weber triangle
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8/8/2019 Weber Triangle
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A3Friday, October 31, 2008
BY CHENOA PIERCEVILLAGER STAFF WRITER
BROOKLYN The Day Kimball WomensBoard played host Thursday, Oct. 23, to a veryspecial guest during what it hopes was the firstof an annual event.
New York Times bestselling author KatharineWeber paid a visit to a private residence inBrooklyn, which featured a nearly full house ofpeople all there to hear her speak, firsthand,about her most recent publication Triangle, afictional story based on the non-fictionalTriangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911.
DKH Womens Board President PaulaSchimmel opened the evening with a fewremarks about her own familys connection toNew York City in the time of the Triangle Fire.Her grandparents lived in an apartment at 97
Orchard St., an apartment that is now home tothe Tenement Museum,a location home to thou-sands of immigrants from the mid-1800s to 1937.
On a recent trip to New York City, Schimmeland her husband took their granddaughter on awalk through Washington Square, near the siteof what was once the Triangle Shirtwaist build-ing. The building, looking as though it has beenuntouched since it was first built, shows nosigns of the tragedy that once occurred insideits very walls. In fact, the building is now hometo the New York University science labs.
That building was fireproof; what happenedin it wasnt, she said.
After Schimmels remarks, Elizabeth Cressy,president of Friends of CPFA/Artsplace Inc.and good friend of Webers, introduced theguest speaker.
According to Cressy, Weber has been the firstauthor to speak at a slew of first-time authorsnights events for other organizations and hasset a very high bar for those who follow.
Weber began her presentation by talkingabout how she came to write Triangle. She saidit all started with the death of Rose Freedman,the last living survivor of the TriangleShirtwaist fire, in February 2001. It was her obit-uaries that got the wheels in Webers head turn-ing.
Her obituaries fascinated me, said Weber.Weber also began listening to any Freedman
interview she could get her hands on and foundherself in awe of what she heard. She asked her-self what it would be like to be in Freedmansshoes.
What would it be like to be famous becauseyou didnt die [on that day]? said Weber.
When plotting out her book, Weber said, thelast thing she wanted to do was write aboutFreedman, though she was very interested inher life story.
I wanted to write about the last living sur-vivor of the fire, she said.
It was through Freedmans story that EstherGottesfeld was born. Weber said she usedFreedmans method of escape and fascinatinghistory as a guide to outline Gottesfeld, while
keeping Gottesfelds character original.Weber also talked about the fire itself, noting
that it broke out on the eighth floor. The workerson the eighth floor notified the people who
worked in the offices on the 10th floor, who fledto safety by the roof.No one notified the workerson the ninth floor of the building. A point ofnote made by Weber was that Freedman, inter-ested in what had happened to those in theoffices above, fled the ninth floor, discoveredwhat they had done and followed in their path tosafety.
She walked out; she walked into the rest ofher life, she said.
According to Weber, the Triangle Fire alsohas many similarities to the Sept. 11 tragedythat, like the fire, shocked the nation andinvoked change. An example she used was themany who jumped to their deaths from win-dows with the hope that, just maybe, theydmake it out alive. She noted the fire fighters in1911 had ladders that only reached the ninthfloor, and she could just imagine the workersstanding in the windows with the hope of sur-viving shining in their eyes. She compared this
to a similar image of Sept. 11, only using heli-copters instead of ladders.According to Weber, the first chapter of
Triangle was completed before Sept. 11, but thetragedy stopped me dead in my tracks for a fewmonths. She said that she didnt want to writeabout Sept. 11 or New York City, but felt that itwas prolonging the inevitable. To write aboutthe Triangle fire in New York and ignore Sept.11 [seemed impossible]. I decided the best way towrite about Sept. 11, 2001, was to write aboutMarch 25, 1911.
After she read an excerpt of that first chapter,Weber talked about response to Triangle and
some of the more interesting feedback andreviews she has received. For instance, a docu-
ment mentioned in the first chapter has caughtthe eye of many scholars, professors and histo-rians who have e-mailed her asking how to gettheir hands on it. Unfortunately for them, thedocument is part of the fiction.
Its a novel, she said. I made it up.Another fictional detail from the book that
Weber said keeps cropping up in book reviewsregards money. She describes the fire scene withmoney littering the streets; according to Weber,there is no mention of money in any of theaccounts she has seen.
I made up the detail of money in the streets,she said.
The details of the fire, however, are trustwor-thy.
You can trust me on the fire, she said. Ithink you can really trust the telling of thestory.
When discussing the number of the dead,which was 176, Weber said she believes thatthere more and that they were children.
Theyre not listed in the survivors andtheyre not listed in the dead, she said, notingthat children did work at the factory. I thinksome of them disappeared in the ashes thatday.
Weber ended the program with a questionand answer session, before signing copies of herbook for all who wanted them.
Some of those lucky enough to attend theevent were thrilled.
Shes a fabulous speaker, said MarilynDalimonte, of Webster, Mass. [Shes] veryinteresting.
Its a dreary subject matter, but its a veryinteresting twist to the story, Janie Pultorak ofDudley, Mass., said of the book.
Its exciting to have an author here who ispublished and well known, said Kerry Morin, amember of the Woodstock Book Club. I think itwas a success.
Chenoa Pierce may be reached at (860) 928-1818,ext. 112, or by e-mail at [email protected].
Author speaks at Womens Board event
SundayNovember 2, 200810 a.m. - 3 p.m.
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WEBER TALKS ABOUT HER BOOK TRIANGLE
Chenoa Pierce photo
Triangle author Katharine Weber reads an excerpt
from the first chapter of her critically acclaimed
book at the Day Kimball Hospital Womens Boards
first annual Authors Night.