The Happy Land Social Club, 1959 Southern Boulevard, The Bronx, New York, from the series "On This Site: Landscape in Memoriam"
Place
United States (Artist's nationality:)
Date
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Inscribed and signed recto, on mount, lower right, below image, in black ink: "The Happy Land Social Xlub, 1959 Southern Boulevard, Bronx, New York. (June 1993) / 1/7 Joel Sternfeld"; unmarked verso
The Happy Land Social Club was a popular, unlicensed Honduran social club. On March 25, 1990, Julio Gonzalez was thrown out of the club for quarreling with Lydia Feliciano, his former girlfriend and a Happy Land employee. He bought a dollar’s worth of gasoline, poured a trail of gas from the street through the club’s single doorway, ignited it, and left. The fire killed eighty-seven people. Lydia Feliciano was one of five survivors.
From the series, On This Site: Landscape in Memoriam
Acquired from the Center for Documentary Studies, Duke University, through an Anonymous Gift
Reference Number
1997.273
Extended information about this artwork
Art Institute of Chicago, “On This Site,” December 14, 1996 - April 18, 1997.
PaceWildensteinMacGill, Beverly Hills, CA, “On This Site,” April 25 -June 6, 1997.
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