Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire remembered in New York City as speakers call to fight Trump policies

A commemoration Tuesday to the 1911 fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory — which killed 146 workers, transformed the American labor movement, inspired modern building codes and brought about pioneering workplace safety laws — doubled as a rally to oppose Trump administration policies.

Standing on the Greenwich Village street corner where the fire engulfed what was then a factory at Greene Street and Washington Place, on March 25, 1911, labor leaders, a rabbi, a Catholic priest, academics and activists took turns reciting the names of the dead and lamenting what several said President Donald Trump has done since retaking office.

"As we remember these dear souls, their memories cannot go in vain, so we must stand up and fight," said Jonathan Smith, president of the New York Metro Area Postal Union, adding: "We must stand together. This is the message of the fire. Take that fire that happened in that building and put that fire in your bones. And put that fire in your feet. Because it’s time to protest. It’s time to march. It’s time to scream. It’s time to holler. It’s time to fight."

The ceremony was hours before the exact moment — according to the Library of Congress, around 4:40 p.m., 114 years ago — that a cigarette ash or a match on the eighth floor made contact with debris and fabric, sparking the blaze in the building, which is now part of New York University.

A staircase door had been locked shut to deter theft and, according to some historians, to keep out union organizers. A poorly constructed fire escape couldn’t hold the weight of more than several people at once.

And so from windows some workers jumped — to their deaths — and others died from smoke and flames.

The FDNY reached the scene but the ladders could reach only the sixth floor — two lower than the fire. On Tuesday, an FDNY fire truck raised its ladder only that high, to show what was possible then. The owners were later tried and acquitted; victims' families were paid an average of $75 per deceased victim, according to a Tenement Museum history page. That's $2,400 in today's dollars with inflation. 

Speaker after speaker urged those gathered at the commemoration to turn their pain into purpose against Trump’s policies on labor and other issues.

Among other moves, Trump has fired a Democratic member of the National Labor Relations Board — a historically independent agency regardless of which party is in power — from a five-year term to which she was appointed in 2023. A federal judge ruled this month that the dismissal is illegal. It also left the board without a quorum to enforce labor laws. Trump has also fired two members of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, leaving it without a quorum. There also have been firings of thousand of federal employees across numerous agencies.

At Tuesday's Triangle Shirtwaist commemoration, speakers also criticized Trump's policies related to transgender people, racial issues, and other topics such as possible federal cuts to Medicate and Social Security.

People like Trump and those carrying out his policies "always come on strong, like they’re inevitable, but they are brittle and they are weak, and if you read a history book, they always fall," said Ruth Sergel, founder of the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition.

Nearby, attendees held a ribbon of cloth, embroidered with the fire victims’ names: the youngest was 14, the oldest in her early 40s.

The news made headlines around the world — including on Long Island: "Victims Nearly All Girls, Crushed on Pavements, Smothered By Smoke or Incinerated," said The Corrector, a newspaper in Sag Harbor.

The survivors — the youngest of whom included an owner’s daughter, aged 4 or 5, who was visiting when the fire broke out — have all since died.

In the years following the fire, some survivors, such as Sadie Hershy, moved to Long Island. Hershy, who died in 1983 at age 93, lived in Merrick with her son.

Another survivor, Pauline Pepe, who died in 1992 at age 101, traveled from her Amityville nursing home to a memorial ceremony in 1986 for the 75th anniversary. She’d refused to go before but relented after the International Ladies Garment Workers Union implored her.

"Go back? Why would I want to go back?" she said that year, according to a Newsday article. "All those memories. When I think of all those girls, and all of us just waiting to die there — no, I'm glad I never went back. But I'm glad I was there today."

She had escaped through one of the few open doors.

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.