The 10-story Brown Building, site of one of the deadliest workplace disasters in United States history, stands one block east of Washington Square Park in New York City. Despite three bronze plaques noting its significance, it has long been easy to pass by without further thought.
On March 25, 1911, however, thousands of New Yorkers gathered outside what was then known as the Asch Building, home of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. Drawn by a brief but raging inferno, they bore horrified witness to dozens of factory workers with no way to escape gathering on the ninth-floor window sills, desperately jumping, and smashing onto the sidewalks far below.
