Walk

"And this also," said Marlow suddenly, "has been one of the dark places of the earth." -- Heart of Darkness by Joesph Conrad.

Another entry on the gruesome working conditions that existed for women in the early 20th century. The Brown building, on the intersection of Washington and Greene Streets, near Washington Square in Greenwich Village, is nowadays part of NYU, which uses it for office space and classrooms. It looks no different than many of the buildings surrounding it (although it appears to be in the midst of a renovation), but was once the scene of great horror.



In 1911 it was known as the Asch building, and was home to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. On the 25th March of that year, a fire started in the factory, on the eighth floor, and was quickly spread by the flammable materials used in clothing manufacture. With few exits, and those that existed blocked and locked, a large number of the almost exclusively female workforce were trapped. Many chose to jump out the windows rather than face the flames. Ultimately 146 Women died. The fire was witnessed by a large number of passersby, and the newspapers ran gruesome pictures of the dead. The public outcry at the disaster and the working conditions which led to the deaths of so many became the impetus for the successful efforts of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union to organize in the garment district.
There is a small plaque on the building commemorating the fire and the building's status as a landmark, but thousands of people must pass the building everyday without being aware of its history.

Facts and figures from the The Encyclopedia of New York City.^1
1The Encyclopedia of New York City. Edited by Kenneth T. Jackson. Yale University Press. 1995.