NY Marks 25th Anniversary Of Social Club Fire


NEW YORK: Twenty-five years ago, what was then the biggest mass murder in US history turned a New York City dance club into a smoky, flame-filled inferno that left dozens of people dead, some with drinks still clutched in their hands.

That night, a Cuban refugee named Julio Gonzalez tried to win back the woman who had spurned him.

Gonzalez entered the Happy Land social club in the Bronx, which was humming with mostly Latin immigrants partying and dancing. His former live-in girlfriend, Lydia Feliciano, was checking coats and they had a violent argument. Gonzalez was thrown out.

In a rage, he returned just after 3 am, splashing gasoline on Happy Land's only exit and lighting two matches. Then he pulled down the metal front gate.

Within minutes, 87 people were dead.

That tragedy in March 1990 will be commemorated this evening when a Roman Catholic Mass is held, followed by a procession from the church to a granite memorial near the club, where a candlelight vigil will take place.

The fire was the worst in New York City since 146 women died in a blaze at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company in what is today's Greenwich Village in lower Manhattan. They were killed exactly 79 years earlier on March 25, 1911.
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Source: PTI