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They were two of the greatest tragedies in New York City history. And they were both fires. And they both happened on March 25.
The first changed the laws of this country forever. When the Triangle Shirtwaist garment factory burned in 1911, killing 146, almost of them young immigrant women, the nation was so horrified that labor and workplace rules were introduced that form the basis of safety regulations used today.
The other fire, 79 years later, was murder, plain and simple, with flouting of safety regulations contributing to the disaster. Until 9/11, the Happy Land Social Club blaze, which killed 87 people, held the record for the biggest mass murder in the city's modern history. Again, most of the victims were young immigrants.
The scenes were horrific. In the Triangle fire, many women, trapped behind locked doors and faced by an inferno fueled by fabric dust and discarded trimmings, chose to jump to their deaths on the sidewalks below. In the Happy Land blaze, terrified customers of the illegal social club scrambled to get out of the single exit. Their bodies, too, ended up on the sidewalk, dragged there by emergency workers as they fought to put out the fire and rescue other occupants.
The Triangle fire started in a rag bin of the sweatshop, located on the top three floors of a nine-story building in Manhattan's Greenwich Village. (Shirtwaists were a type of women's blouse popular in the late 19thand early 20th centuries.) According to contemporary reports, a manager tried using a hose to extinguish the blaze, but it was rotted and its valve was rusted shut. Panic ensued in the crowded workshops as the women fought to get out only to find doors locked and a single narrow staircase blocked. Many of those who didn't throw themselves from windows burned to death.
The Happy Land fire began with an act of revenge. A 25-year-old Cuban immigrant, Julio Gonzalez, went to the club, located in The Bronx, in the early hours of March 25, 1990, to try to win back his ex-girlfriend. An argument ensued and a bouncer ejected Gonzalez, who then went to a local Amoco station and bought a dollar's worth of gasoline, which he poured around the entrance and then lit it. The fire raced up the stairs, the only exit to the club, the other exits having been blocked to prevent people evading the cover charge. Trapped, 87 people, mostly from Central America, died from the flames and intense smoke, including the club's owner.
Both buildings still stand. The building that housed the Triangle factory is now part of New York University and houses part of the Silver Center for Arts and Sciences. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1991. The site of the Happy Land fire is now a unisex hair salon. The street outside is named "The Plaza of the Eighty-Seven."
Gonzalez, now 60, sits in an upstate prison, having been convicted on 87 counts of murder.
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