Triangle Fire Victims Remembered Locally

The Christ the King Concert Chorus sing inspirational hymns at a Triangle Shirtwaist factory memorial held at the school’s CNL Cultural Center Friday, Mar. 25. Some descendants of the 146 factory workers who died in the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire in lower Manhattan 100 years ago last Friday, Mar. 25, joined residents and community leaders at memorial services in Maspeth and Middle Village to mark the centennial anniversary of the tragedy.

Christ the King Regional High School hosted one of the ceremonies at its CNL Cultural Center last Friday. Among those on hand was the chairman of the school’s board of trustees, former State Sen. Serphin Maltese, as well as his brothers Vincent and Andrew.

The Malteses lost their grandmother, Caterina, and two aunts, Rosaria and Lucia, in the Mar. 25, 1911 inferno at the factory in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan considered to be the worst industrial disaster in New York City’s history and which also sparked the enactment of key labor and building laws.

Vincent Maltese (at far right) was the recipient of a lifetime dedicated service award presented to him by his brother Serphin Maltese (second from right). Also pictured are (from left to right) masters of ceremony Anthony Como and Gabriella Sfera, along with Andrew Maltese. Maltese and his brothers helped to form the Triangle Fire Memorial Association (TFMA), which has organized a litany of events aimed at reminding the public of the horror and destruction which the fire caused. The TFMA held a memorial service in honor of the casualties of the unforgiving fire at Our Lady of Pompei Church in Greenwich Village, just blocks away from the former Asch Building that housed the manufacturing plant.

“We’re hopeful that this is a rejuvenation of their memory. If we honor their memory, we’ll ensure that nothing like that ever happens again,” Maltese told guests at the CNL Cen- ter. He described how the 1911 catastrophe tore half his family apart, forcing his grandfather, Serafino, to raise his two sons, Paolo and Vito, by himself.

P.S. 229 sixth-grader Maddalena Carusone (second from left) reads a detailed account of the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire while standing in front of the monument dedicated to the tragedy during a 100th Anniversary tribute at the Mt. Zion Cemetery in Maspeth. He described the deplorable working conditions the Triangle Shirtwaist employees—mostly young Jewish and Italian immigrant girls—had to endure as they worked “cheek to jowl” at their respective sewing machines, where they were expected to produce at such a rapid pace that they often had sewing needles puncture holes their fingers.

Dignitaries gathered at the grave of Bertha Greb, a victim of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire buried at All Faiths Cemetery in Middle Village, during a memorial ceremony Wednesday, Mar. 23. The service was one of several events marking the 100th anniversary of the tragedy. Among those pictured above are former State Sen. Serphin Maltese (third from right) and his brother, Vincent Maltese, both of whom lost relatives in the fire and All Faiths Cemetery President Daniel Austin (third from left). “The building was fireproof; the women were not,” Maltese stated, as he described the obstacles that made escaping the unrelenting inferno an arduous task for many of the victims, such as a ninth-floor exit door that could only be pulled inward and a rotting fire escape that totally collapsed under the intense heat caused by a cigarette carelessly tossed into a can of garment renderings.

City Council Member Daniel Halloran attended the ceremony to honor the Triangle Fire Memorial Association with a proclamation. While people on the 10th floor— including business owners Max Blanck and Isaac Harris—of the building were able to make their way to safety by accessing the location’s rooftop, several people on the lower floors resorted to either cramming themselves into an elevator that eventually gave out or leaping out of windows. To make matters worse, fire ladders on the scene only reached up to the sixth floor.

It was reported that 32 fire laws were modified in the years following the fire. New legislation mandated fire drills at industrial sites, set occupancy limits in buildings and called for exit signs to be clearly installed in order for everyone to see them.

By 1913, New York had reportedly passed over 30 labor laws that further put child labor restrictions into motion, as well as requiring overall safer working conditions. Federal measures were later put into place under President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal pact in the 1930s.

“Those who labor should labor in physical safety and it should be our concern that whatever dangers they face should be minimal,” remarked Rabbi Morton Pomerantz during one of the invocations.

City Council Member Daniel Halloran likened the plight of Italian and Jewish workers during the early 1900s to what many of his Irish forefathers experienced about 50 years earlier when the Irish were called the “donkeys” and had to take jobs no one else wanted.

Tony Di Piazza, a community activist and chairperson of the Associazione Culturale Italiana (ACI) di New York, followed the elected official’s lead by asking those in attendance to remember the sacrifices of non-English speaking Italian immigrants who did whatever they could to survive.

Similarly, those congregated last Friday at the Mt. Zion Cemetery, the burial site of 16 of the Jewish victims of Eastern European descent, were also appreciative of the hardship their progenitors had to deal with, as most of them traveled by sea to enter the new world through Ellis Island.

“Many of us old folks came here from immigrant families … they had to struggle to make it. All of our families had people who worked in knitting mills. They worked hard so we could live the lives we live now,” observed Community Board 5 Chairperson Vincent Arcuri.

Queens Jewish Historical Society (QJHS) President Jeff Gottlieb weighed in on immigrants toiling in sweat shops and used the Triangle Shirtwaist disaster as an example of why labor unions are necessary to safeguard workers and ensuring their rights.

The graveyard tribute concluded with sixth-grade students from P.S. 229 in Maspeth standing in front of a Triangle Shirtwaist Factory monument and reciting the harrowing events of the deadly blaze. Among them were Ciara Keough, who recounted in detail what took place by reading the testimony of one of the surviving factory workers.

At the event, P.S. 229 teacher Caroline Roswell explained the significance of the fire by labeling it as a turning point in passing necessary landmark legislation. She mentioned how the students of her class wrote the names of all 146 individuals who succumbed to the fire on a stretch of side walk outside her school, located at 67-25 51st Rd. near Maurice Avenue.

Msgr. Peter Zendzian of Holy Cross Church in Maspeth summed up the thoughts of many attendees: “So often it is the innocent, ordinary person to have the biggest impact on us. We have to watch out for those who are innocent because they are in God’s hands.”