Remembering Sonia

  3/26                                                                              

Remembering Sonia

I am walking out the door of 303 East 8th street. Where we gather to share our songs. In the name, spirit and we hope, ethos ("shut up and sing the song") of its founder, Jack Hardy.  Never a megastar himself, but mentor to a generation of singer-songwriters. That's where I was.

I notice colored chalk marks on the sidewalk outside the door. My first thought is neighborhood children in this newly family friendly East Village. But I look closer. It is a name. "Sonia Wisotsky. Age 17. Russia. Died in the Triangle Shirt Waist fire March 25, 1911." (Two doors down is the name of Golda Shput, age 19. Also from Russia.)

She worked 52 hours a week. Nine hours on weekdays, seven on Saturday. For 7-12 dollars a week.  The fire broke out at the end of the Saturday work day. The exit doors were locked, by the sweatshop owners, to prevent any unwarranted 'breaks" by the workers. Or "theft", they said. By the time it was over, 146 people were dead. All but 23 women. Most of them teen agers. The youngest 14, the oldest 45. The owners escaped to the roof. And the man with the key just went home.

On the way up Avenue B, I'm thinking about Sonia, this Russian immigrant teenage Jewish girl. What floor did she live on? Was she thin, or zaftig? Was there a brightness to her or did she seem tired and worn? Did she speak English? Did she have a boyfriend? Did they dance? Did she sing? To herself on the way to work or at her sewing machine? Did she ever write a song?

And was she one of the ones who feeling trapped, jumped to her death from the windows? Bodies tearing through the firemen's nets?  Did she fall through the open elevator door down the shaft to where the weight of bodies prevented the elevator from rising one more time? Or simply died in the smoke and fire?

In various ways those flames still burn.

The East Village once teemed with working class immigrants. Having passed through various stages of urban evolution, it's fast gentrifying. A high rise "luxury" condo just a few blocks north of 8th street. But immigrants still come. Sweatshops still oppress. And owners still find ways to lock doors, even if metaphorically.

Sonia will be buried  in Mount Richmond Cemetery on Staten Island. Along with 21 of her coworkers, courtesy of the Hebrew Free Burial Association.

Walking up Avenue B, I see Sonia exit the door. Go down the three steps. Wait for her friend Golda. Together on this gray, cold and raw day, they will make the twenty minute walk down St. Mark's to the factory. Maybe sharing gossip. Or sharing plans for their day off tomorrow. Or maybe just in silence.