This year marks the centenary of a terrible tragedy that had vast repercussions for the union movement here and around the world. On March 25th 1911, 146 people- mostly young women from Jewish and Italian immigrant families- perished in a tragic and avoidable fire at a factory on the very sight of the gallery which is hosting a memorial exhibit, Grey Art NYU Gallery. For the most ridiculous reason (suspicion that the girls might be light fingered) the workers were locked in and when the small fire which began on the lower floors turned into a conflagration they had no choice but to burn or jump. After an inquiry the owners were inexplicably exonerated.
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