The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire | A Short Documentary | Fascinating Horror - Fascinating Horror

Fascinating Horror - On the 25th of March, 1911, a fire began atthe premises of the Triangle Waist Companyin New York City.

What started as a small blaze in a bin fullof fabric scraps soon turned into an all-consumingblaze that gutted the top floors of the building.

Before it could be extinguished, more thana hundred workers would lose their lives,in what was at the time the worst industrialaccident in the history of New York.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory occupied theupper floors of the Asch Building near WashingtonSquare Park.

Today, this building is known as the BrownBuilding, and is owned by New York University.

When it was first built in 1901, however,its main use was industrial.

Many garment makers took up residence in thebuilding, attracted by its central locationand the fact that it was advertised as fireproof.

The Triangle Waist Company’s main productwas a type of woman’s blouse known as a“shirtwaist”.

These usually featured a collar and buttonsdown the front, but were otherwise fairlysimple; the kind of functional but fashionablegarment that a woman might wear in the workplaceat the time.

The shirtwaist factory occupied the top threefloors of the Asch Building – floors eight,nine and ten.

Crammed into this space were hundreds of workers.

The factory employed many immigrant workers– mostly Italian and Jewish women and girls.

In many cases these people were new to thecountry and keen to take whatever jobs wereavailable.

The working conditions were undeniably poor.

Work stations were crowded very close together,and the factory floors had little ventilation.

In summer the space would become swelteringlyhot – particularly as workers would be surroundedon all sides by the fabric they were workingwith.

Scraps carpeted the floor of their work area,and huge swathes of material hung from linesabove their heads.

At around 4:40pm on the 25th of March, workersnoticed a faint fiery glow in a bin full offabric scraps.

Although it has never been conclusively determined,this might have been a discarded match orcigarette.

As they watched, the bin burst into flames…flames which licked upwards and ignited thetissue paper templates that were hanging overhead.

Burning scraps of tissue paper fluttered acrossthe factory floor, landing on and ignitingstacks of fabric, scraps bins and other flammablematerials.

Within seconds, what began as a tiny firehad become an inferno blazing its way throughthe 8th floor of the building.

A bookkeeper there used a telephone to contactworkers on the 10th floor and warn them ofthe fire, providing them with a few extraseconds to evacuate.

There was, however, no fire alarm, nor anyother way to alert workers on the 9th floor,who learned of the fire only when smoke andflames arrived on their floor.

Terrified workers scrambled to evacuate…but found that their options were limited.

Of two available staircases, one had beenlocked by the foreman on duty as a precautionagainst theft by employees.

This foreman, incidentally, was among thefirst to leave the building down the otherstaircase… taking the key to the secondstairwell door with him.

Though some workers were able to escape downthe unlocked set of stairs, this route wassoon blocked by the spreading smoke and flames.

Unable to go down to ground level, many tookthe counter-intuitive decision to flee upwardsto the roof.

The majority of those who took refuge on theroof would ultimately survive.

Freight elevators represented another possibleescape route for workers trapped by the fire.

Two elevator operators (Joseph Zito and Gaspar Mortillalo) made three trips up to the 9th floor of the factory while the fire burned around them.

They were only able to make three trips before both of their elevators became unusable.

In the case of Gaspar's elevator this wasdue to its rails warping from the heat ofthe fire.

In the case of Joseph's elevator, this wasdue to workers on the burning floors above prying open elevator doors and leaping downinto the shaft to escape the flames.

The weight and impact of their bodies on thetop of the elevator car disabled it completely.

This left only one option for the remaining trapped employees: the external fire escapebolted onto the outside of the building.

This was a flimsy structure, entirely unsuitedto a building of such high occupancy.

It was also in extremely poor condition, anddid not extend all of the way to the ground.

This meant that workers pouring out of thebuilding onto the fire escape had nowhereto go.

As more and more people congregated on themetal steps, the weight became too much forthe steps to bear.

The fire escape twisted and peeled away fromthe building.

Around 20 people were on the steps when theyfinally failed – the majority of them fellto their death.

A few were left clinging to the broken remainsof the fire escape with no way to move eitherup or down until the smoke and flames overwhelmedthem.

Though the fire department was on scene withinminutes, firefighters found themselves unableto effectively fight the flames or rescuetrapped workers.

The ladders they were equipped with extendedonly to the sixth floor of the building – twofloors short of where they were needed.

With no hope of rescue and all possible routesof escape closed to them, scores of workerswere left with no choice but to jump fromthe windows of the factory.

A witness, Louis Waldman, described the scene:"...

the police had thrown up a cordon aroundthe area and the firemen were helplessly fightingthe blaze.

The eighth, ninth, and tenth stories of thebuilding were now an enormous roaring corniceof flames.

Horrified and helpless, the crowds — I amongthem — looked up at the burning building,saw girl after girl appear at the reddenedwindows, pause for a terrified moment, andthen leap to the pavement below...

This went on for what seemed a ghastly eternity.

Occasionally a girl who had hesitated toolong was licked by pursuing flames and, screamingwith clothing and hair ablaze, plunged likea living torch to the street.

Life nets held by the firemen were torn bythe impact of the falling bodies...

"The fire was eventually extinguished, andfiremen began the grim task of searching thegutted building for survivors.

There were few.

One of them was a 21-year-old man named HymenMeshel, who had been working on the 8th floorwhen the fire began.

He had survived by smashing his way throughthe glass door to the elevator shaft and slidingdown the elevator cables – severely injuringhis hands in the process.

He had then taken refuge in the basement,which flooded with water from the firefightingeffort until he was almost completely submerged.

Rescuers found him there hours later, oncethe fire had finally been extinguished.

Hymen was extremely fortunate to survive.

Many of those who had been working aroundhim when the fire began did not.

In total, 146 people died as a result of thefire.

In the immediate aftermath of the fire thecompany's owners, Max Blanck and Isaac Harris(both of whom had survived the fire by escapingto the roof when it began), were charged withmanslaughter.

After a trial, during which they cast doubton the credibility of many of the survivors,they were found not guilty of these criminalcharges.

It was only later that a civil suit ruledagainst them, finding that they had causedmultiple wrongful deaths.

They were ordered to pay $75 compensationto each victim - the equivalent of a payoutof around $2,000 today.

Just a few years after the fire, Max Blanckwas arrested for knowingly locking fire escapedoors in another factory during working hours.

He was given the minimum possible fine forthis infraction, and neither of the factoryowners ever faced any further consequencesfor the deaths their negligence had caused.

The fire did, however, inspire others to makesome positive changes.

In the years that followed New York was atthe forefront of workers’ rights, passingnumerous bills and developing regulationsto ensure decent working conditions and preventa repeat of the tragedy.

As a direct result of the fire, the AmericanSociety of Safety Professionals was foundedin New York later that same year.

Over the course of more than a century ithas worked tirelessly to develop and implementeffective, standardised safe working practisesin a range of industries across the country.

Though American workplaces have changed beyondrecognition over the course of the last century,this particular legacy of the Triangle ShirtwaistFactory fire continues to save lives.

Though the building has since been restoredand repurposed, the fire remains a vital pieceof New York’s history.

The memory of it is kept alive by the Rememberthe Triangle Fire Coalition – a group ofmore than 200 individuals and businesses whoare determined that the loss of more thana hundred lives in 1911 should not be forgotten,and should not be in vain.