Observing Wildlife

During the middle of rush hour traffic on a Friday afternoon, I stood waiting to cross the street at 40th and Ninth Avenue in Manhattan. A cacophony of horns blared as tempers flared; buses and automobiles were trapped in an intractable tangle, suggestive that no one was getting home early. Pedestrians stood transfixed by their phones, taking furtive glances to secure safe passage. Above the intersection, sitting on a traffic light standard, sat three pigeons looking down at the humans in their natural habitat. Each new horn blast brought renewed attention to the traffic by the three. I imagined one saying to another, “What is she doing?” to which the reply was, “Why didn’t you remember your binoculars?”

Wandering in Spandau

Statue of Joachim II outside St. Nicholas Church

Because Berlin was constructed of several small towns incorporated into a modern city in 1920, these former cities have become distinct neighborhoods within the German capital. My exploration, taking place on a Monday holiday, entered a city that is more familiar for the prison that housed the Nazi prisoners through most of the Cold War than for the buildings and events that took place there. Spandau prison was demolished in 1987 after its last prisoner, Rudolf Hess, died.

A leisurely walk from the train station is St. Nicholas Church, one of the oldest in Berlin. Dating from the first half of the 14^th century, the church is most famous as the site where, on 1 November 1539, Elector Joachim II took communion under the Lutheran rite, which is both bread and wine. He was a member of the house of Hohenzollern and Prince Elector of Brandenburg, one of the most important principalities of the Holy Roman Empire. Joachim did not officially convert to Lutheranism until 1555 for political reasons. The church, well off the tourist track, has an interesting history aside from its role in the Protestant Reformation and was a real treat for someone interested in Lutheran heritage.

The great thing about exploring on a holiday is that all the shops are closed and there is very little pedestrian traffic. This meant that I could wander Spandau without having a number of people rushing around completing their errands. Of course, the downside is that many places are closed and, therefore, food, drink and comfort options are limited.

Entrance to Zitadelle

A walk around the Zitadelle, a medieval fort built to protect Spandau, provided a little interaction with nature. The water that surrounds the fort is an excellent location for birds and small animals. As I walked the perimeter the dead leaves and underbrush was alive with rustlings of small birds or animals, it was difficult to tell which.

I found a small park at Stresowplatz, where a sign indicated that the square had once been a bustling business district. Now it is comprised mainly of apartment blocks. Unfortunately, the sign was too badly damaged, with stickers and graffiti, to be able to decipher.

An unidentified bird in the undergrowth at the Zitadelle

Coming back to the center of the Spandau, I noticed a Woolworth Store. The chain has long since disappeared in the United States; however, it continues in Germany, Austria and Mexico. I have fond memories of the Woolworth in Southland Terrace while growing up. When I was very young I was bitten by a gerbil in that store. I remember being taken to the back (behind the curtain if you will) and I was impressed that there was something beyond the store – a secret world. Later, Woolworth was a place that I frequently bought records. Most of the time there was nothing new, but good bargains on interesting albums and 45s. I distinctly remember the lunch counter nearby where you could order a quick burger or grilled cheese. The pickles served on the side were always better than the ones you could get at home. 

The Woolworth chain began with its first store in Utica, New York in 1878, but did not last long. Frank Whitfield Woolworth then moved his store to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where it thrived. Soon it became the most successful five and dime store in the United States and the world. It was so successful that it figured in the popular songs, such as, “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love.” The corporate headquarters, The Woolworth Building, at Broadway and Park Place, is still one of the most iconic buildings in lower Manhattan.

The Woolworth in Spandau Berlin

Although the Woolworth in Spandau was not open, I could not resist the temptation to have a peek inside the windows. Looking at the goods that are served in the modern successor to the classic five and dime, there is very little to remind me of the old store. There are no longer wax bottles with liquid sugar or candy cigarettes in a huge candy aisle near the checkout counter. There are no small turtles along the back wall waiting to be taken home as a pet. In other words, while the sign on the outside serves as a nostalgic reminder, the store does not satiate my longing to revisit the places of my adolescence. 

Obscure New York

While New York is known for its famous attractions, what I find interesting is the lesser known or hidden places in the city. There are small monuments, markers, buildings and places that are not observed by most who pass by. Here is a collection of some of my favorites from the past few visits:

Placed prominently in the Old King Cole Bar and Saloon, the hotel bar of the St. Regis Hotel, is a mural by Maxfield Parrish. The dark wood interior and cozy atmosphere help to highlight the mural that sits behind the bar. Commissioned by John Jacob Astor IV in 1906 and installed in 1932 the painting allegedly pokes fun at Astor who was one of the most famous victims of the Titanic.  

As I have written before, public telephone booths are increasing an endangered species. I can imagine a time when in heavy demand; however, today these two on the first floor of the New York Public Library, still provide a public service. In my imagination, a diligent researcher finds his/her way to the telephone to ask a client or boss for further information. Alas, most researchers would pick up their smart phone and text the question.

This faded mural is on the ceiling of Graybar Passage at Grand Central Terminal.  It is difficult to make out what the mural depicts, other than a railroad bridge toward the bottom, and it has proved difficult to find much information about the painting (more to come).

Once ubiquitous around the United States, fallout shelters and signs have become increasingly difficult to find. Growing up I knew the closest fallout shelter was at my elementary school. I later learned that it would likely have done me no good as most of the shelters were woefully inadequate, had insufficient food, and the water were often contained in leaky, rusty cans. This fallout shelter entrance and sign on 52nd Street, near Third Avenue, appears to have escaped remodeling and theft for now.

Milford, Pennsylvania

Hotel Fauchere

I stopped in Milford for lunch and a short perambulation on a hot and humid, July afternoon. I had lunch at the Milford Diner, which has a nostalgic feel but has been substantially upgraded in recent years.  Among the pictures and memorabilia hanging on the wall is a photograph, signature and newspaper clipping of President Clinton. He stopped at the diner in 2008 while campaigning for his wife Hillary during the Democratic primaries. Perhaps even more interesting (and amusing) is another picture frame that contains a photograph and explanation: A scoutmaster from a Boy Scout troop took the boys for a meal in 1983. I am sure there is an excellent story behind the photos and frame (which was not disclosed) and suspect there are many more such stories around the walls of the diner.

Bucolic Ann Street

After lunch, I took a quick walk around town. Among the more intriguing places was the Hotel Fauchére, established in 1852 as a summer hotel. It quickly became famous for its French cuisine under the direction of Louis Fauchére, the chef of Delmonico’s in New York City. Over the years the hotel’s guests included three American presidents and a number of actors, including Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Mae West.

Village Diner, on US6

Walking in the residential neighborhoods, many of the houses retain hitching posts for horses in the front yards. The streets are quaint and charmingly kept. Walking the length of Ann Street, there were many beautiful houses and yards. At the end of the street, the petite Ethel Barckley Memorial Park is a beautiful overlook of the Delaware River.
 

About three miles northwest of town, near the 398 mile marker on US6, the Village Diner appears to be a great classic diner.  

Hidden New York

In New York, sometimes it seems that real gems are obscured by the obvious. Earlier this month, I was interested by all the people milling around the 9/11 Memorial Site. The recently opened site intends to honor the victims of that terrible September morning in 2001, complete with an office tower and a shopping mall. Virtually every tourist was taking the same photograph, over and over again, from the same perspective, of the newly completed Freedom Tower. I did not see anyone who noticed the architectural gem at 90 West Street, which was damaged during the 9/11 attack as well. The building opened in 1907 and was designed by architect Cass Gilbert. The primary tenant was the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad and it also housed Garret’s Restaurant, billed as the highest restaurant in the world at the time.  Its magnificence is obscured by other tall buildings and the distraction of other sites in lower Manhattan.

My Life with Trains (Part 1) Stations

Train stations are interesting crossroads of people and artifacts of travel methods past. For many decades trains travel opened up destinations to vast amounts of people. In an era of unreliable automobiles and non-existent air travel, locomotives took people to faraway places and opened new possibilities and horizons. These journeys often started, or ended, in grand edifices that symbolized the importance of the undertaking. These structures have fallen on hard times and many have disappeared. Yet, those that remain give us a glimpse to the romantic world of train travel.

I remember my first trip on Amtrak, Louisville to Fort Lauderdale, but I do not remember the station in Louisville very well. But vaguely I remember my parents talking about the beauty of the train station and what a shame it was rarely used any more. Today, train stations have become a fascination. I am only sorry that we, as a country, do not get to utilize them much anymore. While there has been a decline in railroads, at least some of the old railroad stations have survived.

Grand Central (March 2014)

Grand Central Station in New York is iconic. One of my favorite photographs is of the station in 1954 with sunlight pouring into the station highlighting the smoke/smog and creating streams of light that shine upon the people congregating on the main floor. Once someone wrote that we have come to love and revere Grand Central Station because of the destruction of old Penn Station. Recently, we watched an American Experience documentary on Penn Station, which chronicled the engineering feat and architectural glory of the former station. The station itself, which was private property, was destroyed as the result of a business decision. Most people lament the loss of the great landmark. Today what serves as Penn Station, adjacent to Madison Square Garden, is an inelegant structure that many revile.

30th Street Station (April 2014)

The Angel of Resurrection (1952)

On the other hand, 30th Street Station in Philadelphia is a gorgeous structure. Built between 1927 and 1933, it was one of the last great train stations to be built. Despite its beautiful Art Deco décor, perhaps the most distinctive feature of the station is the memorial to those from the Pennsylvania Railroad who died during World War II, which is stunning. Prominently displayed at the 29th Street exit the sculpture is impossible to miss. Named “The Angel of Resurrection” (1952), by Walker Hancock, it depicts the Archangel Michael lifting a deceased soldier from the frames of war. As prominent as Hancock’s piece is, another work in the station is interesting as well. “Spirit of Transportation” (1895), by Karl Bitter, was originally placed at the Broad Street Station but moved to 30th Street in 1933.  One detail that is worthy of note is on the extreme right side of the sculpture a young boy holds a toy airship, foretelling the development and utilization of air transportation eight years prior to the successful flight of the Wright Brothers.

Union Station (April 2014)

For as often as I had visited Chicago, it was only recently that I toured Union Station. My recent visit coincided with the home opener of Wrigley Field on its 100th anniversary. Cubs fans poured into the station from surrounding suburbs and made their way to alternative transportation, usually CTA “L” Trains, to complete their trip. Rather than the bustling of Grand Station or the utilization of the waiting space in 30th Street, Union Station looks empty. There are eight wooden benches, four on either end of the great hall, with the center remarkably open. The light-colored marble floors and the incredibly high sky lights gives the impression of lightness and magnitude. With so few people, the space looks even more massive. I read that the station is anticipating a threefold increase in the coming years. It seems that the station is well suited to accommodate the increased passengers.

While many stations create a nostalgic feeling of early twentieth century, Union Station Chicago has a slightly more recent nostalgia, perhaps from the mid-twentieth century. For example, the Metro Deli is an old-style bar complete with vintage advertisements for color televisions and historic photographs lining the walls. It is a traditional oval bar with a number of televisions, plus a sandwich carving station. As I looked around, I imagined men who had worked in the city having a beer while waiting for a train home to the suburbs, watching the final innings of a Cubs game on WGN. In my mind, Harry Caray was bellowing across the bar, hoping against hope for a late inning rally from the Cubs.

Penn Station (March 2014)

Lamp at Union Station Chicago

"The Spirit of Transportation" (1895)

Rizzoli Books

A newspaper article in January noted that the famous Rizzoli Bookstore of New York might have to move again because the building it occupies is set for demolition. Originally the bookstore opened on Fifth Avenue in 1964. It moved around the corner to 57th Street when its nineteenth century building was demolished in favor of a new office tower. Almost three decades later the bookstore is faced with a similar problem.

Interior of Rizzoli Bookstore (March 2014)

After reading the article I went to Rizzoli’s website and read through the blog. A number of famous people have shopped at the store and it has hosted its share of parties. One of my favorite stories was the day David Bowie made some purchases and presented his credit card, which used his actual name: David Jones. The clerk looked at the card and asked: “Hey, weren’t you in The Monkees?”

I decided to pay my respects to the venerable place in March, realizing that I probably would not be in the city again before it closed. Scaffolding already surrounded the outside of the building and inside people were measuring bookshelves and stacking oversized manuscripts onto trolleys. It was a signal that no stay of execution was likely. The three stories of the building were stocked with interesting books, foreign magazines, and individual alcoves were dedicated to Italian, French and Spanish-language books. A number of interesting literary and travel posters dotted the walls. Perhaps the most striking feature of the store are the chandeliers that produce a soft light in a space that is darker than most modern retail outlets.

Can a chain bookstore offer me less expensive books? Yes. Can they offer a cup of (overpriced) coffee while considering my purchases? Sure. Can I come across titles, authors and ideas I have not considered in a chain store? Of course. Why, then, would I consider the loss of a bookstore like Rizzoli important?

I suppose that there are a number of answers to that question. Nostalgia is certainly important, but the “law of the good neighbor” is top most in my mind. Because independent bookstores have a wider range of interesting (not necessarily marketable) titles, it is far more likely that an interesting discovery could happen. The law of the good neighbor suggests that, typically, the information you seek is not in the book you are looking for, but instead in the book right next to it. I would argue that explorations in an independent bookstore are more organic than in a chain; however, I would not deny that discoveries happen in all bookstores. (I worry that our discoveries might be extremely limited if all of our book purchases were online.)

More importantly, however, is the unique space where the books live prior to finding a new home. There is something more ennobling in a store that is not flooded by fluorescent light. Intimate spaces like Rizzoli invite us to make real connections with books and ideas. As we search for discoveries, we are not limited to literary treasures. The odd corner or alcove is packed with precious gems that await our adventurous exploration. 

Faux Tourism

I constantly find myself surprised at the popularity of destinations that are solely designed to sell products. Places like M&M World in Times Square have the feeling of a tourist destination, but in reality is nothing more than a place to sell M&M products and memorabilia rather than an Enlightenment sense of education and self-improvement. There is a sophistication to these stores, including using smells to directly stimulate the senses of those who enter. Patrons are charged almost as much as a film at the mall cinema for a 30-minute film (complete with 3D and fragrances). This consumer tourism creates an imperative to spend more money by fostering (debatable) nostalgia. Many people readily buy in (pun fully intended).

I took my niece and nephew to Hershey’s Chocolate World – a place that is big on hype, but rather short on intellectual engagement. The gratis ride through a “chocolate factory” gives the air of information and education. Actually, it is a poor substitute for an actual factory. As the ride makes its way through video screens and plastic mock-ups of chocolate producing machinery, a happy voice describes the process of making Hershey products. The narrative is all but drowned out by singing cows that extoll the health benefits of the milk in milk chocolate (“It’s Moo-tritious”). In the penultimate display, the visitor is told to smile for a photograph, which can be purchased in the gift shop. Finally, while exiting the ride, we are told that Hershey’s number one goal is to keep a smile on your face. (All this time I thought it was to make money!)

Call me cynical, but very little attention is paid to Milton Hershey (1857-1945), his inventions or good works. No doubt that there are dissenting views, but the Hershey School (f. 1909) and his model town for employees are certainly admirable. There is a collage of him and his work at the entrance to the ride, but it is overshadowed by lights and noises that beckon the visitor to singing cows, as over-stimulated kids and frustrated parents carelessly walk by. 

Whither the Book?

Angie turned to me and said, “Anyone who thinks the book is dead should come here.” The here to which she was referring is Strand Books in New York. We were visiting the famed bookstore on a Saturday afternoon in late September. The store, which is very big, was so crowded it was often difficult to browse for books because people were moving in and out between shelves. The line at the checkout counter stretched 20-25 people, long enough that I could overhear conversations about twenty-something dating rituals as we waited to complete our purchases.

There are other famous bookstores that engender such passion as well. Located at the corner of Pender and Richards streets in Vancouver, MacLeod’s Books is one of those used book stores where one can lose yourself for hours. It is a small space; however, there are so many books stuffed into the store that it makes shopping a treasure hunt for unknown goods.

MacLeod's Books

Featured in Macleans two years before my visit, I spent almost two hours searching through stacks of books. There are so many books that line the aisles that it leaves little room to walk, and this did not include the books that are on the shelves and perched on top of bookcases. While I was browsing the multitude of books, contorting myself to read spines that were not in an orderly fashion, I thought to myself that I was searching for books I did not know I wanted.

As I was browsing I could overhear a number of conversations between customers and the staff. The staff was knowledgeable and friendly, but not in an artificial manner that one finds in chain stores. The man and woman who worked the store while I was there figured out queries with minimum information. Among the customers was a woman from Germany, who purchased a couple of books and said that she had read about the store online. 

NYPL

For some of us of a certain predilection, the most important site in New York is the New York Public Library. Restaurants, theaters, shops, monuments and stadiums all beckon, but do not represent the repertoire of knowledge and culture collected within the walls of the exquisite building at 42nd and Fifth Avenue. Even if it is just a quick pass through the gift shop, a trip to the library is always rewarding.

The ceiling of the reading room surreptitiously
taken with my iPad

A few hours reading books in the main reading room, where no tourists are allowed to take photographs, is ennobling. Unlike many other libraries these days, the time-honored traditional of quiet reflection is largely observed. Often the only noises, which are magnified because of unusual silence is the frequent sound of the wooden chairs legs dragged across the tile floor and the infrequent coughs of patrons. It is a quiet oasis in the midst of a great bustling city. 

The best quality of a research library is that there are books and material that is available very few places, or nowhere else in the world. In fact, the New York Public Library system is a treasure trove of unique items. It is one of the things that makes the library so special and why so many fight to keep much of the collection on-site to continue to make it a working research library.

While the collection makes the library particularly useful, the building inspires us to greatness. At the entrance to the main reading rooms is a quote from John Milton that reminds us of the immortality of literature, words and books: “A good Booke is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, imbalm’d and treasur’d up on purpose to a life beyond life.” There are also corners of the library that reminds of us days passed; my favorite is the bank of public telephones in the basement that are, today, rarely used. 

Public telephones at the NYPL

I was reading a fairly obscure book by a British author (only 52 libraries around the world reported having a copy) from the early post-World War II era. I had expected to find the book distasteful and vehemently disagree with the ideas presented; however, I was struck by the thoughtful exploration of the issue in question. While I disagree with the overall premise, it did strike me as an interesting understanding of issues from a bygone day. The author had written five other books, which made me wonder if the library held copies. More broadly, what ideas, thoughts, stories, narratives and collections must be contained in the volumes within the stacks of the library? These are the types of books that are not on any type of electronic device and likely never will be. When was the last time someone read the book I read on that beautiful fall afternoon? Are there books that have not been read in decades that would be discovered by a patron later today? Next week? Or next year?  

E. B. White’s Here is New York

It has been sixty-five summers since the essayist E.B. While walked the streets of New York, and holed up in a hotel room, in preparation for his ode to the city, Here is New York. The book was reissued in paperback in 1999, for the fiftieth anniversary of its original release, and new copies are readily available around bookstores in the city; however, my copy is from the original publication year (1949) and it the “Book of the Month Club” edition. Somehow, in my affectations, this makes it more authentic.

White’s general theme, in what is essentially a long essay, is that the city is both ever-changing and never-changing. The streets and familiar landmarks give one a sense of stability and permanence. Yet, at the same time, old buildings are torn down and replaced with amazing frequency. What I find interesting in the book is how prescient White’s observations are. He notes that people have an edge and arguments occur far more frequently, prefiguring the stereotype of rude New Yorkers. He is concerned about the over-commercialization of society, noting that to him Grand Central Station was the most inspiring interior until ruined by advertising. He laments the intrusion of television into public spaces, arguing that men go to bars to gaze at television rather than having “long thoughts.”

It is the final observation of the book that is the most interesting and far-sighted. White is very much a man of his era; writing in 1948 he is concerned about the specter of nuclear warfare. But his prose eerily foreshadows the September 11 attacks, even though the airplanes he fears are carrying atomic weapons instead of being themselves the weapons of terror. He notes, as well, what makes the city stronger in the aftermath: “The city at last perfectly illustrates both the universal dilemma, and the general solution, this riddle in steel and stone is at one the perfect target and the perfect demonstration of nonviolence…” (53). White returns to the argument that the city’s diversity makes it stronger, specifically that the number of different nationalities and groups meant that people had to be tolerant of one another (43). It is this allure of the city, which White argues bestows the gifts of loneliness and privacy, that allows people to be who they want. Because people migrate to the city to find freedom and anonymity, and they recognize fellow travelers, it creates the essence of urban tolerance. It is also the source of disdain for many outside urban areas, for they fear those who are different. Reading White sixty-five years after his observations, I was struck by his foreshadowing of current trends. Cities are big, often illogical, collections of neighborhoods and people that look like utter chaos; however, as Katz and Bradley have more recently argued, perhaps it is cities that will lead the future. 

Vintage Advertisements (NYC)

When I see them, it is almost as if they are urban archaeological artifacts. Painted on the sides of buildings, often faded and difficult to read, these advertisements hearken back to previous days when name brands did not necessarily have a global reach. Strange

Gre-Solvent

names and products fascinate me and I enjoy the puzzle of determining what these old signs mean:

1. Gre-Solvent – West 50th Street (near 9th Avenue)

Gre-Solvent was a hand cleanser popular in the 1920s and 1930s that was used particularly by those engaged in manual labor. A company by the same name still exists in Britain. On the advertisement the catch phrase, “cleans them clean,” is still very legible. 

2. Hotel Rooms / Cigars – 8th Avenue (between 46th and 47th Streets)

Located on the side of the New York Inn, this advertisement offers rooms that features steam heat, housekeeping, and hot and cold water. It appears that the hotel advertisement was painted over an older advertisement for cigars, which is more difficult to decipher. 

Hotel Rooms

Small New York City Parks

One of the unique aspects of New York City is the multitude of small parks that dot Manhattan. When people think of parks in the city, their thoughts are naturally drawn to Central Park or, perhaps, Bryant or Battery Park. Yet, the stories behind other, lesser known, parks are just as interesting.

Adjacent to the theater district in Hell’s Kitchen, Ramon Aponte Park is a small, but vibrant park on West 47th Street (Between 8th and 9th Avenues). The odd shape of the park is because the property line was originally shaped by the farm land of Charles Kelley. In the 19th century (1860), the New York City Police Department build a station on the land of the park and for over one hundred years the site served as a precinct. Perhaps the most famous person arrested and brought to the precinct was Mae West, who in 1926, was incarcerated for appearing in the play “Sex,” which was deemed offensive by city officials. In defending the play, West said, “I think that ‘Sex’ is one of the cleanest plays on Broadway. There is no nudity and no obscene language in the whole play” (New York Times, 5 March 1927).

In the 1960s the land would be transferred to the Fire Department and ultimately the lot would stand empty and abandoned in the 1970s. Thanks to the efforts of local residents, including the leadership of Ramon Aponte, a playground was erected and opened on the spot in 1979. By 1981, the park received the official designation of a public playground and later as a park. 

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire – March 1911

It is an incredibly important event, yet many Americans are only vaguely aware of it. (Recently I asked a group of students how many were aware of what happened during the fire and more than have had not heard of it.) Despite sitting in lower Manhattan, on the campus of New York University, the Brown Building (formerly the Asch Building) at 23-29 Washington Place feels like it is a remote corner of the city. Perhaps it is the perfect metaphor for how we remember the Triangle Fire.

One of the best accounts of the fire, the trial that followed and its legacy is David von Drehle’s Triangle: The Fire that Changed America. The Triangle Shirtwaist Company was a place where young, primarily female, immigrants worked long hours for low wages. Employees were regularly cheated by their employers. Minutes were shaved off their lunch hours and time clock were “fixed” to elicit a little extra work out of the employees (von Drehle, pg. 7). On 25 March 1911, a fire raced through the factory killing 146 employees, some as young as 14 years. Locked doors and exits, unsafe working conditions and improper fire equipment all led to a high number of deaths. In an era of factory owners trying to secure massive profits, the economic well-being or safety of workers was not a primary concern.

The Brown Building (June 2013)

It is easy to disregard a number of deaths from a century ago; and, for some, it was almost as easy to do it then. The owners of Triangle, Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, “were rich men, and when they glanced into the faces of their employees, they saw, with rare exceptions, anonymous cogs in a profit machine” (von Drehle, pg. 36). Yet, we often forget that in many cases these young women were the bread winners of their families; they were entrepreneurial and hardworking. These young people left behind a legacy of heartbreak and sorrow that often had ramifications in Eastern Europe. The lives of Blanck and Harris would not change substantially as a result, although their families were present in the building during the fire. Although there was a trial, the owners were acquitted of all responsibility even though this was not the first fire at one of their factories. On the other hand, many poor immigrant families were devastated. Shelia Nevins wrote a moving letter to her great aunt Celia (Gitlin) who perished in the fire years later when she realized the family stories were true. Celia was young (17 years), an immigrant (from Russia) and did not speak English. Yet, she came to American to find a job and a better life. Shelia’s letter asks questions that will never be answered and reminds the modern day reader that the people who lost their lives that terrible day in late March 1911 were real people, with hopes and dreams.

As the fire raged through the factory, trapping many of the workers, some chose to take their lives by jumping rather than waiting for a death by flames. Such actions had a traumatic effect upon those who witnessed the tragedy. As I lingered in the area around the Brown building on a Saturday morning in late June, I remembered von Drehle’s account. Even though the sidewalks have surely been paved over numerous times in the 102 years since the fire I still considered them with some trepidation. 

If anything good can come of such a tragedy, this may be an example. The fire served as an impetus to better workplace safety standards in the United States. We are occasionally reminded that those standards do not apply worldwide and that workers often face very dangerous working conditions elsewhere. A couple months ago, the collapse of a building in Bangladesh is reminder that workers continue to face unsafe working conditions. Even in the United States, the question of fair labor standards continues and some will occasionally bemoan safety regulation, even after more than a hundred years after Triangle. Yet this is more than a historical event, it is legacy and reality that bears remembrance and consideration.

Update: Bangladeshi Garment Factories (9 July 2013)

A consortium of European retailers agreed to a plan to inspect and upgrade Bangladeshi clothing factories in an effort to protect the safety of workers. The collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Savar killed 1,127 people in April. Under the plan European and Bangladeshi officials would inspect garment factories for safety hazards, including fire escapes and structural problems that make the buildings prone to collapse. The British and Dutch governments have offered to finance any modifications that would need to occur to bring buildings into line with safety standards. Yet, American companies have opted not to participate, instead trying to establish a program of their own. There is speculation that American companies were concerned with the costs and effects on profits. (See New York Times, The Guardian, Voice of America)

A fire in November 2012 at a Bangladeshi factory killed 112 workers, a number that is similar to the 146 workers who died in Triangle Fire. As David von Drehle pointed out, factory workers are often faceless cogs to consumers, retailers and factory owners.