8. Mount Zion Cemetery contains a monument to those who died in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire
Mount Zion Cemetery is a large Jewish cemetery in Maspeth with about 210,000 burials on 78 acres. The first burial was in 1893, and many notable Jewish New Yorkers are buried there, including author Nathanael West, composer of “Hatikvah” Naftali Herz Imber, and many congressmen and lawyers. The cemetery was established during the massive influx of immigration from Eastern Europe in the late 1800s.
One of the most notable architectural features of Mount Zion is a monument to those who died in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911. The fire, which is one of the deadliest industrial accidents in the history of New York City, took the lives of 147 garment workers in a factory in Chelsea. The disaster drove the push for legislative action to improve workers’ conditions during the Industrial Revolution.