Triangle Fire Centennial Commemoration

In Chen Dance Center News

Please join us for the Chinatown press conference on the Triangle Fire Centennial Commemoration

Date: Monday, March 14, 2011
Time: 2:30pm
Place: Chen Dance Center, 70 Mulberry St, 2nd floor, NY, NY 10013

The garment industry and Local 23-25 have played an important role in New York’s Chinatown community for several decades.  One of the major events in the history of Local 23-25 was the Triangle Factory Fire, which occurred on March 25, 1911, one hundred years ago.  We hope that the Chinatown community will participate in this year’s commemoration of the Triangle Fire on Friday, March 25, starting at 11am.

For further information, please contact:  Lana Cheung 347-234-9396 or May Y. Chen 347-234-9387.

Background information:
Every year, diverse union members and retirees—together with the Fire Department, elected government officials, historians, students, worker safety organizations, and artists— visit the site, which today is the Brown Building at NYU (on Washington Place between Broadway and Washington Square Park).  The tragic fire killed 146 young immigrant workers, but afterwards, New Yorkers pressed the government to pass important new workplace safety laws.  Successful union campaigns brought new rights and benefits to garment workers.  We will continue to remember the sacrifice of the women immigrant workers in the Triangle Fire, as the fight for justice continues.

Local 23-25 has promoted the issues of fire safety and workplace safety in the factories of Chinatown, holding classes and fire drills for Chinese workers.  The union has supported cultural and educational programs, community services, and political activism in Chinatown.

The Centennial of the Triangle Fire presents an opportunity to review our history and preserve it in an “Open Archive” – a computerized collection of documents, photos, and objects from our history.  We invite the community to lend these mementos to be digitally scanned and preserved, so that the history of Chinatown’s garment workers can be placed together with all the diverse nationalities in the union’s history.  Please view the website:  http://www.rememberthetrianglefire.org

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