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Hellraisers Journal – Monday March 27, 1911
New York City – Mothers Sob and Keen for Blocks Around Site of Tragic Fire
From Forverts of March 26, 1911
-“The Entire Jewish Quarter Is In Grief”
From the New York Tribune of March 26, 1911:
Nearly one hundred and fifty lives were lost in a fire that swept through the three upper stories of a ten story factory loft building at the northwest corner of Washington Place and Greene street at 5 o’clock yesterday afternoon, occupied by the Triangle Waist Company and a clothing house. At midnight 142 bodies had been taken to the morgue.
Fire Chief Croker said:
This calamity is just what I have been predicting. There were no outside fire escapes on this building. I have been advocating and agitating that fire escapes be put on buildings just such as this. This large loss of life is due to this neglect.
Thirteen of the victims were men; 129 were women and girts.
The cause of the fire is unknown. No one has tried to do mort than guess at it.
Scenes of almost indescribable horror attended the catastrophe. Scores of girls leaped from windows eight, nine and ten stories above the street to their death. In one place so many bodies fell that the glass and iron deadlights in the pavement were broken.
A fire escape in a large shaft proved a veritable death trap. More than fifty girls were found dead at the bottom of the shaft.
Heroic elevator operators saved hundreds of lives. When one man abandoned his car one of the horrorstricken crowd in the street below broke through the police lines, reached the elevator and ran the car for ten more trips, saving nearly five hundred more lives.
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It was just 4:40 p. m. when the alarm of fire was first raised in the big ten story loft building. That was five minutes before closing time, and many of the girls employed in the building were putting on their hats and coats. It is not known who first discovered the fire, or what caused the outbreak, but within thirty seconds after the cry of “Fire!” had been raised the girls nearly all of them Italians, began a mad rush for the two passenger and two freight elevators.
When they found that they could not all escape by way of the elevators the panic-stricken women turned and dashed for the windows on the Washington Place side of the building. The windows were raised or broken open with frenzied blows and the women climbed out on the narrow ledges in front of each window. That happened before any firemen had reached the scene, and although scores in the street cried to the maddened girls not to jump their warning were not heeded.
Within three minutes, more than fifty women leaped from the ninth floor, only to have their lives crushed out on the sidewalk below. The sight of so many human beings being dashed to pieces sickened the crowd, and the shrieks of the victims and of hysterical onlookers made the scene one of indescribable horror…..
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[Detail of Bodies on Pavement.]
[Emphasis added.]
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SOURCES & IMAGES
Quote Forverts, The Kiss, JDF, Mar 26, 1911
https://forward.com/news/136207/the-morgue-is-full-of-our-victims/
“The Entire Jewish Quarter Is In Grief”
Forverts (Jewish Daily Forward), Front Page, Mar 26, 1911
https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/pb-daily/12-historic-forverts-front-pages
New-York Tribune
(New York, New York)
-Mar 26, 1911
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030214/1911-03-26/ed-1/seq-1/
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030214/1911-03-26/ed-1/seq-2/
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030214/1911-03-26/ed-1/seq-3/
See also:
March 25, 2021
“A guide to the Forverts archival coverage of the Triangle Fire”
– Forward Staff
https://forward.com/culture/136217/a-guide-to-the-forverts-archival-coverage-of-the-t/
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire was one of the worst industrial tragedies in America. On the eve of its 110th anniversary, read reporting published in the Yiddish-language Forverts in the aftermath of the deadly fire.
Articles were translated by Chana Pollack, Ezra Glinter and Myra Mniewski.
The Forward/Forverts (formerly: The Jewish Daily Forward)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forward
New York Tribune of Mar 26, 1911
-coverage of Triangle Fire continues on page 4
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030214/1911-03-26/ed-1/seq-4/
Tag: Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire
https://weneverforget.org/tag/triangle-shirtwaist-factory-fire/
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Ballad of the Triangle Fire – Ruth Rubin