September 17, 2019
Democratic Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren was in the Village last night. A good sized crowd, maybe 8 or 10 thousand*, filled Washington Square and listened to the Massachusetts Senator tell a story about something that happened just one block away a century ago. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory is remembered today as the site of an infamous industrial tragedy that claimed the lives of 146 people, mainly young immigrant women, on March 25, 1911.
Warren captivated the twilight gathering with a gripping yarn that many, perhaps most, of the crowd had never heard before. When the factory caught fire the flames spread quickly through the upper floors. Dressmaking materials, primarily fabric, filled the workspace and fed the blaze. Trapped in the inferno because the exits were locked some made for a fire escape in the rear. It collapsed killing two dozen girls. Others jumped or fell down an elevator shaft, while some of their coworkers flung themselves from upper story windows to escape the conflagration. Horrified onlookers witnessed their falls and heard the sickening thuds on impact. Afterward, a pile of charred bodies was discovered upstairs near a locked exit door.
In her telling, the deficiencies and hazards were well known to the factory owners. But rather than remediate them and reduce profits, they ‘invested’ in Albany politicians to ensure that nothing would change. “Does any of this sound familiar?” Warren asked the class, er, crowd. From the macabre tale of the factory fire and paid off pols, Warren segued into a riff on contemporary paid off pols who refuse to do anything about guns, climate change, etc. She then moved seamlessly on to talk about the corrupting impact political money has on our Democracy. By this point she completely owned the crowd who had earlier endured a long wait, a rain shower, some tepid warmup speakers and begun to fade prior to her taking the stage.
Her delivery on Monday evening was impressive. She began slowly and before she was halfway through the crowd was whooping at practically everything she said and the pace had picked up. She built momentum and it all made perfect sense the way she laid it out. She ran it down for around 40 minutes sounding a lot like one of those Profs you can never forget because their lectures always blew your mind.
Somewhere in the middle she worked in a policy heavy stump speech that centered on a bold vision for a better future – M4A, tuition-free public college, child care, pre-K, and so on. And how to pay for it? She has a plan for that: a wealth tax. A whopping 2 cent tax on every dollar above $50 Million. In fact “two cents” has become something of a catchphrase for her campaign and many in attendance seemed familiar with it, chanting ‘two cents, two cents!’ while raising their hands high and snapping their fingers.
But Warren wasn’t done yet. She then circled back to the Triangle Factory fire to tell a story of Frances Perkins, the first woman Cabinet Secretary (Labor, FDR) ever and principal architect of the New Deal. Perkins lived on the other side of Washington Square from Triangle and witnessed the horror as it happened. She went on to organize and change the course of history, Warren stated. Her point was it can be done again. “I AM NOT AFRAID” of a fight, she assured the crowd and implored them to get involved any way they can. “This is our moment.”
After almost an hour of rousing and refreshingly insightful oratory, the Senator invited anyone who wanted one to line up and take a photo with her, a selfie line. An extremely long line formed immediately as Warren took the first of many, many selfies with the New York crowd. Judging that the show was pretty much over we headed down to Mamoun’s for a falafel and some tea. Just for the heck of it we swung back by the Park afterwards. Warren was still taking selfies with all comers, and the line was still huge. “Oh yeah, she’ll stay til one in the morning if that’s how long it takes,” a campaign staffer confided to the Gazette.
Respect.
*Editor’s Note: Other estimates of the crowd range as high as 20,000 as reported by Buzzfeed and the NY Post. 09/17/19