Relatives and friends joined Community Board 6 on Sunday, March 25 to commemorate the 28th anniversary of the Happy Land Social Club Fire, a devastating inferno which tore through an illegal two-story night club a 1959 Southern Boulevard and claimed the lives of 87 party goers. The somber ceremony began with an evening Mass dedicated to the victims at St. Thomas Aquinas Church. Following the service, a procession traveled to the Plaza of the Eighty-Seven, a memorial honoring the 87 victims located just across the street from the former night club for a Rosary and candlelight vigil.
Pennants with the 87 victims’ names were laid out across the top of the plaza’s fence with photographs of each victim adorned wreaths surrounding the memorial.
Photo by Silvio Pacifico
Flowers, ribbons, glasses, candles and lanterns adorned the Happy Land Social Club Fire Monument.
Photo by Silvio Pacifico
