Duly Noted: Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

(Image from Wikimedia Commons)

Some six months ago, a post in this department noted the fiftieth anniversary of a relatively unknown tragedy in Park Slope. Today's post marks the 100th anniversary of another tragedy, but one you've likely heard of: the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire -- often held up as a catalyst for workplace safety laws, and as a prime example of why measures such as fire drills are necessary.


The fire killed 146 workers -- most of then young women -- at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, which occupied the top three floors of the ten-story Asch Building on the corner of Washington Place and Greene Street, just off Washington Square. It started in a wastebasket on the eighth floor, and spread quickly, growing so quickly that it was out of control before anyone had much chance to control it in the first place.

Remains of the fire
escape (NY Times)

One worker on the eighth floor placed a call to the tenth floor, but no call alerted those on the ninth floor. One of the NY Times articles says this is because the worker who received the call on the tenth floor did not hang up the phone, but I think in von Drehle's book it said that the ninth floor did not have a phone. Either way, most of those on the eighth and tenth floors escaped, while many of the 250 workers on the ninth were not so fortunate. Some made their way down the fire escape before it collapsed -- and indeed, in photos of its twisted remains, the fire escape looks rickety and hardly of much use in evacuating a crowded workplace in a fire. Many of those who escaped by means other than the stairs did so by way of the freight elevators; Joseph Zito and Gaspar Mortillalo, who ran the elevators, risked their own lives to save as many as they could, until the elevators failed.



Further reading
David von Drehle, Triangle: The Fire That Changed America
Leon Stein, The Triangle Fire


Links
Article on Wikipedia
Blog posts from The Bowery Boys:
-  "Some Basic Information" (Feb. 28)
-  "Where they lived" (Mar. 24)
Posts from the New York Times City Room blog:
-  "A Half-Hour of Horror" (Mar. 21)
-  "The Building Survives" (Mar. 22)
-  "A Frontier in Photojournalism" (Mar. 23)
-  "Liberating Clothing Made in Confinement" (Mar. 22)
Blog post from the New-York Historical Society
Blog post from Ephemeral New York, on Zito and Mortillalo
Information from About.com Women's History

Duly Noted: Evacuation Day

On November 25, 1783, British troops left New York City, which they had occupied since 1776.

Links:
Entry for The Battle of Brooklyn in this blog's Duly Noted section
Wikipedia article about Evacuation Day
Wikipedia article describing the history of New York during this period (and section of the main article detailing the city's history)

Yarn Overkill

Along with all the other members of the Park Slope Knitting Circle, I received an e-mail from its organizer the other day about Smiley's Yarn's Manhattan Sale. For those of you readers unfamiliar with Smiley's, they offer yarns for cheap. Granted' it's not the high-end deluxe stuff, but it isn't exactly the kind of bargain-basement yarn of questionable fiber content one might associate with the word "cheap" either. What there is a lot of is good, mid-range stuff: companies like Bernat, Patons, Red Heart, and Lion Brand are all well-represented here.

Now, this is the first time I've bought from Smiley's. Why? Mostly because they're somewhere out in Queens, and I don't know my way around Queens. So when I heard about the Manhattan Sale I pretty much knew I was going quicker than you can say "yarn sale." (I even considered calling in 'sick' to work.) For $85 and the modest effort of traipsing up to Columbus Circle after work (half a block from Herald Square), I waddled home with ten balls of Adriafil Felis, ten more of Lucci Yarn Whisper, nine skeins of Lion Brand's Lion Chenille Print, and three balls of Lion Brand Trellis in each of three colors. It took up two-thirds of a garbage bag. Here's what the haul looked like on the dining-room table:


Not bad for $85 and an extra subway fare. Not bad at all. (Better pictures will come when I decide what the hell I'm going to do with all this yarn.)

Photo: Potted Plants, St-Guilhem Cloister

Potted Plants, St-Guilhem Cloister
Originally uploaded by The Loopweaver

I got an e-mail this morning that this photo was shortlisted for inclusion on Schmap.com's guide to New York City. I agree that it's a decent shot, but I'm a little surprised that they went for this one and not, say, the double capital I took in this same part of The Cloisters.

The full list of my Cloisters photos can be found in a Flickr set.

Shots they passed over include: