Triangle Fire Yahrzeit Kaddish and Kiddush

The Lower East Side remembers its own.

Stanton Street often hosts a Triangle Fire Kiddush to remember those who perished in 1911 in a blaze that took the lives of 146 young immigrant sweatshop workers in 18 minutes. 

They primarily lived in direct proximity to the Stanton Street Shul since they were poor and needed to walk to work at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory or take a trolley to that industrial sweatshop building located off of Washington Square. Almost all were female, under the age of 21 which meant that young teens were also “employed” at that sweatshop. They were Jewish and Italian, typically “greenhorns,” meaning newcomers who had little choice in employment. Most of those who died did so because the factory fire doors on the 9th floor were locked. 

Services will be held earlier upstairs for those who want to attend, and will include prayers for those who died on March 25, 1911. 

Even as we remember erstwhile immigrants, we also think of immigrants today. Remembrance, which is needed for its own sake, can openly embrace grappling with that contemporary precarious landscape.