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Third Annual Place Matters Awards

Join Place Matters to honor six Lower Manhattan sites

that anchor community traditions and keep New York City distinctive. 

YouTube video of the 2011 honorees

~ Economy Candy, Lower East Side 

~ The Bowery Mission, Bowery

~ The Chinatown Senior Citizens' Center, Chinatown

~ Streit's Matzos, Lower East Side

~ Ear Inn, Tribeca

~ Tenement at 109 Washington Street, Financial District

Wednesday, October 26th, 6:00-9:00 pm

Ceremony, Remarks by writer T.J. English

Reception, Refreshments, Klezmer Music by Hot Pstromi

And a chance to experience the Museum of Chinese in America

Free and Open to the Public

Space is limited; RSVP is required: 212-529-1955 x303 or molly@citylore.org

The Place Matters Awards made possible with generous support from 

 

Art/Memory/Place: Commemorating the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

January  11 - March 26, 2011 & April 12 - July 9, 2011
Curators' Gallery Talk: Wednesday, February 2, 6pm
Grey Art Gallery, 100 Washington Square East, New York. 212-998-6780. www.nyu.edu/greyart

2011 is the centennial of the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire. The exhibit Art/Memory/Place: Commemorating the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire explores both historic and contemporary efforts to document the tragedy in which 146 young women garment workers, mostly daughters of Jewish and Italian families from the nearby Lower East Side, lost their lives. The fire broke out on March 25, 1911, in the former Asch Building at the corner of Greene St. and Washington Place—now named the Brown Building and part of NYU’s Silver Center complex (which is also home to the Grey Art Gallery). It quickly spread throughout the 8th, 9th, and 10th floors, which were home to the Triangle Shirtwaist Company. With many of the stairways blocked, only some of the workers managed to escape; others climbed out the windows, leaping to their deaths, or perished on the factory floor.

The building where the fire took place still stands, and since 1961 has been the regular site of commemoration ceremonies sponsored by the garment unions and others. In 2003, it was designated a NYC landmark by the Landmarks Preservation Commission. Place Matters and many historians, labor activists, and others promoted the designation.
 
Art/Memory/Place: Commemorating the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire is the result of a collaboration between the Grey Art Gallery and NYU’s graduate programs in Museum Studies and Public History. Students from both programs co-curated the exhibit in collaboration with the Grey’s Lucy Oakley and City Lore’s Marci Reaven.
 
For more information on the many programs being planned for the centennial commemorations, log onto the website for the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition: rememberthetrianglefire.org/memory-map/ .
 
To see footage of the commemorative bell-ringing ceremony that took place on March 25, 2011, go towww.cityofmemory.org/map/index.php#/story/2384/ .
 
(Home page photo of funeral procession, April 5, 1911, courtesy of International Ladies Garment Workers Union Archives, Kheel Center, Cornell University.) 

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