1958 — March 19, Fire and Floor Collapse, Monarch Underwear Company, NYC, NY–   24

–24  Cavanagh. “New York’s BIG Fire Prevention Campaign.” NFPA Quarterly, July 1959, p58.

–24  Cornell Univ.  “Fire at Monarch garment shop.” The 1911 Triangle Factory Fire website.

–24  Dunkirk Evening Observer, NY. “24…Killed in N.Y. Garment Factory Fire…” 3-20-58, 1.

–24  Dunkirk Evening Observer, “N.Y. Fire Brings Action for New Building Laws.” 3-21-58, 8.

–24  National Fire Protection Association. The 1984 Fire Almanac. 1983, p. 139.

Narrative Information

 Cavanagh: “….Early in 1958…mass inspections by selected teams were made in the lowr Manhattan loft building area, which is the greatest fire hazard area in New York City. In the course of this special effort, 7,544 occupancy inspections were made in 1,990 buildings. A total of 8,129 combustible violations were referred to other city departments. Summonses for serious fire safety violations were served on owners of 72 factories.

 

“While this inspection was under way, on March 19, 1958,* we had one of our most tragic fires in the Monarch Und4rwear plant at 699 Broadway where twenty-four unfortunate workers lost their lives. As a matter of fact, the inspection of these fire traps had been going on steadily for two years. This dreadful fire only emphasized the fact that if the Fire Department were several times its size and if it were to stay on the job continuously for two or more years, it could not possibly clean up all the fire hazards in this particular area. It must also be remembered that there are several other sections in the city where the same sad conditions prevailed.

 

“Accordingly, two things were done immediately. First, we had local legislation enacted tightening the fire laws. Second, and by far the more important, we organized a fire warden system in each of the thousands of garment and millinery plants. This was possible only through the active cooperation of the city’s top labor leaders. David Dubinsky, head of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, which had lost 18 of its members in the Monarch fire, took the initiative in this movement. We have trained all these fire wardens, who now number 6,550, working in as many factories. They are doing a grand job.” (Cavanagh, NYC Fire Commissioner, City. “New York’s BIG Fire Prevention Campaign.” NFPA Quarterly, Vol. 53, No. 1, July 1959, pp. 59-60.)

 

* [NFPA asterisk in the article.] “The Monarch Underwear Company fire, mentioned by Commissioner Cavanagh, took the lives of 24 employees in this unsprinklered, 5-story brick wood-joisted building on March 19, 1958. Eight of the victims jumped from fourth story windows as they discovered that smoke and heat blocked the stair-shaft they were accustomed to use. The others froze at the stair exits and died of suffocation and burns in the fourth story. The fire originated on the third floor in a gas-fired oven used for drying cloth being printed by the silk-screen process.” (p. 56.)

 

Cornell: “On March 18, twenty-four workers die in a fire at the Monarch garment shop in Manhattan.

 

“The fire occurs on the third floor of a seventy-five year old building with no sprinklers and inadequate fire escapes. An industrial oven explodes in a textile finishing shop. On the floor above, garment workers are unaware of the fire until an alarm goes off from the street, eight minutes later. The inadequately constructed floor collapses, killing the workers. Their death spurs renewed outrage over the unsafe conditions in the city’s factories despite existing laws and regulations.

 

“The ILGWU^[1] and the New York City Fire Department sponsor a successful fire warden program, which will involve thousands of union members in monitoring conditions in their workplaces and in exposing fire hazards. The ILGWU also introduces workplace safety measures in the negotiation of collective bargaining agreements.”  (Cornell University, ILR School, Kheel Center.  “Fire at Monarch garment shop.” Remembering The 1911 Triangle Factory Fire website. 2011.)

 

March 20:  “New York (UP) – At least one more name may be added today to the list of 24 men and women who met death Wednesday [March 19] night in a flame-swept garment factory on lower Broadway.  Firemen searched the charred remains of the building for a garment worker reported missing.  They feared, they may find his and possibly other bodies in the ruins of the building where 18 women and 6 men died in an hour of screaming horror.  Fifteen persons were injured in the holocaust. The fire death toll was the city’s worst in 12 years.

 

“Mayor Robert F. Wagner and Fire Commissioner Edward F. Cavanagh met at City Hall to discuss ways of tightening laws to protect workers from fire in the teeming jungle of old commercial buildings in lower Manhattan.  Wagner was reported “fighting mad” over the tragedy. Cavanagh subpoenaed for questioning about 30 persons connected with the management of the building, although he said a preliminary check indicated the building was run in compliance with existing fire and safety laws.

 

“Gov. Averill Harriman ordered the State Labor Department to make a thorough investigation of

the tragedy…..

 

“…[the] fire…started when a gas oven exploded.

 

Fear Held Them Back

 

“It appeared that most of the dead were cut off from safety by no more than smoke and fear.

 

“Four women leaped from the fourth floor Monarch Underwear Co. factory to firemen’s nets. Others were led or carried down firemen’s ladders. Only a few reached safety down the fire stairway, which remained intact throughout the blaze.

 

“The fire broke out in the floor below the garment factory when a gas oven used to dry freshly printed textiles exploded as it was lighted. Three nearby workers made brief but unsuccessful efforts to halt the flames and then fled down the fire stairs.  Fire leaped to the ceiling beneath the underwear factory.

 

“Fire Commissioner Edward F. Cavanagh Jr. said both floors were blazing when the first company reached the scene.

 

“Survivors told of panic, screaming and confused running about as smoke and then flames burst through the floor.  “Abe Becker, my boss, broke a window open,” survivor, Mrs. Anna Bailey, 20, said. “I don’t know what happened to him,” “You all get out,” Becker told his workers. “I’ll be the last to leave.” But he was unable to persuade the hysterical workers to brave the hot smoke in the dark stairway. He was found dead with them, near the door.

 

“One man and one woman amazingly were found alive when firemen were finally able to enter the gutted garment shop more than two hours after the blaze started.  The woman had jumped into a metal storage box. Cavanagh said the box would normally have been like an oven, quickly roasting anyone inside it. He surmised that water which poured through the factory’s windows in heavy streams had kept it cool enough for perilous survival.

 

“Cavanagh was at the scene of the blaze shortly after the second of five alarms was sounded. He said the building appeared to have been free of fire law violations, but that the entire neighborhood ‘stinks in fire prevention’ and is full of hazardously ‘poor house-keeping’ which the fire department, he said, is presently powerless to correct.”  (Dunkirk Evening Observer, NY. “24 Are Killed in N.Y. Garment Factory Fire, 15 Hurt, Several Badly.” 3-20-1958, p. 1.)

 

March 21:  “New York (UP) – Mayor Robert F. Wagner’s legislative aides prepared a new set of fire and building laws today in an effort to prevent a repetition of the tragic garment factory blaze in which 24 screaming workers died Wednesday night.

 

“A fire department investigation confirmed that delay in sounding the alarm and the panic of the victims caused most if not all of the deaths.

 

“Of the 15 injured in the fire 12 were still in hospitals today.”  (Dunkirk Evening Observer, “N.Y. Fire Brings Action for New Building Laws.” 3-21-1958, p. 8.)

 

Sources

 

 

Cavanagh, Edward F. Jr. (Fire Commissioner, City of New York). “New York’s BIG Fire Prevention Campaign.” Quarterly of the National Fire Protection Association, Vol. 53, No. 1, July 1959, pp. 55-61.

 

Cornell University, ILR School, Kheel Center. “Fire at Monarch garment shop.” Remembering The 1911 Triangle Factory Fire website. 2011. Accessed 7-9-2013 at: http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefire/supplemental/timeline.html?e=monarch

 

Dunkirk Evening Observer, NY. “24 Are Killed in N.Y. Garment Factory Fire, 15 Hurt, Several Badly.” 3-20-1958, 1. http://newspaperarchive.com/fullpagepdfviewer?img=128937538&sterm=monarch+fire

 

Dunkirk Evening Observer, “N.Y. Fire Brings Action for New Building Laws.” 3-21-1958, p. 8. At: http://newspaperarchive.com/fullpagepdfviewer?img=128937555&sterm=monarch+fire

 

National Fire Protection Association. The 1984 Fire Almanac. Quincy, MA: NFPA, 1983.

[1] International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union.