Senator Coming to Finley to Discuss Tragic Fire
Former New York State Senator Serphin Maltese is coming to J. Taylor Finley Middle School to speak with students about the infamous and deadly Triangle Shirtwaist Company factory fire in 1911. The teenagers have been reading about the ghastly event, the life of immigrants in America in the early 20th century and the terrible workplace conditions that often existed at the time.
Senator Maltese, who was elected to 10 two-year terms between 1988 and 2008, will be accompanied by his brother, Vincent during his stop at Finley. The pair will discuss the lives of their three relatives who perished in the Triangle blaze. The 40-minute session will kick-off at 11:15 a.m. in the Finley library.
Finley English teacher Kim Schiller is organizing the event. She has extensively studied the Triangle fire. “The senator and his brother Vincent Maltese keep the memory alive with the Triangle Fire Memorial Association,” Ms. Schiller said. “Each year they commemorate this tragedy with a memorial and this year, for the 99th anniversary, they held a service at Christ the King High School in Queens. Vincent Maltese has also done amazing work keeping the victim’s memory alive. He has compiled a book of photos, newspaper clippings and other artifacts.”
The Maltese family immigrated to America from Italy. Serphin and Vincent’s grandmother and her two teenage daughters were killed in the Triangle fire. The blaze broke out at about 4:40 p.m. on Saturday, March 25, 1911. The fire marshal theorized a Triangle employee threw a lit cigarette into a wastebasket near piles of scrap cloth and not far from 40-gallon drums of lubricating oil stored in stairwells.
Triangle occupied the top three floors of the 10 story building, was quickly engulfed in flames. Escape for some was impossible since many doors were padlocked to keep out union organizers and to stop workers from leaving early. Fire department ladders didn’t reach high enough and those that jumped often went right through the tarps held by firemen on the street. Within 15 minutes 146 workers, mostly Jewish girls and young women between the ages of 13-23, were killed.
The long ago fire has been brought back to life at Finley. “In my English class each year my students and I read the novel ‘Ashes of Roses’ by Mary Jane Auch and they always become very interested in what life was like in New York in the early 1900s, between Ellis Island, the tenements and then the fire,” Ms. Schiller explained. “They always ask hundreds of question about how the fire happened, why it happened and how they can stop tragedies like this from happening again, that I really wanted to take it to the next level. I want to do everything I can as a teacher to inspire my students even more.”
More than one million New Yorkers turned out to honor the victims in 1911. The tragedy led to a political upheaval and changes to the state’s building codes and worker safety regulations with more than three dozen new factory laws enacted alone.
“When the students heard that I went to the 99th anniversary and memorial of the fire they immediately wanted to join me for the 100th and I thought it would be a wonderful opportunity for my students to meet and speak with the Maltese’s,” Ms. Schiller said. “It is an honor to have these men come to Finley to visit my students. They have done so much reading and work on this topic. We even created our own memorial of poems and artwork in my classroom. We felt it was a great way to memorialize their lives and the tragedy right here in Huntington.”
The Triangle building still stands today and is owned by New York University, which uses it for science labs, among other purposes. It is located on the corner of Washington Place and Greene Street in the Lower East Side, near Washington Square Park in Manhattan.
“This visit will take my lessons to even higher level and hopefully what they learn will resonate with them for a lifetime because no one should go unnoticed or uncared for and the senator and Vincent Maltese, along with the Triangle Fire Memorial Association, the Education and Labor Collaborative and other groups, are not allowing these victims to die in vain,” Ms. Schiller said.
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