How Greenwich Village Remembers the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

On the afternoon of Saturday, March 25, 1911, sirens blared through the streets of Greenwich Village. Alarmed by the urgency of the fire trucks whizzing by, many residents, including future U.S. Labor Secretary Frances Perkins and future New York State Assemblyman Louis Waldman, followed their path. Arriving at the Asch Building, on the corner of Washington Place and Greene Street, onlookers found the 8th, 9th, and 10th floors ablaze.

Waldman recounted the scene later on, saying:

“When we arrived at the scene, the police had thrown up a cordon around the area, and the firemen were helplessly fighting the blaze. The eighth, ninth, and tenth stories of the building were now an enormous roaring cornice of flames…Word had spread through the East Side, by some magic of terror, that the plant of the Triangle Waist Company was on fire and that several hundred workers were trapped. Horrified and helpless, the crowds – I among them – looked up at the burning building, saw girl after girl appear at the reddened windows, pause for a terrified moment, and then leap to the pavement below.”

This fire, known as the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, ended up being one of the most tragic and deadly workplace accidents in United States history.

Workers on the 8th and 10th floors were able to escape the flames. However, those on the 9th floor, where the rear door was locked to prevent theft, were trapped. The locked exit, the collapse of the fire escape, and the inability of the fire truck ladders to reach above the sixth floor resulted in the death of 146 workers, mostly young immigrant women.

The aftermath of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire helped lead to the establishment of better labor practices and laws to protect workers and create safer workplaces.  It took the gravity of this tragedy, and its inherent visibility, being in the center of Greenwich Village, to further galvanize the labor community in their fight for these protections. 

Today, the fire is remembered as one of the defining moments in both NYC and U.S. labor reform history. In our neighborhoods, many annual and year-round memorializations of the Fire take place, ensuring that its place in the Greenwich Village story is passed on for generations.

“Chalk”

Started by artist Ruth Sergel in 2004 and now run by the Tenement Museum, Chalk is a project that honors each victim of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire each year on March 25th.

Volunteer participants, scattered around the city, chalk the names and ages of each victim in front of their respective former homes. This city-wide memorial allows passersby to understand the scale of this tragedy and ensures each worker who died in the fire is remembered not only as a part of the incident, but also as an individual.

The Commemoration

Each year, at the site of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, a crowd gathers to collectively honor the victims. Led by NYC Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO, Workers United, SEIU, and the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition, this annual commemoration includes speakers, a reading of the victims’ names by their family members, and the laying of flowers on the site.

Additionally, a fire ladder is raised to the sixth floor, in order to visualize the highest point that could be reached in 1911, much lower than the 9th floor where workers were trapped.

The commemoration educates labor union members, activists, students, and community allies about workplace safety, collective bargaining rights, and the importance of standing together to protect workers’ safety. It serves as an opportunity to honor those who perished in 1911, while also acting as a catalyst for continued progress in labor rights and organizing.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire Memorial

The permanent memorial honoring the Triangle Shirtwaist victims was completed in 2023 and dedicated that year on the 112th anniversary of the fire. Long-awaited, this memorial was the result of tireless advocacy on the part of community groups, including the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition.

The memorial tells the story of the fire in the languages spoken by the victims: English, Yiddish, and Italian. Notably, it is one of the only memorials in America dedicated to workers.

The lower section of the Memorial is made up of a textured, stainless steel structure, meant to emulate a fabric ribbon. It is twelve feet above the sidewalk, on the building’s southern and eastern facades. The names and ages of the 146 victims are engraved into this ribbon, and are mirrored in a dark reflective panel. As visitors walk the length of the memorial, the names of the victims overhead appear in this reflective panel, as if written in the sky. Quotes from survivor and eyewitness testimonies are etched along the lower edge of the reflective panel, inviting the visitor to look down into the reflection and discover the names of the victims and their stories.

To learn more about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire and its commemoration, watch Village Preservation’s program recording with Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition here.