"One Saturday afternoon in March of that year — March 25, to be
precise — I was sitting at one of the reading tables in the old Astor
Library... It was a raw, unpleasant day and the comfortable reading room
seemed a delightful place to spend the remaining few hours until the
library closed. I was deeply engrossed in my book when I became aware of
fire engines racing past the building. By this time I was sufficiently
Americanized to be fascinated by the sound of fire engines. Along with
several others in the library, I ran out to see what was happening, and
followed crowds of people to the scene of the fire.
"A few blocks away, the Asch Building at the corner of Washington Place
and Greene Street was ablaze. When we arrived at the scene, the police
had thrown up a cordon around the area and the firemen were helplessly
fighting the blaze. The eighth, ninth, and tenth stories of the building
were now an enormous roaring cornice of flames.
"Word had spread through the East Side, by some magic of terror, that
the plant of the Triangle Waist Company was on fire and that several
hundred workers were trapped. Horrified and helpless, the crowds — I
among them — looked up at the burning building, saw girl after girl
appear at the reddened windows, pause for a terrified moment, and then
leap to the pavement below, to land as mangled, bloody pulp. This went
on for what seemed a ghastly eternity. Occasionally a girl who had
hesitated too long was licked by pursuing flames and, screaming with
clothing and hair ablaze, plunged like a living torch to the street.
Life nets held by the firemen were torn by the impact of the falling
bodies.
"The emotions of the crowd were indescribable. Women were hysterical,
scores fainted; men wept as, in paroxysms of frenzy, they hurled
themselves against the police lines."
-Louis Waldmans' Memoirs Published in 1944
*I'm quite suprised that I've never heard of this until today.
