The General Slocum

St Mark's Evangelical Lutheran Church on the Lower East Side had chartered the steamer for its annual Sunday school picnic. It was a German parish and the passengers were the women and children of it; most of the men were at work.

Fire started in a forward compartment about half an hour out. The fire hoses had been in place thirteen years and had never been tested; they burst when the pressure came on. The life preservers were rotten and had been filled with cheap cork that had powdered. Mothers put them on their children and watched them sink.

The captain did not beach at the nearest pier for fear of setting light to the oil tanks there and ran on to North Brother Island with the wind fanning the fire the length of the ship.

A thousand and twenty-one were killed. The neighbourhood around Tompkins Square never recovered; those who survived largely moved away, and the German Lower East Side ended that afternoon.