A building near Manhattan’s Washington Square is the current home of New York University’s science labs, but a little more than a century ago, it was the site of one of the nation’s worst workplace disasters – and there’s a movement afoot to make sure that history is not forgotten.
A group called Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition is trying to raise $2.4 million to build a memorial to the 1911 factory fire that killed 146 workers from among the mostly vulnerable segment of society. The victims were mostly women, mostly young and mostly immigrants. Many jumped to their deaths from the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory’s upper floors in order to escape the blaze that roared through the sewing area, feeding on flammable cloth.