On 25 March 1911 a fire swept through the Triangle Shirtwaist garment factory occupying upper floors of a Manhattan loft building, killing 146 workers, most of them young immigrant women. Locked exit doors, inadequate fire escapes and the lack of effective firefighting reach to the upper storeys turned the blaze into a mass-casualty event. Public outrage drove a wave of investigations into factory and building conditions. New York responded with stricter fire-safety, exit and building regulations.
It became a landmark in the development of building codes, fire safety and labour regulation, tying the design and management of dense urban workplaces to public safety law.
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