10 Years of the Chalk Project’s Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire Tributes
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Triangle Shirtwaist victim Joseph Wilson at 84 Chrystie St.
Each year on March 25, the names of 146 people are chalked onto the streets of the Manhattan, but mainly the Lower East Side. These are the identities of the doomed garment workers (mostly teenaged young women) who perished in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911. The citywide memorial project, now it its tenth year, is the handiwork of Street Pictures, who relies on volunteers to inscribe the sidewalks with the perished.
The temporary tribute is a constant reminder of an event that forever changed labor laws in our country. Their byline states the project aptly – “The chalk will wash away but the following year we return, insisting on the memory of these lost young workers.”
Street Pictures also updated its interactive map showing the locations where all the victims lived.