WEBVTT - New York v. Isaac Harris and Max Blanck 0:00:01.040 --> 0:00:06.160 You're listening to History on Trial, a production of iHeart Podcasts. 0:00:06.720 --> 0:00:19.239 Listener Discretion advised. Lena Yawler was getting ready to leave 0:00:19.320 --> 0:00:25.479 work when she heard a girl yell fire. Lena whipped 0:00:25.480 --> 0:00:30.080 around and rolled her eyes. The girl who had shouted 0:00:30.360 --> 0:00:34.360 was the factory's prankster. She was always telling her fellow 0:00:34.440 --> 0:00:37.839 sewing machine operators that the boss was coming, making them 0:00:37.920 --> 0:00:41.479 jump in their seats, only for no boss to appear. 0:00:42.200 --> 0:00:47.120 Lena paid the girl no attention. It was a strange joke, perhaps, 0:00:47.720 --> 0:00:50.320 but nineteen year old Lena just wanted to get home. 0:00:51.400 --> 0:00:54.880 It was Saturday, the end of her work week. A 0:00:54.960 --> 0:00:58.800 whole day of freedom awaited her, a day away from 0:00:58.800 --> 0:01:02.440 the clamor of the sewing machines, a day to rest 0:01:02.520 --> 0:01:06.720 her aching fingers and back. So she stayed in the 0:01:06.840 --> 0:01:10.119 dressing room, putting on her coat and picking up her 0:01:10.120 --> 0:01:14.160 pocket book. It was only when she emerged that she 0:01:14.319 --> 0:01:19.520 saw the smoke. The prankster had not been joking this time. 0:01:20.800 --> 0:01:25.520 Lena was terrified. The smoke was already filling the factory floor, 0:01:26.120 --> 0:01:29.080 making it difficult to see, but she could make out 0:01:29.160 --> 0:01:33.400 flames shooting up outside the windows. Across the room. Her 0:01:33.440 --> 0:01:37.679 coworkers were clustered by the nearest exit, a door that 0:01:37.800 --> 0:01:41.679 led to the stairs down to Washington Place, trying to 0:01:41.760 --> 0:01:46.360 get it open. Some were screaming, crying out for their children. 0:01:47.080 --> 0:01:49.160 When Lena tried to make her way to the door, 0:01:49.560 --> 0:01:52.880 the crowd forced her back towards the dressing rooms. She 0:01:53.000 --> 0:01:58.120 was trapped. Then she felt a breeze. A door was 0:01:58.160 --> 0:02:01.760 opened somewhere she thought. The breeze seemed to be coming 0:02:01.760 --> 0:02:05.120 for across the factory floor on the Green street side. 0:02:06.280 --> 0:02:10.160 This was where Lena had seen the flames. But what 0:02:10.360 --> 0:02:13.519 choice did she have. She knew she couldn't stay where 0:02:13.560 --> 0:02:17.600 she was, so she set out, groping her way through 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:22.520 the smoke, tripping over fallen chairs, passing the burning tables 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:26.919 where she had been working only minutes before. She opened 0:02:27.000 --> 0:02:31.280 the first window she reached, thinking maybe she could jump out, 0:02:31.600 --> 0:02:35.520 but fell back in shock. The air outside was so 0:02:35.600 --> 0:02:39.640 hot that it had burned her knee. From the street below, 0:02:39.720 --> 0:02:42.400 she could hear people calling for her to jump, but 0:02:42.480 --> 0:02:45.920 she was afraid it was too high, a drop of 0:02:46.080 --> 0:02:50.640 nine stories, and the air itself had burned her. She 0:02:50.760 --> 0:02:55.720 needed a new plan. Near By were the freight elevators. 0:02:56.600 --> 0:03:00.480 Lena stumbled to them and knocked, praying that an operator 0:03:00.520 --> 0:03:04.280 would bring the elevator up. She waited for two minutes, 0:03:04.560 --> 0:03:09.320 maybe three, but it felt more like hours. No one came. 0:03:11.360 --> 0:03:14.919 There was only one more way out now, the door 0:03:15.000 --> 0:03:19.040 to the Green Street stairs. But when she opened the door, 0:03:19.680 --> 0:03:23.960 the stairs were filled with flame. She could not go down. 0:03:24.840 --> 0:03:30.240 It was hopeless, But then an idea. What if she 0:03:30.320 --> 0:03:33.640 went up to the roof. It was risky, but so 0:03:33.919 --> 0:03:38.600 was staying put. She pushed forward and the stairs. The 0:03:38.640 --> 0:03:42.840 air was punishingly hot. The flames licked at her heels. 0:03:43.720 --> 0:03:47.200 She ran. By the time she made it to the 0:03:47.320 --> 0:03:53.280 roof two stories up, Lena's hair was smoldering. She had 0:03:53.360 --> 0:03:57.640 burns on her arm, her neck, and her face, but 0:03:57.880 --> 0:04:02.800 she was alive. On the roof, she found men holding 0:04:02.880 --> 0:04:05.640 ladders that led to the roof of an adjacent building, 0:04:06.320 --> 0:04:09.560 and so she climbed off the roof and away from 0:04:09.600 --> 0:04:13.240 the burning remains of the factory. She worked at the 0:04:13.320 --> 0:04:19.440 Triangle Waste Company. Lena did not know it then, but 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:25.040 she had gotten extraordinarily lucky. She had just survived one 0:04:25.080 --> 0:04:30.520 of the worst workplace disasters in United States history. After 0:04:30.600 --> 0:04:35.080 the smoke cleared and the bodies were tallied, the horrified 0:04:35.120 --> 0:04:38.440 public would learn that a hundred and forty six people 0:04:38.800 --> 0:04:42.560 had died in the fire in a space of barely 0:04:42.720 --> 0:04:48.480 fifteen minutes. They had died on the fire escape when 0:04:48.520 --> 0:04:52.560 the rickety structure, burdened with too many bodies, had sheared 0:04:52.600 --> 0:04:55.479 off the side of the building and sent workers plunging 0:04:55.520 --> 0:04:59.320 to their deaths. They had died on the factory floor, 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:05.600 smothered by smoke, their bodies burned beyond recognition. They had 0:05:05.680 --> 0:05:09.880 died jumping on top of the elevator cars, desperate to 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:14.960 make it out, And most horrifyingly, they had died by 0:05:15.040 --> 0:05:19.279 leaping from the building. Making the jump Lena had fortunately 0:05:19.400 --> 0:05:24.440 been too frightened to make. Dozens of men and women 0:05:24.680 --> 0:05:28.440 on the ninth floor had been hemmed in on all 0:05:28.560 --> 0:05:33.760 sides by the fire, pushed closer and closer towards the windows, 0:05:34.440 --> 0:05:38.400 until their only choice had been to burn or to 0:05:38.520 --> 0:05:43.080 jump on the street in the midst of a beautiful 0:05:43.360 --> 0:05:48.000 sunny spring day. Just as Lena reached the roof, the 0:05:48.080 --> 0:05:52.640 bodies began to hit the sidewalk. Onlookers would never forget 0:05:52.640 --> 0:06:02.120 the sight or the sound. Fires had happened before. People 0:06:02.200 --> 0:06:06.680 had died in workplace accidents before. In fact, it happened 0:06:06.720 --> 0:06:10.400 all the time, but this fire, which came to be 0:06:10.480 --> 0:06:15.160 known as the Triangle Shirtwais Factory fire, was different, and 0:06:15.240 --> 0:06:20.640 these deaths were different too. They were very, very public. 0:06:22.120 --> 0:06:26.200 Hundreds of New Yorkers had seen these people, mostly poor 0:06:26.320 --> 0:06:31.080 young women from Eastern Europe and Italy, die. They had 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:34.760 seen the firemen uselessly try to extend their two short 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:38.320 ladders to the people huddled on the ninth floor window sills. 0:06:39.160 --> 0:06:42.400 They had seen how the fire escape, even before it 0:06:42.440 --> 0:06:46.680 had broken, had been deficient the way its bottom rung 0:06:46.920 --> 0:06:51.159 hung above a basements skylight, making reaching the ground difficult, 0:06:51.240 --> 0:06:55.760 if not impossible. And they had heard the rumors which 0:06:55.800 --> 0:06:58.880 began to spread in the days after the fire, that 0:06:59.080 --> 0:07:04.479 some factory had been locked from the outside, that the 0:07:04.560 --> 0:07:07.880 workers had died piled up by the Washington Polace door, 0:07:08.720 --> 0:07:13.640 unable to escape. One of the people who witnessed the 0:07:13.680 --> 0:07:17.720 immediate aftermath of the fire was New York District Attorney 0:07:17.840 --> 0:07:22.840 Charles Whitman, an ambitious reformer. Whitman had long wanted a 0:07:22.920 --> 0:07:26.960 high profile case to make his name on. As he 0:07:27.080 --> 0:07:30.840 stood in front of the still smoldering building, he thought 0:07:31.200 --> 0:07:35.240 he might have found it. With this case, he could 0:07:35.280 --> 0:07:38.720 both raise his own profile and also get justice for 0:07:38.760 --> 0:07:43.480 the victims. He could prove his progressive bonafides, stand up 0:07:43.520 --> 0:07:48.320 for the working class, and punish greedy businessmen. He could 0:07:48.400 --> 0:07:52.760 use the system so often rigged against the powerless to 0:07:52.880 --> 0:07:57.000 make the powerful pay. But the system is not so 0:07:57.040 --> 0:08:01.080 easily changed, as Whitman would discover when he charged the 0:08:01.160 --> 0:08:07.320 Triangle's owners, Max Blink and Isaac Harris with manslaughter. At 0:08:07.360 --> 0:08:11.760 their trial, a shrewd defense attorney and legal norms skewed 0:08:11.800 --> 0:08:16.840 towards business interests would guarantee that the prosecution was in 0:08:17.080 --> 0:08:22.760 for the fight of its life. Welcome to history on Trial. 0:08:23.600 --> 0:08:28.720 I'm your host, Mira Hayward. This Week New York v 0:08:29.280 --> 0:08:39.160 Isaac Harris and Max Blink. Max Blink and Isaac Harris 0:08:39.240 --> 0:08:43.960 had both arrived in America in the eighteen eighties. Like 0:08:44.080 --> 0:08:47.720 hundreds of thousands of other Eastern European Jews in the 0:08:47.760 --> 0:08:51.880 last decades of the nineteenth century, Blank and Harris fled 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:55.520 the anti Semitic persecution of the Old World for a 0:08:55.640 --> 0:09:00.160 chance at something new and exciting. Nearly half of all 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:04.320 Jewish immigrants during this period entered the garment business. And 0:09:04.400 --> 0:09:08.800 Blank and Harris followed the crowd in the eighteen eighties. 0:09:08.880 --> 0:09:12.520 When Blank and Harris got their start, the business was 0:09:12.600 --> 0:09:17.959 a dismal one. Most people worked out of tenement sweatshops, 0:09:18.679 --> 0:09:23.640 tiny dank rooms packed with employees, all struggling to stitch 0:09:23.880 --> 0:09:27.800 or iron or cut in the poor light. The average 0:09:27.840 --> 0:09:33.920 workweek was eighty four hours and pay was nearly nonexistent. 0:09:34.960 --> 0:09:40.520 Disease spread rapidly through the crowded spaces. These conditions killed 0:09:40.640 --> 0:09:44.360 many people. They also made a few people very rich, 0:09:45.040 --> 0:09:49.880 including Max Blank and Isaac Harris. Harris had gotten his 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:53.920 start in a sweatshop. His needle skills and eye for 0:09:54.000 --> 0:09:58.040 design allowed him to rise through the ranks. Blank came 0:09:58.080 --> 0:10:02.360 to the business through the contracting stude, buying and selling cloth. 0:10:03.160 --> 0:10:06.439 The two men's paths crossed in the late eighteen nineties, 0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:11.160 likely through a family connection. Their wives were cousins, and 0:10:11.240 --> 0:10:15.200 decided to team up. In nineteen hundred, they founded the 0:10:15.240 --> 0:10:20.000 Triangle Wasist Company. Their backgrounds were complimentary and their business 0:10:20.080 --> 0:10:25.760 steadily grew. By nineteen eleven, the two men owned multiple factories, 0:10:26.400 --> 0:10:30.679 all employed in making blouses or as they were known then, 0:10:31.080 --> 0:10:36.440 shirt waists or just waists. Blank and Harris were the 0:10:36.520 --> 0:10:43.640 shirtwaist kings. The Triangle Factory alone shipped two thousand blouses 0:10:43.960 --> 0:10:49.320 a day. The profits funded a lavish lifestyle, a far 0:10:49.440 --> 0:10:53.000 cry from the men's early days in New York. They 0:10:53.040 --> 0:10:56.040 lived with their families in neighboring townhouses on the Upper 0:10:56.120 --> 0:11:00.680 West Side and went to work in Chaufford cars. Max 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:06.120 Blank had five live in servants. Isaac Harris only had 0:11:06.240 --> 0:11:11.520 four the Peasant. As their wallets expanded, so too did 0:11:11.559 --> 0:11:16.800 their flagship factory's footprint. In nineteen o two, the Triangle 0:11:16.840 --> 0:11:20.160 Waste Company had moved into the Ash Building on the 0:11:20.200 --> 0:11:23.800 corner of Washington Place and Green Street in Lower Manhattan. 0:11:24.520 --> 0:11:28.240 The company had initially leased the nine thousand square foot 0:11:28.400 --> 0:11:32.360 ninth floor. By nineteen oh nine they had taken over 0:11:32.440 --> 0:11:37.400 the eighth and tenth floors two At first glance, the 0:11:37.440 --> 0:11:41.200 factory facilities at the Ash Building seemed a far cry 0:11:41.280 --> 0:11:45.840 from the horrifying sweatshop conditions of earlier decades. The ceilings 0:11:45.880 --> 0:11:49.320 were twelve feet high, the sewing machines were powered by 0:11:49.320 --> 0:11:54.840 a centralized electric motor, not by foot pedals. There were windows. 0:11:54.920 --> 0:11:59.040 In many ways, it was true these new loft factories 0:11:59.160 --> 0:12:02.640 were much better than the sweatshops, but they were still 0:12:02.840 --> 0:12:07.400 extremely difficult places to work. They were crowded and hot 0:12:07.640 --> 0:12:13.800 and noisy. The hours were very long, workers had few rights, 0:12:14.200 --> 0:12:18.920 and owners regularly exploited their employees, denying them breaks and 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:22.720 short changing them in their pay. By the end of 0:12:22.760 --> 0:12:26.360 the first decade of the nineteen hundreds, garment workers had 0:12:26.400 --> 0:12:30.959 become fed up with their working conditions. An organized labor 0:12:31.000 --> 0:12:35.199 movement began to take shape. Blank and Harris did their 0:12:35.240 --> 0:12:39.240 best to shut down unionization efforts in their factories. They 0:12:39.280 --> 0:12:43.240 made an in house union, staffed with their own relatives, 0:12:43.280 --> 0:12:45.760 and tried to convince workers to join it instead of 0:12:45.800 --> 0:12:50.120 an outside union. They fired anyone said to be associated 0:12:50.160 --> 0:12:53.880 with the labor movement, but Blank and Harris could not 0:12:54.120 --> 0:12:59.640 reverse the growing tide of discontent. In early October nineteen 0:12:59.640 --> 0:13:06.320 oh nins nine Triangle workers decided to strike. Blank and 0:13:06.440 --> 0:13:10.200 Harris fought back, calling in favors with the police department, 0:13:10.600 --> 0:13:14.640 who promptly arrived and began beating up and arresting strikers. 0:13:15.520 --> 0:13:19.880 The two owners hired strike breakers too, men who were 0:13:19.920 --> 0:13:24.720 willing to violently attack the striking women. Strike leaders began 0:13:24.840 --> 0:13:29.000 to mysteriously get beaten up while walking home at night. 0:13:30.160 --> 0:13:34.400 But the violence did not scare the strikers off. If anything, 0:13:34.640 --> 0:13:38.400 it only attracted more workers to their cause. Over the 0:13:38.440 --> 0:13:41.680 next two months, the call for a general strike of 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:49.920 shirtwaist makers grew stronger and stronger. On November twenty second, 0:13:50.360 --> 0:13:54.280 nineteen oh nine, thousands of workers attended a meeting of 0:13:54.320 --> 0:13:58.720 the local twenty five chapter of the International Ladies Garment Workers' 0:13:58.800 --> 0:14:04.120 Union and in enthusiastically agreed to a general strike. Picketing 0:14:04.200 --> 0:14:08.600 began on November twenty fourth. By the next day, more 0:14:08.679 --> 0:14:13.360 than twenty thousand workers filled the streets of the Lower 0:14:13.400 --> 0:14:18.640 east Side, marching and chanting for change. It was a 0:14:18.720 --> 0:14:25.160 strike of nearly unbelievable size. Around five hundred garment producers 0:14:25.200 --> 0:14:29.120 were affected by the strike. Roughly one out of every 0:14:29.200 --> 0:14:33.640 seven of these shops surrendered in the first forty eight hours, 0:14:33.680 --> 0:14:36.880 agreeing to the striker's conditions of a pay raise, a 0:14:36.920 --> 0:14:42.000 fifty two hour work week, and union only shops. But 0:14:42.080 --> 0:14:46.600 these early surrenders were mainly the smaller factories, the ones 0:14:46.640 --> 0:14:49.600 who could not afford to stop business for long or 0:14:49.680 --> 0:14:53.760 pay for new workers willing to cross picket lines. The 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:58.720 largest factories refused to give in no one dug their 0:14:58.800 --> 0:15:04.040 heels in more than Isaac Harris and Max Blank. The 0:15:04.080 --> 0:15:07.200 two men proposed to their fellow factory owners that they 0:15:07.280 --> 0:15:11.280 form a manufacturer's association to help one another out during 0:15:11.280 --> 0:15:14.800 the strike. Nearly one hundred factories signed up for the 0:15:14.840 --> 0:15:20.600 association and signed a no surrender declaration. With the battle 0:15:20.600 --> 0:15:25.080 lines drawn, both sides settled in for a long, hard fight. 0:15:26.760 --> 0:15:31.520 For months, neither side budged, but by February nineteen ten, 0:15:32.120 --> 0:15:35.360 things were reaching a breaking point for union leaders and 0:15:35.480 --> 0:15:40.880 owners alike. On February eighth, the Triangle Waste Company, one 0:15:40.920 --> 0:15:44.480 of the last holdouts, agreed to settle with the union. 0:15:45.320 --> 0:15:49.000 Blank and Harris agreed to higher wages and shorter hours 0:15:49.040 --> 0:15:52.400 for their returning workers, but they did not agree to 0:15:52.480 --> 0:15:58.320 the striker's demand for a closed shop a union only factory. 0:15:58.760 --> 0:16:02.000 Though the workers had not gone everything they wanted, the 0:16:02.080 --> 0:16:05.600 strike was a milestone for the growing American labor movement. 0:16:06.560 --> 0:16:11.640 Twenty thousand young people had taken on their wealthy, powerful 0:16:11.720 --> 0:16:17.160 employers and one better conditions for themselves. Their actions would 0:16:17.160 --> 0:16:21.640 inspire workers all across the country to fight for their rights. 0:16:22.760 --> 0:16:27.360 The strike had another legacy. It forever tainted the Triangle 0:16:27.400 --> 0:16:32.600 Waste Company and its owners. Nobody had fought harder or 0:16:32.640 --> 0:16:37.240 more violently against the strike than Max Blink and Isaac Harris. 0:16:38.120 --> 0:16:43.240 One labor newspaper writing after the strike had only contempt 0:16:43.520 --> 0:16:48.000 for the men and their company. The Triangle Company wrote 0:16:48.000 --> 0:16:52.040 the foreword with blood, this name will be written in 0:16:52.120 --> 0:16:56.960 the history of the American worker's movement. But it would 0:16:57.040 --> 0:17:00.760 not be in blood that the Triangle's name woulden history. 0:17:01.840 --> 0:17:10.359 The Triangle's name would enter history in fire. On March 0:17:10.400 --> 0:17:15.640 twenty fifth, nineteen eleven, thirteen months after the garment workers 0:17:15.640 --> 0:17:20.040 strike ended, someone dropped a match or a cigarette butt 0:17:20.680 --> 0:17:25.280 into a scrap bin at the Triangle Waste Company. Isidore 0:17:25.320 --> 0:17:31.960 Abramovitz noticed the fire first. Abramovitz was a cutter. Cutters 0:17:32.040 --> 0:17:35.879 trimmed fabric into the shape of the garment patterns. A 0:17:35.880 --> 0:17:40.080 good cutter organized the tissue paper pattern pieces carefully across 0:17:40.119 --> 0:17:45.040 the yards of fabric stretched across their table, minimizing waste. 0:17:45.200 --> 0:17:50.560 But even the most efficient cutter created scraps. These scraps 0:17:50.600 --> 0:17:54.880 were swept into bins under the tables and periodically emptied 0:17:54.920 --> 0:17:59.200 by rag traders. The Triangle's bins had last been emptied 0:17:59.240 --> 0:18:04.160 in January. By late March, there were hundreds of pounds 0:18:04.200 --> 0:18:09.920 of scrap piled under Isidor Abramovitz's cutting table. Scrap fires 0:18:09.960 --> 0:18:13.840 weren't unknown. There were no smoking signs on every floor 0:18:13.880 --> 0:18:18.199 of the factory, but everyone ignored them, and all it 0:18:18.280 --> 0:18:21.159 took was a single spark to light up the highly 0:18:21.280 --> 0:18:26.159 flammable fabric and tissue paper waste. The factory kept fire 0:18:26.280 --> 0:18:30.639 pails on ledges around the cutting floor for just such incidents. 0:18:32.040 --> 0:18:35.480 Now Abramovitz grabbed a pail and splashed it on the 0:18:35.480 --> 0:18:40.800 flames to no avail. Other cutters saw him and join 0:18:40.840 --> 0:18:44.879 in the effort, but the fire wasn't slowing. A gust 0:18:44.960 --> 0:18:47.919 of wind blew into the room from the elevator shaft 0:18:48.280 --> 0:18:51.760 and the workers saw the flames jump. Someone tried the 0:18:51.800 --> 0:18:54.480 fire hose, which was connected to a water tank on 0:18:54.520 --> 0:18:59.879 the roof, but no water came out. People began to panic. 0:19:01.160 --> 0:19:06.199 What happened next happened fast. The factory was a tinder 0:19:06.240 --> 0:19:10.840 box filled with flammable fabric and pattern paper, and an 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:13.880 air shaft in the back corner of the building made 0:19:13.880 --> 0:19:17.280 the perfect vehicle for the fire to travel to higher floors. 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:21.159 The speed of the fire is a crucial part of 0:19:21.200 --> 0:19:26.040 the story. As David Vandreali says in his book Triangle, 0:19:26.280 --> 0:19:30.639 the Fire that Changed America, All the crucial things that 0:19:30.800 --> 0:19:37.000 happened inside the factory that awful afternoon, the heroics, the terror, 0:19:37.720 --> 0:19:42.760 the tragedy, the strokes of fortune, both saving and deadly, 0:19:43.560 --> 0:19:47.480 transpired in a handful of minutes and in the presence 0:19:48.080 --> 0:19:54.600 of a hideously voracious fire. Isidore Abramowitz first spotted the 0:19:54.640 --> 0:19:59.760 fire around four forty pm. By four forty five, the 0:19:59.800 --> 0:20:03.360 fire fire had nearly consumed the eighth floor and had 0:20:03.400 --> 0:20:07.399 traveled to the ninth. There was no good way for 0:20:07.560 --> 0:20:10.760 workers on the different floors to communicate with each other. 0:20:11.760 --> 0:20:14.679 A telephone connected the eighth and ninth floors to the 0:20:14.760 --> 0:20:18.639 tenth floor, but the two lower floors could not communicate 0:20:18.680 --> 0:20:23.040 directly with each other. A bookkeeper on the eighth floor 0:20:23.400 --> 0:20:26.040 called up to the tenth floor shortly after the fire 0:20:26.119 --> 0:20:30.080 began to spread. The phone operator on the tenth floor 0:20:30.200 --> 0:20:33.920 alerted the workers there, giving them a few crucial extra 0:20:34.000 --> 0:20:37.920 minutes to escape, but she panicked and did not call 0:20:38.000 --> 0:20:41.480 down to the ninth floor. It was only at four 0:20:41.640 --> 0:20:45.800 forty six pm, just as the fire was already reaching 0:20:45.840 --> 0:20:49.200 the ninth floor that someone on the eighth floor pulled 0:20:49.200 --> 0:20:53.639 the internal fire alarm, setting bells ringing on all three 0:20:53.680 --> 0:20:59.480 floors outside. A passerby saw the flames and ran for 0:20:59.520 --> 0:21:04.920 the nearest public fire alarm. Each factory floor had four exits. 0:21:05.840 --> 0:21:07.919 There was a door leading to the stairs on the 0:21:08.080 --> 0:21:11.879 Washington Place side, there was a fire escape in the 0:21:11.920 --> 0:21:15.880 air shaft in the rear corner. On the Green Street side, 0:21:16.160 --> 0:21:19.120 there was a bank of elevators, and next to these 0:21:19.160 --> 0:21:25.359 elevators another door leading stairs. Many of those who survived 0:21:25.400 --> 0:21:29.040 the fire survived because of the heroic actions of two 0:21:29.160 --> 0:21:36.240 elevator operators, Joseph Zito and Gaspar Mortilalo. Despite the overwhelming 0:21:36.320 --> 0:21:40.840 heat and the flames licking at the elevator doors, Zito 0:21:40.920 --> 0:21:45.280 and Mortillalo kept making return trips, rescuing close to one 0:21:45.400 --> 0:21:49.200 hundred and fifty people between them, nearly half of all 0:21:49.240 --> 0:21:53.359 the survivors. Some of those survivors had only made it 0:21:53.400 --> 0:21:57.000 onto the elevator cars by flinging themselves into the shaft 0:21:57.560 --> 0:22:00.000 and landing on top of the cars as they traveled down. 0:22:01.560 --> 0:22:05.040 Many of those who died died because they took the 0:22:05.119 --> 0:22:12.040 fire escape. It is a cruel, terrible irony. The fire 0:22:12.280 --> 0:22:17.080 escape on the Ash Building was a death trap. City 0:22:17.200 --> 0:22:21.080 inspectors had allowed the developer to substitute a fire escape 0:22:21.160 --> 0:22:26.320 for the normally required third staircase. When the architects submitted 0:22:26.359 --> 0:22:30.159 the building's planned to the city, an inspector noticed that 0:22:30.200 --> 0:22:33.440 the fire escape ended over a skylight in the basement. 0:22:34.200 --> 0:22:37.160 There was no way for those evacuating to safely reach 0:22:37.240 --> 0:22:42.439 the ground. The architect promised to change the plans. He didn't. 0:22:43.760 --> 0:22:46.600 On top of that, the fire escape was rickety and 0:22:46.720 --> 0:22:51.720 extremely narrow. As more and more people crowded onto the escape, 0:22:52.080 --> 0:22:56.200 the iron frame began to groan, and suddenly it collapsed, 0:22:56.760 --> 0:23:02.080 sending terrified people plummeting to their deaths. On the eighth 0:23:02.119 --> 0:23:06.640 and tenth floor, employees escaped via both sets of stairs. 0:23:07.520 --> 0:23:11.639 The Green Street doors were open. Employees were required to 0:23:11.720 --> 0:23:15.360 exit via these doors so that a security guard posted 0:23:15.400 --> 0:23:20.320 there could inspect their bags for stolen items. The Washington 0:23:20.359 --> 0:23:23.960 Place doors were locked at closing time to keep workers 0:23:23.960 --> 0:23:27.600 from leaving that way. On the eighth floor, a man 0:23:27.680 --> 0:23:32.000 named Lewis Brown unlocked the Washington Place doors, allowing the 0:23:32.040 --> 0:23:36.200 workers to escape. By four forty seven. The eighth floor 0:23:36.240 --> 0:23:40.679 had completely evacuated. Workers on the tenth floor were also 0:23:40.760 --> 0:23:43.960 able to take both sets of stairs. By the time 0:23:44.000 --> 0:23:48.200 they evacuated, the fire blocked their escape downwards, so they 0:23:48.240 --> 0:23:51.800 headed for the roof, where people in the adjoining buildings 0:23:51.960 --> 0:23:55.480 held ladders out for them to climb to safety. Things 0:23:55.520 --> 0:23:58.959 were different on the ninth floor. This is the floor 0:23:59.000 --> 0:24:02.600 where Lena Yall, the young woman whose story we followed 0:24:02.600 --> 0:24:07.280 in the prolog worked. The ninth floor was the last 0:24:07.320 --> 0:24:10.240 to hear about the fire, only learning of it nearly 0:24:10.359 --> 0:24:14.359 six minutes after the blaze started. By this time, the 0:24:14.400 --> 0:24:18.240 fire had already reached them. Traveling via the air shaft, 0:24:19.080 --> 0:24:23.400 the floor quickly filled with smoke and flame. The four 0:24:23.440 --> 0:24:27.840 exit options dwindled. By four fifty one, the fire escape 0:24:27.880 --> 0:24:31.880 had collapsed, and by four fifty three the elevators could 0:24:31.880 --> 0:24:36.360 no longer travel through the superheated shaft. Some people were 0:24:36.440 --> 0:24:40.040 lucky enough and fast enough to reach the Green Street door, 0:24:40.480 --> 0:24:43.600 as Lena did, and make their way up to the roof. 0:24:49.080 --> 0:24:52.959 The remaining eighty or ninety workers were trapped on the 0:24:53.080 --> 0:24:56.000 edges of the room. They could not get the locked 0:24:56.160 --> 0:24:59.879 Washington Place door open, and they could not travel through 0:24:59.920 --> 0:25:03.719 the growing flames to reach the Green Street door. The 0:25:03.760 --> 0:25:07.560 fire pushed them away until they were standing on the windowsills, 0:25:08.160 --> 0:25:13.880 praying for a way out outside. The fire department had arrived. 0:25:14.840 --> 0:25:18.439 They began to raise ladders, but their ladders only reached 0:25:18.440 --> 0:25:23.719 the sixth story, some thirty feet too short. Instead, the 0:25:23.760 --> 0:25:28.240 firefighters began to spread out nets because they had realized 0:25:28.320 --> 0:25:32.000 what many of the workers huddled above had. The only 0:25:32.040 --> 0:25:38.560 way out was down. As David Vondrelei points out, many 0:25:38.600 --> 0:25:41.120 of the people working at the factory that day had 0:25:41.160 --> 0:25:46.359 survived pegroms in Russia organized massacres of Jews, where fire 0:25:46.600 --> 0:25:50.480 was often used as a weapon. They knew what fire 0:25:50.600 --> 0:25:54.760 could do. They wanted their relatives to be able to 0:25:54.800 --> 0:26:00.800 recognize their bodies. At four fifty, the first person jumped. 0:26:02.119 --> 0:26:06.399 The nets were futile. A body falling nine stories is 0:26:06.440 --> 0:26:09.560 moving so fast that a net can barely slow it down, 0:26:10.560 --> 0:26:13.800 and so many people began to jump so quickly that 0:26:13.880 --> 0:26:17.240 there was no chance of catching them all. Even if 0:26:17.320 --> 0:26:22.119 catching would help, There was nothing anyone on the street 0:26:22.200 --> 0:26:26.520 could do but watch, horrified as people began to fall. 0:26:27.680 --> 0:26:31.760 Those who went first jumped. Those who came later did 0:26:31.800 --> 0:26:35.520 not have the luxury of choice as the windowsills burned 0:26:35.560 --> 0:26:38.440 out from beneath them and sent them tumbling to their 0:26:38.480 --> 0:26:44.480 deaths inside the ash building stairwells. Fire crews were battling 0:26:44.520 --> 0:26:49.520 the inferno by five point fifteen PM, only thirty five 0:26:49.560 --> 0:26:53.200 minutes after Isidore Abramovitz had first noticed a fire in 0:26:53.280 --> 0:26:57.520 his scrapin. They had the fire under control, but by 0:26:57.600 --> 0:27:01.800 then nearly one hundred and fifty people, more than twenty 0:27:01.840 --> 0:27:04.600 percent of the people in the Triangle factory that day, 0:27:05.119 --> 0:27:09.560 were dead. Most of those who died in the Triangle 0:27:09.640 --> 0:27:14.679 fire were young women, immigrants from either Eastern Europe or Italy. 0:27:15.880 --> 0:27:20.320 Many of them had worked alongside their sisters or mothers, 0:27:20.359 --> 0:27:24.560 and many families lost more than one person that day. 0:27:25.720 --> 0:27:30.080 The sarah Chinos lost Tess and Sarah Fina. The Goldsteins 0:27:30.200 --> 0:27:34.600 lost Mary and Lena. The Brenmans lost Rosie and Circa, 0:27:35.080 --> 0:27:41.560 while their brother Joseph survived. One family. The Malteses lost 0:27:41.600 --> 0:27:46.960 two girls, Lucy aged twenty and Sarah, the youngest victim 0:27:47.000 --> 0:27:51.240 of the fire, only fourteen years old, and they lost 0:27:51.320 --> 0:27:57.000 Lucy and Sarah's mother, Catherine, two three family members gone 0:27:57.240 --> 0:28:01.879 in the blink of an eye. Identified bodies were laid 0:28:01.960 --> 0:28:04.679 out in a large building on a pier in the 0:28:04.720 --> 0:28:08.919 East River, and friends and family members lined up to 0:28:09.000 --> 0:28:12.679 try to find their missing loved ones. The task was 0:28:12.760 --> 0:28:16.879 heart wrenching and gruesome. Many of the bodies were so 0:28:17.280 --> 0:28:20.960 badly damaged by the fall or by the fire that 0:28:21.040 --> 0:28:25.320 they had to be identified by jewelry, or hairstyles, or 0:28:25.359 --> 0:28:29.040 even the darns in their stockings. By the end of 0:28:29.080 --> 0:28:34.920 the week, all but seven corpses were identified. On April fifth, 0:28:35.359 --> 0:28:39.760 a funeral procession for the Triangle victims traveled through Lower Manhattan. 0:28:40.960 --> 0:28:45.160 Some one hundred and twenty thousand people marched and another 0:28:45.240 --> 0:28:49.280 three hundred thousand lined the streets. It was a clear 0:28:49.400 --> 0:28:53.360 sign of the fire's impact on New York. The city 0:28:53.800 --> 0:28:58.520 was reeling. Writing about the procession for the Women's Trade 0:28:58.680 --> 0:29:03.200 Union League, Martha Bensley Breweer asked the question on the 0:29:03.240 --> 0:29:07.840 lips of many New Yorkers. The fire is over. The 0:29:07.920 --> 0:29:12.080 girls are dead, she wrote, Now what is going to 0:29:12.120 --> 0:29:17.040 be done about it? Political leaders shied away from answering 0:29:17.040 --> 0:29:21.880 the question. New York Mayor William Gaynor directed reporters to 0:29:21.920 --> 0:29:25.920 the fire chief. The State Labor Commissioner directed reporters to 0:29:25.960 --> 0:29:30.000 the City Building Department. The building department head was on 0:29:30.080 --> 0:29:34.040 vacation and refused to return, but he did direct reporters 0:29:34.120 --> 0:29:39.280 to the fire department. Conflicting information about the fire and 0:29:39.360 --> 0:29:43.720 the cause of the deaths filled newspapers and official statements. 0:29:44.400 --> 0:29:48.200 No one knew quite what to believe or who to blame, 0:29:49.040 --> 0:29:57.680 but everyone wanted to blame someone. New York District Attorney 0:29:57.840 --> 0:30:01.600 Charles Whitman was also struggling the question of what to do. 0:30:02.760 --> 0:30:05.840 Whitman had arrived at the scene of the fire shortly 0:30:05.920 --> 0:30:09.520 after five pm on the twenty fifth, after the last 0:30:09.520 --> 0:30:12.520 person had jumped, but before the bodies had been taken 0:30:12.560 --> 0:30:16.640 away or the fire had been extinguished. The images of 0:30:16.680 --> 0:30:22.120 that terrible day stuck with him. As Whitman considered how 0:30:22.160 --> 0:30:25.800 to get justice for the fire victims, he faced a choice. 0:30:26.480 --> 0:30:30.600 Would his office pursue the city's Building Department and accuse 0:30:30.680 --> 0:30:34.239 them of Lack's oversight, or would he go after the 0:30:34.280 --> 0:30:39.360 factory's owners, Isaac Harris and Max Blank. He felt he 0:30:39.400 --> 0:30:42.840