached up to the sixth floor. The shoddy fire escape quickly collapsed, taking 20 workers down with it. With one stairway exit blocked by flames and the others locked by the owners, workers faced a choice between jumping to their deaths or succumbing to flame and smoke. The horror of the fire led to the fight for and implementation of a wide array of new health and safety standards in the workplace at the city, state, and federal levels, as well as the formation of the American Society of Safety Engineers.