The Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) and the United College Employees of the Fashion Institute of Technology (UCE-FIT), along with four other groups, have underwritten an international competition to create the design for a permanent memorial to the victims and legacy of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911.
Sponsored by the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition, a national grassroots organization formed to commemorate the centennial of the fire and comprised of more than 250 organizations, the memorial will be erected at Washington Place and Greene Street in New York City. This is the site where the historic fire on March 25, 1911, claimed the lives of 146 factory workers, most of them young, immigrant women.
“The Triangle Fire was a defining moment in our city’s – and our country’s – history,” said New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. “Out of its ashes rose some of the most important reforms of the Progressive Era and a new public commitment to workplace safety. But even 100 years later, it is not the fire that deserves to be remembers so much as the 146 victims.”
The winning design will be selected by a juried panel that includes architect Daniel Libeskind; Deborah Berke, adjunct professor of Architectural Design, Yale University; Wendy Feuer, assistant commissioner for Urban Design and Art, New York City Department of Transportation; and Dr. Richard Greenwald, dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, St. Joseph’s College, Brooklyn campus. The panel will also select second- and third-place winners, who will be awarded cash prizes.
The competition is being coordinated in cooperation with NYU, which owns the building where the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory stood, and the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. Additional underwriters of the competition are the American Society of Safety Engineers New York City Chapter, Garment Industry Development Corporation, Safety Executives of New York, and Workers United/SEIU.
