The Asch Building and the March 25, 1911 Triangle Waist Company Tragedy

The Asch (Brown) Building today.  Scores of young women flung themselves from the cornice under the arched windows of the 10th floor. - photo by Robert Guffey

Early on the morning of Saturday, March 25, 1911 Mary Herman pulled on her coat, shut the door behind her, and started off to work at the Triangle Waist Factory near Washington Square. Mary would not return home that evening.

The building to which Mary headed was the Asch Building, completed in January 1901. Built by furrier Joseph J. Asch with Ole Olsen, it was intended to be the latest in fire-proof design with an iron and steel framework clad in non-combustible terra-cotta. At only 135 feet high, fire laws allowed wooden floors and window frames. Although sprinklers were not required by law, plans did call for a fire alarm system, fire hoses on all floors, two staircases per floor and an iron fire escape clinging to the exterior wall of the light court.

Further fire precautions were added by the Buildings Department which rejected the initial plans, calling for an additional set of fire stairs and complaining that the rear fire escape “must lead to something more substantial than a skylight.”

The architect, John Woolley, however, argued against the additional staircase. Because the floors were all open, being loft manufacturing spaces, and the planned stairs were far from each other, he reasoned that the exterior fire escape counted as a third staircase. The Building Department accepted his argument.

The finished loft building was attractive in ecru-colored brick and terra-cotta. Designed in the latest Renaissance Revival style, it was embellished with ornate terra-cotta panels and wreaths. The tenth floor stood out with a series of arched windows lining up beneath a deeply-overhanging cornice.

The Triangle Waist Company – often referred to as the Triangle Shirtwaist Company – set up its factory in the top three floors of the Asch Building at Nos. 23-29 Washington Place. Here, aside from the offices on the 10th Floor, young women mostly in their teens and early 20s bent their backs over sewing machines constructing shirtwaist blouses – the high-necked, tailored garments which were the height of fashion.

The girls were poorly paid, conditions were miserable and work was hard. When the International Ladies Garment Workers Union struck in 1909, Triangle retaliated by firing 150 sympathizers. From then on owners Max Blanck and Isaac Harris locked the girls in, kept the light court windows shuttered and ruled the sewing floor by fear. Sewing girls told of raising their eyes from their machines only when they were certain they would not be caught. Speaking was forbidden and restroom breaks were closely monitored. The women were all searched upon leaving the building at quiting time.  Anyone wishing to work for Blanck and Harris was required to provide her own needles and thread.

Mary Herman was working on the 9th Floor that Saturday. The girls would all be going home in ten minutes – at 4:45 pm. There was unspoken relief in the room.

Meanwhile, downstairs on the 8th Floor a pile of fabric somehow caught fire on a table. Paper patterns hanging above quickly ignited and the blaze grew. When a floor manager rushed to the fire hose in the hall, the rotten hose crumbled. The bookkeeper, Mary Loventhal, called the offices on the top floor and warned of the fire. No one thought to notify the 9th Floor where Mary Herman was working.

Most of the panicked women on the 8th Floor rushed to the elevator and stairs and escaped; however others, unable to make it to the stairs or wedge into the crowded elevators jumped to their deaths.

The remains of the 9th Floor where Mary Herman worked -- photo NYPL Collection

With the bookkeeper’s alarm from the 8th Floor, those on the top floor dashed to the stairways and all but one survived.

Meanwhile, on the 9th Floor business went on as usual. When the closing bell clanged the girls accepted their pay envelopes and headed for the coatroom. Suddenly the fire reached the floor. As the room filled with smoke, panicked girls fell over tables and machinery. As workers crammed into the stairways, a barrel of machine oil near one set of stairs suddenly exploded, blocking that exit. Mary Herman was seen rushing to a door which, to her terror, was locked.

Lillian Wilner fought with the iron shutters on a light court window, finally prying it open and desperate women packed onto the 17-inch wide iron fire escape. To their utter dismay the drop ladder at the bottom had never been installed and they were trapped on the metal escape.

As more and more women crammed onto the fire escape their combined weight and the heat of the fire caused it to collapse. The workers plunged to the pavement of the light court.

The crumpled light-court fire escape that plummeted scores of workers to their deaths -- NYPL Collection

As other women were jammed into the slowly-descending elevators, workers jumped into the elevator shafts, landing on top of the cabs. Others tried to slide down the elevator cables.

The Fire Department arrived but, according to The New York Times, the fire engines had difficulty getting near the building due to the number of bodies scattered about the sidewalk and street. “While more bodies crashed down among them they worked with desperation to run their ladders into position and spread their fire nets,” reported the newspaper.

Emergency workers examine heaped bodies on the pavement -- photo Jewish Journal

Life nets broke apart with the force of bodies falling from the upper stories and when the fire ladders were extended, they were too short to reach the floors where victims were trapped. Police Captain Dominick Henry recalled “a scene I hope I never see again. Dozens of girls were hanging from the ledges. Others, their dresses on fire, were leaping from the windows.”

It was all over within 30 minutes. Mary Herman never went home that evening. Neither did 145 other shirtwaist workers. A wave of horror accompanied the story as it swept across the nation, fostering the beginnings of strengthened fire codes, better work conditions and stronger labor unions.

Days later most of the bodies were still unidentified, burned or disfigured beyond recognition. Finally on March 31, Mayor Gaynor decided that the city would bury the final 14 unidentified victims in a lot in Evergreen Cemetery in East New York.  Five days later over 80,000 mourners filed up Fifth Avenue in a procession sponsored by the WTUL and Local 25 for the unknown victims. Hundreds of thousands of workers walked away from their jobs that afternoon to view the procession.

Blanck and Harris were indicted for manslaughter in the death of Mary Herman on April 11 for locking the factory door in violation of New York State labor laws. The jury, however, found that proving the owners knew about the locked door was impossible and the pair was acquitted. Blanck and Harris received $200,000 from their insurance claim for fire damages. Twenty-three families each received a $75 settlement from Joseph J. Asch for the lost lives.

Despite the overwhelming tragedy and loss of life, the Asch Building was actually little-damaged. The terra-cotta cladding and iron and steel framework withstood the heat and flames as the designer intended. Joseph Asch had architects Maynicke & Franke correct logistical defects including adding a new fire escape, removing the iron shutters, and constructing two large water tanks on the roof. In 1912 a modern sprinkler system was installed. After the restoration and renovations it was renamed the Greenwich Building and continued its use as a manufacturing loft.

New York University rented the 8th floor, where the fire had started, in 1915. A year later plans were announced to install the library and classrooms here. In 1918 the school took over the 9th floor and a year later expanded to the 10th – now inhabiting the three floors formerly home to the Triangle Waist Company.

By the 1920s the university had taken over the entire building. German-born philanthropist Frederick Brown purchased the structure and, on February 28, 1929, signed it over to New York University. The school renamed the building The Brown Building.

Every year, on March 25, firefighters, city officials, union leaders and fashion industry employees hold a ceremony at the Brown Building to commemorate the tragedy of March 25, 1911. A fire ladder is hoisted to the sixth floor – the extent that the ladders reached that day, too short to help those dying above – and a fire bell tolls once for each of the 146 lives lost.

The 1854 No. 98 Christopher Street

By the 1850s the population of Christopher Street in Greenwich Village was a mixed bag.  In 1854 comfortable one-family homes were built at Nos. 92 and 94; part of a string of identical four-story residences that stretched along Bleecker Street.  The houses were intended for merchant-class families and were planned with stores at street level.

But further towards the riverfront gritty industries like breweries and soap plants were emerging, changing the complexion of that neighborhood.  Italian and Irish immigrants crowded into sections of the Village sharing residential space with the quickly growing black population.  Christopher Street adapted and the once rural thoroughfare was about to see its first multi-family structure.

Samuel Taylor augmented his income as a merchant tailor by dabbling in real estate.  Two years after the handsome structures at Nos. 92 and 94 were constructed, he completed his own project—a tenement house.  Separated from the brick homes by an empty lot that served as a passage to Grove Street, it pretended to be nothing more than it was.

Taylor spent no money on unnecessary embellishment and, unlike the private houses next door with high ceilings and commodious rooms, his tenement was designed to bring in the most money per square foot.  By keeping the ceiling heights relatively low, he was able to produce five floors of apartments instead of four.  The central entrance separated two commercial spaces—affording additional income—with slightly projecting bays.  Because Taylor’s building sat on an average building plot, 25 feet wide, his store spaces were necessarily narrow and long.

Among the first residents in the building was Irish immigrant James Curry.   He attended a funeral at Calvary Cemetery during the first week of March in 1861 and fell from the carriage in which he was riding.  The New York Times reported that he “was totally injured.”  The 39-year old was taken back to Christopher Street where a doctor tended to him.  His injuries were too severe, however, and he died in his apartment here a week later on March 11.

The unmarried Rose Thompson lived in the building in 1879 and as she was walking along Bleecker Street on a Saturday evening in November, she was attacked by the 17-year old Joseph Cullen.  The ruffian “snatched her pocket-book, containing a small sum of money, from her hand, and made off with it,” according to The Times.

Apparently Rose Thompson was not about to allow a hooligan to take her purse.  Cullen was quickly captured by Patrolman Van Wart who heard her screams.  The boy pleaded guilty and found out that the magistrates of the Jefferson Market Police Court had little tolerance for juvenile delinquents.  He was held at $500 bail—more than $10,000 today.

While the tenants in the upper floors attempted, perhaps, to maintain their respectability in less-than-luxurious accommodations in 1884, Philip Graffe ran his saloon at street level.  In the basement a black family lived in what can be assumed were minimal conditions.  In May of that year the family moved out, leaving their white cat behind.

Before long, without food or water, the cat began its loud, plaintive howls.  The Sun reported on June 16 that “The cat made such a racket at night that Graffe determined to annex her and try to soothe her.  He went down the basement steps a week ago Saturday night, called to her, and got his own cat to come out.”

The barkeeper plied the cat with pieces of meat then lured both cats, Pied Piper-like, upstairs to the saloon.  Graffe picked up the abandoned cat and petted her.  Just as he was set to put her down, she turned on him, biting him through the finger.  The cat fled out of the saloon never to be seen again.

The Sun reported that “Graffe’s hand and arm are swollen frightfully, and two doctors are studying him with interest.  They think he will recover.”

Six years after the white cat affair, Ralph Bellino signed a long term lease on the building in 1900.  The new landlord agreed to pay $1,600 a year on the property—a bargain by today’s standards at about $37,000.

Bellino  took on an aging and out-of-date structure that, from its inception, had only the most modest conveniences.  A year after he signed the lease the Department of Health reported “defective plumbing and defective drainage;” a condition that gives some insight to the humble lifestyles of the residents.

Those residents, however, appear to have been on the most part hard-working and upstanding citizens.  Matthew Kissin lived here in 1902 and was no doubt happy for an old schoolmate when she married the wealthy clothing manufacturer Frank Salsberg that year.  In June, Rose Salsberg invited Kissin and several other old school chums to her new home at No. 273 Watkins Street in Brooklyn.  The Evening World reported that “They had just returned from their honeymoon trip, and had not yet had time to engage servants when several friends showed their heartiness by responding immediately upon their arrival to invitations to visit.”

With no servants to do the work, Rose “showed her appreciation by essaying the preparation of a feast for them.”  As Kissin and the other guests were being entertained in the parlor, Rose bent over the gas range in the kitchen.  Her clothing caught fire.  Frank Salsberg and the guests heard a loud shriek, then Rose ran into the parlor.  “She was a living torch,” reported The Evening World.

Samuel Funston had the presence of mind to wrap his coat around the burning woman, and Kissin threw her to the floor and extinguished the flames by rolling her on the carpet.  The efforts of the two men were in vain, however.  Rose Salsberg, married only two weeks, died in Brooklyn’s St. Mary’s Hospital “from terrible burns she suffered while preparing her first feast for friends who had called to celebrate the return of the happy bride and bridegroom.”

In 1906 John Sewell was the black sheep of his well-known Long Island family.  The New York Timessaid “Sewell did little work, being for the most part supported by wealthy relatives.”  The deadbeat relative had his mail and money from his family delivered to a saloon.  Among his friends was Jacob Duhler who lived at No. 98 Christopher Street.  On August 26, 1906 Duhler ran into the slightly intoxicated Sewell on the street and invited him up for dinner.  It would be Sewell’s last meal.

The drunk man attempted to swallow a piece of meat, but choked.  Before the ambulance arrived Sewell was dead in Duhler’s apartment.

Three months after the unfortunate incident M. Rosenblum purchased the building with promises to “make extensive alterations.”  The alterations did not affect the outward appearance of the 52-year old building.

In 1911 New York’s millionaires were building marble and limestone palaces on Fifth and Madison Avenues, far removed from Greenwich Village.  In the meantime, women like the widowed May Levantine who lived at No. 98 Christopher Street were struggling to make a living.  May worked as a sewer in the Triangle Waist Company.  When she left home on Saturday morning, March 25, she had no inkling that she would nearly not return.

In what has become perhaps the most well-known of American industrial tragedies, the Asch Building where May worked caught fire.  Panicked workers, locked in or unable to escape down too-few fire stairs and fire escapes, either burned or plummeted ten stories to their deaths.

May later recalled “I was in the dressing room on the ninth floor when I heard the girls screaming.  Margaret Schwartz and Miss Alterman also were there.  I thought the elevator had fallen and ran out to see it, but could not because so many girls were about the door.  I then went to the Washington Place door and found the key in the lock.  I turned it and went out and saw smoke coming up the stairs.  I then went and looked over the railing and saw a big flame coming up.  I ran back into the room and shut the door behind me.”

May Levantine saved herself by sliding nine stories down the elevator cable.  Her intrepidness and quick thinking saved her life, although she said “my hands were very badly cut.”

Immigrant families continued to find home at No. 98 Christopher Street into the first decades of the new century.  Peter Cassamassi was among them and his old-world ways did not put a great deal of importance on schooling.  On June 1, 1923 The New York Times reported that he “was brought before the court for the ninth time” for allowing his children “to become habitual truants from school.”

The judge gave Cassamassi his choice of fifteen days in the Tombs or a $25 fine.  The disgruntled father paid the fine.

In 1942 No. 98 Christopher street was given a renovation resulting in four apartments per floor (three on the second).  As the 20^th century progressed, Christopher Street became the epicenter of the gay community and an icon for the Gay Rights Movement.  The 1854 tenement house, however, resisted change.  Shops and cafes came and went but Samuel Taylor’s pre-Civil War building remained essentially the same.

Today residents in No. 98 Christopher Street enjoy luxuries like modern appliances impossible to conceive by their immigrant predecessors.   Monthly apartment rents are higher than the $1600 yearly lease Ralph Bellino paid for the entire building back in 1900.  Yet the structure, universally considered to be the first apartment building in Greenwich Village, maintains its unassuming 1854 appearance.

photographs taken by the author