A Story Of A Shirtwaist Fire Witness

cuneo-podesta
from Maria Blank:

"My grandmother was born in 1894 in New York City and she lived near Washington Square Park. She died in 1995 when she was 100. She was a witness to the fire. The images haunted her for the rest of her life. I feel that she would want everyone to know how awful and tragic it was.
I have attached some very old pictures that my mother gave me. I think the most interesting one is a picture of my grandmother's grade school class. She is in the second row standing fourth girl in the row. It looks like she is the shortest one in the class. Do you think that some of the girls in her class worked at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory? The other picture is one take of my grandmother when she was about seventeen (around the same time as the fire). The last picture was taken much later. It's one of Lorenzo Cuneo's stores. My mother said it's on one side of Washington square park but I'm not so sure of that. She also said that this is the parking garage which is supposedly the first one in New York City. Hope you find the pictures interesting."

Maria's grandmother was Mildred Cuneo. Her great grandfather was Lorenzo Cuneo. In the 1910 census she was living at 12 E. 8th Street, two blocks from the Asch Building.