FIPS DAILY ALMANAC: Monday, March 26, 2012
J. Charles | Monday, March 26, 2012 at 12:00AM 
pic by Flickr User Tom Starkweather
Rise and shine FIPS'ters, and welcome to your day! In city news, people showed up to church dressed in hoodies yesterday in solidarity with Trayvon Martin. In entertainment news, the Hunger Games did not go hungry at the box office this weekend (shocker) -- and did you bitches watch Mad Men last night?
ON THIS DAY IN BK HISTORY (1911):
Not to be a Debbie Downer with today's history nugget, but the Triangle Waist Fire of 1911 was a pretty big deal as far as City disasters go. What most people don't know is that most of the victims were from Brooklyn. The shirt waist factory on Greene Street and Washington in the Village employed over 600 people, mostly women, who worked in less than desirable working conditions. It was said the that the management locked all the doors to the working areas so the women could not get out until their shifts were over. On March 25th at 4:40PM, a fire started and spread so quickly that the women who worked there had no means of escape, except to jump out the windows. It was either jump or be burned to death. As the Times said in their article, published on March 26th, "They jumped, they crashed through broken glass, they crushed themselves to death on the sidewalk." Those left inside were either burned beyond recognition or suffocated to death. 141 men and woman died in the tragedy. Later it was discovered that the building met virtually none of the city fire codes for the era.
[READ THE FULL ARTICLE FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES ARCHIVES]
ON THIS DAY IN FIPS'TORY:
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