Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire - Chalk Project 2014

I am honored to participate every year in the commemorate Chalk Project.

Here is the background for this meaningful art memorial project:

The Triangle Chalk Project commemorates the women and men who died in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in 1911. This horrific fire which claimed the lives of 146 garment workers - mostly young immigrant women - helped launched the unionization of the industry.

The company employed approximately 600 workers, mostly young immigrant women, some as young as twelve or thirteen and worked fourteen-hour shifts during a 60-hour to 72-hour workweek. According to Pauline Newman, a worker at the factory, the average wage was six to seven dollars a week, at a time when the average yearly income was $791. A fire started on the 8th floor of the factory building in Greenwich Village. Women and men on the 9th floor soon became trapped - the owners of the factory locked the doors so the workers could not leave early or take breaks. Fire truck ladders could not reach higher than the 4th floor of the building. There was only one way out - they jumped out the window ... to their deaths. The scene was devastating.

Every year volunteers go to the doorsteps of those who died and write a memorial to them in chalk on the sidewalk. The full Memorial Ceremony is marked every year on March 25 - the day of the fire - outside the factory building located at 23-29 Washington Place beside Washington Square Park in Manhattan. The shirtwaist factory is now called the Brown Building, and is part of the New York University campus. Read more about it on Sue Katz's NYC blog.

Here are the two I chalked this year 2014: