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The Fashion Institute of Technology exhibit of the Triangle Fire is one of many events being held throughout the city to mark the centennial anniversary of the fire. Children's pop-up books inspired the style of the display. (Amal Chen/The Epoch Times)
NEW YORK—“Like the phoenix that radiantly regenerates, we remember those who ignited a new era of return.” This opening line from one of the commemorative works by students at the Fashion Institute of Technology aptly describes the significance of remembering one of the worst fire disasters in New York City’s history.
On March 25, 1911, fire blazed through the eighth, ninth, and 10th floors of the Asch Building, now called the Brown Building, at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory on Washington Place in Greenwich Village. The fire spread so rapidly that it killed 146 workers within 30 minutes.
At least 50 people burned to death on the factory floor, 53 jumped or fell from the windows of the building, 19 fell down the elevator shaft, and over 20 tumbled to their deaths from a broken fire escape. All but 23 were women, mostly young immigrant women, and nearly half of them were teenagers.
One hundred years later, the Triangle Fire remains a harrowing and heartbreaking story. For many, the commemorations around the city this month serve as a vivid reminder of the sacrifices the victims made for the cause of employment equality and better working conditions.
Students and staff at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) held two commemorative events to honor the victims of the Triangle Fire on Wednesday. The first was the writing of victims’ names on the sidewalk at 27th Street and Seventh Avenue.
Lessons Learned
Daniel Levinson, assistant professor of American history at FIT, hosted and coordinated the first event. Students used different-colored chalk to write the names of the Triangle Fire victims on the sidewalk.
Originally known as the Asch Building, the Brown Building on Washington Place in Greenwich Village was the site of the tragic Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911. The factory burned in 30 minutes, and 146 lives were lost in the blaze. (Amal Chen/The Epoch Times)
“The lesson that people learned 100 years ago was that the government needs to take a strong role in some areas of business. A hundred years later, a lot of us have forgotten that. So we are out there reminding people,” Wilk said.
According to Wilk, the incident was a statement about the labor movement, because unions played a very important role in gaining rights for workers in the garment industry at the time.
“In fact, the women who died in the Triangle Fire died in part because an attempt to unionize there failed. Other factories in the same building were unionized. Therefore, they had shorter working hours. … It was only the un-unionized factories that still had the workers there [at the time of the incident] because of the longer hours,” said Wilk.
Second-year advertising, marketing, and communications student Melinda Biegen, 19, came to help raise awareness of the event. “All fashion design majors should know how lucky they are today. When they graduate and go out to get a job, their [work] environment is [going to be] so much better compared to 100 years ago,” she said.
“It was deeply moving, especially as a young female. Most of the women who worked in this factory and those who died were immigrants between the ages of 15 and 25,” said Daniela Maldonado, 21, first-year visual presentation and exhibition design student. “They came to this country to have a better life, and unfortunately, they were put into these working conditions and died in a terrible way,” she added.
Remembrance and Reform
The second FIT event included the “Remembrance-Response-Reform” exhibition, which featured a poignant display of the Triangle Fire to represent an appreciation for the women, men, and children who lost their lives in the fire.
Coordinated, inspired, and mentored by FIT assistant professor Anne Kong, first-year students designed 10 vignettes depicting the story of the Triangle Fire.
Students had only six weeks to transform their sketches into three-dimensional models for the display, said Kong. “The pieces that are designed are all done in a pop-up book style,” she added.
The items, produced from foam-board and paper materials, illustrated events leading up to the fire and the subsequent reforms that took place after the incident.
The color theme of the entire exhibit was white to symbolize purity and to reduce distractions, said Maldonado, who designed the “Commemoration” piece with two other students.
“We chose the phoenix as a symbolic element to represent the event. We wanted to focus on all the good things that came out of this tragedy,” said Maldonado, adding that her team wished to depict that “from the ashes, from their [the victims’] suffering, a lot of good things came for generations to come.”
Christine Fillat, a photographer, and Louise Nelson, a teacher from Maryland, found the exhibit very moving.
Pointing to the wall display, Fillat said: “This is nicely rendered. It is completely evocative of the tragedy. The girls held hands and they jumped together. They had no choice. I can just imagine what it’s like for them—the hopelessness.”
The exhibit provided an insight into the lives of working-class men and women and the horrific conditions they worked in during the early 1900s.
Free and open to the public, the Triangle Fire exhibition will be on display until March 29 in the Fred P. Pomerantz Art and Design Building on 27th Street and Seventh Avenue.
Susan Harris, 62, paternal granddaughter of Max Blanck, one of the owners of the Triangle factory, will be at a reception at the New York City Fire Museum on Saturday, March 26. The reception will feature a commemorative antique Edwardian embroidery piece made by Harris and the descendants of the victims. The piece is not yet finished; Harris hopes that other descendants will complete it by embroidering their names.
“My father, my mother, and grandmother did not speak of it [the fire] to me. It was too painful for them,” Harris said, adding that her grandmother’s brother, Jacob Bernstein, and other family members also perished in the fire.
