Andrew Serra’s Powerful Tale Of 1911’s Deadliest Fire

Rich & Wendy 0:00
Hey, everyone is Rich Bennett. Can you believe it? The show is turning ten this year. I am so grateful for each and every one of you who've tuned in, shared an episode, or even joined the conversation over the years. You're the reason that this podcast has grown into what it is today. Together, we shared laughs, tears and moments that truly matter. So I want to thank you for being part of this journey. Let's make the next ten years even better. Coming to you from the Freedom Federal Credit Union Studios. Harford County Living presents conversations with Rich Bennett. 

Today, I'm going to get kind. 

No, no, no. The truth is. 

Rich Bennett 1:00
Today. I'm honored to welcome Andrew Sara to conversations with Rich Bennett. Andrew is an acclaimed author known for his historical novels and powerful storytelling. His latest book, Hell's Hundred Acres, takes us back to one of the deadliest workplace tragedies in American history the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. In this gripping novel, Andrew explores the corrupt politics of the time, the devastating loss of 146 lives, mostly young immigrant women, and the crucial fight for improved safety laws that followed. He's been featured on Fox five New York and NY one News, and today he's here to share the deeper story behind his work. But before we get into it, Andrew, correct me if I'm wrong, but you're a retired firefighter, right? 

Andrew Serra 1:51
I am. Yeah. I retired last year after. 

Rich Bennett 1:53
Well. 

Andrew Serra 1:54
Years. 

Rich Bennett 1:55
I want to thank you for your service. Something I believe that first responders do not hear enough. But yeah. Thank you so much. 

Andrew Serra 2:05
Thank you. 

Rich Bennett 2:06
Joe, I take it you were writing before you retired. 

Andrew Serra 2:12
Yeah. Yeah. I 

Rich Bennett 2:13
Okay. 

Andrew Serra 2:13
mean, I've been writing for since, you know, grammar school, you know, always enjoyed it. And I love storytelling and being creative and, you know, just the act of writing and putting, you know, story together. My first novel actually came out in 2012. 

Rich Bennett 2:30
Oh, wow. 

Andrew Serra 2:31
Yeah. Been at it for a while. 

Rich Bennett 2:34
So. And what novel was it? 

Andrew Serra 2:36
It was called the Dead Florentines. It's a historical novel about the Italian Renaissance based. 

Rich Bennett 2:42
And that was 2013. 

Andrew Serra 2:44
2012 year. 

Rich Bennett 2:46
Are you there? And you? You've released eight books since then. 

Andrew Serra 2:49
I guess. Total Yeah, I think it was five full books and I have a series of e-book series that of, of shorts connected short stories on, on Kindle about. It's also historical novel based about it's called the tenement. It's about an a building in built in the 1800s in New York City. 

Rich Bennett 3:10
So these are all novels. 

Andrew Serra 3:12
Yes, with one exception. I have one nonfiction book on 911 memoir that came out in 2018. 

Rich Bennett 3:20
When do you sleep? 

Andrew Serra 3:22
I find time, you know, between, you know, writing is, you know, when I have a chance and I get probably most of my writing done early in the morning, I tend to wake up early. And it's I find that to be the best time in the day to write. 

Rich Bennett 3:36
Eisenhardt You're retired. Are you a full time entrepreneur or are you still working? 

Andrew Serra 3:42
I guess that's how I describe myself. Yeah. I, you know, I took maybe a month or two to when the dust settled, you know, it was. And then, uh, you know, trying to think about what my, you know, the next chapter is going to be. No pun intended, you know, and. And then I landed on the idea for this book, and I felt it was kind of like, you know, I'm still in the fire world. And it really started as more focused on, you know, because the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, as you mentioned, a lot of it has to do with my old firehouse down in Soho, Manhattan, because it they were one of the first fire units on the scene at this fire. So it was part of my firehouse history, this fire. So I wanted to delve into that a little bit. And then it kind of grew from just talking about my old firehouse to creating a whole story around the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire and the people who worked in the factory and the politicians of the time and all that stuff. 

Rich Bennett 4:40
I'll be honest with you. I never heard of that fire until your book. 

Andrew Serra 4:46
Outside of New York. It's probably much less known here. It's it's it's still, you know, pretty every year they have a memorial on March 20. 

Rich Bennett 4:54
Right. 

Andrew Serra 4:55
At the site. The building is still there. It's part of NYU now. It's part of it's a school building for New York University. So it's still there. And they have a they built a beautiful memorial on the front of it and they have a ceremony every year. And so it's a little bit more prominent probably here. But yeah. 

Rich Bennett 5:12
But the thing is, something like that. I think it's important to where people everywhere know about things like this. 

Andrew Serra 5:20
I think even if they've never heard of it, it's affected their lives because a lot of the fire safety regulations in place today stem from that fire and even the effectiveness of unions. And later, the New Deal. I would argue that the beginning of the New Deal was the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, because a lot of the players went on to be prominent members of FDR, his administration, and the growth in the New Deal. 

Rich Bennett 5:47
How much research actually went into this, because it's still a novel. 

Andrew Serra 5:51
It is a novel. And, you know, I kind of let the story and the characters take me in whatever direction I felt, you know, they needed to go. It was a lot of research, but you know, people have asked me about this before compared to maybe some of my other books. It wasn't 

Rich Bennett 6:06
Okay. 

Andrew Serra 6:06
that difficult to research. There's a lot written about this fire. There's a 

Rich Bennett 6:10
Right. 

Andrew Serra 6:10
lot of great nonfiction books that that I leaned on that are out there. There's films, documentaries, and there are other novels and stuff like that that have been written about it. So I wasn't I wasn't treading neutral territory. I would say we're discovering some hidden fact that no one's ever heard of before. I just tried to keep my my focus simple and I said, Well, what can I bring to the story? And I figured a tight handful of people from different walks of life who all intersected at this fire and tell their stories, tell the you know, their everyday lives, what was going on in their lives, what led them to this moment and what came of it afterwards. That's what I tried to bring new to the story. 

Rich Bennett 6:54
So was it actually hard to balance the historical accuracy with the storytelling in the book? 

Andrew Serra 7:01
Well, probably for my, you know, I guess maybe an avid nonfiction writer might argue the opposite. I find it's historical fiction. At least you have a little bit more liberty, you know, because you are writing a novel. You're writing, you know, it's it's a fictional creation and the stories should win out. You want it to be historically accurate in terms of giving the feel and the important facts should be real. And, you know, I always say as a historical novelist, I have a duty, you know, not to make villain into a hero. Not to make a hero into. 

Rich Bennett 7:36
Right. 

Andrew Serra 7:37
But other than that, you know, no one knows what you know, what they had for breakfast that day. So you can make it up, you know what I mean? Or. 

Rich Bennett 7:43
Yeah. 

Andrew Serra 7:43
Or if a character, you know, went in this direction or this was the basic event in their life, you get to create the conversations that made this event happen. So you have a little bit more leeway as far as. Bringing the facts forward and bring the story forward. Being a novel as opposed to if I were writing a narrative nonfiction, which. Is probably a very difficult thing to do, as it's not just a history book, but it's not fiction. Whereas you want to create, you know, a very in-depth story of. But everything has to be true. You know, you have to be accurate. And, you know, that's that's a different, you know, type of writing altogether. 

Rich Bennett 8:22
Yeah, I don't think people realize when it comes to historical fiction, it's 

I believe it's a lot harder to write than just your regular fiction novel. 

Andrew Serra 8:35
I think it's. Yeah, because, you know, you do. 

Rich Bennett 8:38
You have to be accurate. 

Andrew Serra 8:39
Right. You have license, I think, to to to, you know, ill maybe create, you know, take two minor events and make them into one event to move the story along. You have some license that way. But I do think you have a duty, you know, to give like an overall. 

Faithfulness to real events, 

Rich Bennett 8:59
Yeah, 

Andrew Serra 9:00
you know, And like I said, you know, if someone's a real life villain, you don't want to be overly sympathetic. You might you want 

Rich Bennett 9:07
right. 

Andrew Serra 9:07
want to make them more complex. You know, it's very it's very black and white. They usually have many different motives. They're human. They have some good in them. You know, all those things are true. But, you know, there's certain things that you want to, you know, align with reality, but you have a little bit more freedom. I think historical fiction is a great genre to to work in for me, and I enjoy reading it. 

Rich Bennett 9:32
Oh, me too. 

Andrew Serra 9:33
It's it's a great way sometimes it's it's a it can be more effective way of learning about the past even than than 

Rich Bennett 9:40
Yep. 

Andrew Serra 9:40
actual just reading straight up history because you get to see it through human eyes, you know, and 

Rich Bennett 9:46
Yeah. 

Andrew Serra 9:47
and often, you know, depending on when the book is written, a lot of times historical fiction. Can can teach you more about the time it was written, as much about the time it was written as as the time has written about, you know, So a civil war book, say, written in 1910. There's a 

Rich Bennett 10:07
Yeah. 

Andrew Serra 10:07
chance it might have a very different feel than a Civil War book written today. You know, when the characters. 

Rich Bennett 10:12
There. 

Andrew Serra 10:13
Going to be looked at from a different perspective, and that has its benefits and that has its pitfalls, obviously, you know. 

Rich Bennett 10:19
I still think one of the best Civil War books I ever read was and I forget the title, but it was a bunch of letters that they found from the soldiers and they compiled them into a book. And of course, those letters told the story itself. 

Andrew Serra 10:34
Oh, yeah, that sucks. I'd like to. I'd like to find that maybe it's. 

Rich Bennett 10:38
Oh, I'll. I'll find it once I find it. I know I got laying around here somewhere. I'll. I'll let you know it, but. Oh, yeah. There's. There's two of them. There's one from the south and one from the north. 

Andrew Serra 10:53
That's great. 

Rich Bennett 10:54
Yeah. 

Andrew Serra 10:54
That reminds me different. It's not it's it's not a book. It's a movie. But Letters from Iwo Jima. 

Rich Bennett 11:01
Oh, my. 

Andrew Serra 11:01
Clint Eastwood movie, which I'm a big fan of. And what's funny, I remember. And I mean, who's more patriotic than Clint Eastwood, Right? You know? 

Rich Bennett 11:10
Oh, yeah. 

Andrew Serra 11:10
He shouldn't have to explain himself to anyone. But he got some grief, I think, for being overly sympathetic, I think, to the Japanese side. And I didn't get that at all from the movie. I think it just it just it humanized these figures and in particular this general from, uh, you know, the Japanese army stationed Ani Tajima from his personal letters home and also some of the soldiers and all and they're human beings. They, they fought this war for their own reasons, just like the allied soldiers fought for their own reasons. And I don't see anything wrong with exploring those reasons and making the characters human. And I thought it was a great movie. 

Rich Bennett 11:48
It was. It was absolutely. So with this, with Hills Acres, were there any personal connections or discoveries? Actually, during your research that made the story even more meaningful to you? 

Andrew Serra 12:03
Well, for me, there was, I mean, an indirect personal connection. Like I said, my firehouse was one 

Rich Bennett 12:09
Right. 

Andrew Serra 12:09
of the first companies on the scene so that the lower the you know, the legend per se or the story of this fire was always present in our firehouse. On the walls. We have framed New York Times articles from the day after the fire. Hanging up. It's a big part of the history of every year for that memorial service that comes. We go to the scene of the service with our truck and put the ladder up because a big moment in this fire and the ladder couldn't reach the upper floor windows where the people were trapped. So they go there, even though today the ladder does reach up to. You know, they've gotten. 

Rich Bennett 12:50
Yeah. 

Andrew Serra 12:50
The years, but we put the ladder up to the lower floor, the sixth floor window where the ladder at the time topped out. And it creates a very stark visual that, you know, the people above, you know, and people in the street much have seen people above up on the ninth floor trapped that this ladder wouldn't reach them. So they put those. So it's a very much a part of my company. It's Ladder Company 20 of the FDNY. It's a very big part of the company's history. And some of the characters that were in the firehouse at the time, I was able to interview one of the grandson of one of the firefighters, you know, from the. 

Rich Bennett 13:27
Wow. 

Andrew Serra 13:28
So he had a lot of great stories and you no doubt that were very helpful for me in creating crafting my story. And so from that angle, I think but I knew that going in and that's what it was, you know, that's what I was hoping for. But then as I expanded into the story of the fire altogether and the other characters and the other people involved, I think that's I was. Pleasantly surprised, I guess. I don't know if it's the right 

Rich Bennett 13:56
Right. 

Andrew Serra 13:56
word of how. How? I was drawn into their story like the seamstresses and, you know, some of the political figures of the time. How I didn't know. I. I didn't know how easy it would if it would be easy or not or difficult to tell their story, you know? And 

Rich Bennett 14:16
Yeah. 

Andrew Serra 14:17
because, you know, you know, you're writing someone that you have nothing in common with, I'm, you know. You know, these were very recent immigrants from mostly from Eastern Europe, you know. So they had a very different life than the life. I you know, they were seamstresses, work very long hours in this factory and, you know, lived with a lot of hardships, you know, came from from poverty. You know, they lived on the Lower East Side in tenement buildings, you know, in very, you know, tight conditions. And there's, you know, I leaned on the people themselves. It's mostly women that who survived and told their stories, you know, And there's a lot of, you know, resources online of them, you know, interviews they did later in life and told what their life was like. And that was very interesting for me to to dive into that world and and try I hope I was able to to do justice to that to their to their experiences, you know. 

Rich Bennett 15:16
Is there is there like a museum or anything 

for that? Well. 

Andrew Serra 15:22
So this actual fire or. 

Rich Bennett 15:24
Yeah. Or is part of it in a museum anywhere? 

Andrew Serra 15:26
Well, you know. 

Rich Bennett 15:27
Who made you the fire truck? I'm like, Man, if that old fire truck was still around. 

Andrew Serra 15:31
The agenda. I mean, there's there's a number of different resources. You know, the New York City Fire Department has a New York City fire museum. 

Rich Bennett 15:41
Right. 

Andrew Serra 15:42
Which is great. They're actually temporarily closed. Hopefully they opening it soon. They had building, a high rise building across the street, and the shaking moved the foundation of the of the. 

Rich Bennett 15:53
Lord. 

Andrew Serra 15:54
Of the museum. The museum's an old firehouse. It's a beautiful building. And but I actually visited when I was doing my research. And they have you know, you could see some of the fire trucks from the era, you know, to get a feel for them and see them. And they also have a little, you know, section dedicated to the Triangle fire. 

NYU has. NYU has a center. I think it's under their Italian studies program because many of the seamstresses who died were Italian immigrants. 

Rich Bennett 16:25
Right. 

Andrew Serra 16:25
About me. If I had to guess probably 6040 of percentage wise of of Eastern European, Jewish and Italian immigrants. These young were mostly young women who who died, the seamstresses sewed in the Italian program of NYU. They have a center and they had an exhibit. I don't know if it's still open. And that I visited was dedicated to the the women of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. And Cornell University also has a. 

Rich Bennett 16:57
Oh, really? 

Andrew Serra 16:57
Cornell most they have an online. 

Database of documentary evidence from the fire under their Labour relations studies department. Because, you know, union rules and labour history of labour strikes and you know, that's where the angle they're looking at it from. But they have a lot of great resources if you want to learn about the fire. Cornell University's for Labour Studies, it's a website. 

Rich Bennett 17:25
Okay. 

Andrew Serra 17:26
In the back of my book. I list the sources if anyone wants to check them out. 

Rich Bennett 17:30
Actually, if you could sit down with one of the survivors of the fire, what would you want to ask them? 

Andrew Serra 17:38
You know, 

that's a good question, you know. It seems like they all you know, I admire a lot of their courage because it seems like, you know, that that's you think of the lives they lived even. Before that, before the fire. Most of them, you know, they escaped and in some instances, terrible, you know, violent persecutions in their home country or extreme poverty and came here with nothing and 

Rich Bennett 18:07
Yeah. 

Andrew Serra 18:08
and very young to have lived such lives like that and then to work long hours in this factory. And then, you know, they could have just afterwards, you know, they just the you know, today we know about like ill post-traumatic stress and things like that where something like that could have destroyed a person. And a lot of them went 

Rich Bennett 18:26
Yeah. 

Andrew Serra 18:26
on to, you know, live very long, you know, 

in ways successful lives of, you know, failed families and, you know, and so, you know, they they move forward and they you know, they told the stories of the, you know, the victims and. The tragedy and they kept it alive. They fought for change. They, you know, banded together to to change the laws afterwards. So I think I would ask maybe a survivor, you know. You know, I think I got too, you know, from so many survivors accounts to, you know, what what the day was like or, you know, maybe, you know, just ask them, you know, you know, 20 years later, 30 years later, how they felt about the fight. You know what how they feel, you know, looking back at things like that, you know. 

Rich Bennett 19:14
Actually when you were writing this, because as an author, I'm I'm sure you you just get, like, wrapped up into it like you're like you're there which in a good book, when you're reading it, you feel like you're there. What was the hardest part for you to write because it was so emotional to you? 

Andrew Serra 19:33
You know, I. I wanted to be graphic without, like, being overly, like, you know, it's not like. 

It's not like a horror movie, like, you know, blood splashing just for the 

Rich Bennett 19:51
Right. 

Andrew Serra 19:51
sake of violence. I don't want to be gory, you know, but I want. 

Rich Bennett 19:54
Right. 

Andrew Serra 19:55
Graphic and real. You know, the one you know, like I said before, I didn't feel like I was uncovering any new information or, you know, but one one aspect I feel probably that might, you know, as opposed to other people who have written about the fire that I was coming out was from a firefighting point of view. So, you know, the last third of the book say, deals with, you know, the actual fire. I felt like perhaps I had a unique experience of how to describe what it's like to be in a fire. As opposed to, you know, l maybe as opposed to somebody else who hasn't. You know, so 

Rich Bennett 20:33
Right? 

Andrew Serra 20:33
I tried to maybe bring that forward in the story of what it's really like to be in a fight because, you know, you see, you know, Hollywood with movies and how they show fights. And it's really nothing like what it's like 

Rich Bennett 20:43
Mm hmm. 

Andrew Serra 20:43
to be in an actual fight. The things that, you know, that stick out at you, the smoke, the darkness of it, you know, it 

Rich Bennett 20:50
Yeah. 

Andrew Serra 20:50
just black smoke overtakes everything. And the way the heat moves and l and the compressed time frame of, you know, you know, it's second scene can seem like hours. You know, it's it's it's a very unique experience. You. 

Rich Bennett 21:06
Right. So the book actually explores the political corruption of the time. 

Andrew Serra 21:13
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 21:13
How did that corruption contribute to the strategy? 

Andrew Serra 21:16
Well, I think, you know, you can't really talk about the fire without the politics of the era. 

Rich Bennett 21:20
Right. 

Andrew Serra 21:21
I think it was kind of a turning point for New York City politics for those maybe listening who aren't really familiar with New York City politics. The 19th century in New York City was the era of Tammany Hall. And Tammany Hall was a political club, an organization that basically was the de facto headquarters of the Democratic Party in New York City. And by, by extension, then the de facto government of New York City. They controlled all levels of power in in the city. And, you know, and we see things starting to change right around the turn of the century. You know, some some things happen. You know, they're almost, you know, a victim of their own success. Tammany Hall there, they're at the zenith of their power because New York City, you know, you have to remember in the 19th century was New York City was Manhattan. 

Rich Bennett 22:18
Mm hmm. 

Andrew Serra 22:18
And Brooklyn was its own city. Queens was just a county and Long Island City was on the end of it. You know, so in Richmond County, which is downtown, which completely separate. So New York City was Manhattan. And then in 1897, you know, with the, you know, backroom, you know, you know, machine politics and deals up in Albany, the state legislature, you know, all these things come by and and then deals between the mayor of Brooklyn and the mayor of New York City and the mayor of Long Island City. Everything coalesces. And now they form a new megacity. The five boroughs come together as one in right, right at the end of the 19th century. And you know, 

Rich Bennett 23:01
Right. 

Andrew Serra 23:01
the great Greater New York is is formed. And you would think like, oh, Tammany Hall, like, you know, in many ways, well, rode the train or engineered it really to to happen and they get a Tammany friendly you know handpicked mayor elected and all these things going on and right around the same time you have a crusading new governor up up in Albany who comes into power, Teddy Roosevelt. And he's very popular. You know, he's back from the Spanish-American War. He's a folk hero and he plays a different kind of politics. He's a Republican. He's he's progressive in a lot of ways. And he has very little patience for the old way of doing things. He's not a friend to Tammany Hall at all. You know, so the Tammany leaders and the political leaders in New York State and, you know, trying to figure out how they can deal with this new governor who's making things difficult for them while they get the Republican Party to make him vice president in in 1900 to basically get rid of them, get him out of New York and the vice president. 

Rich Bennett 24:09
Wow. 

Andrew Serra 24:10
The vice presidency is a dead end, you know, political career. You know, it's looked upon it that way in a lot of ways. In some ways it is. You know, 

Rich Bennett 24:19
Right. 

Andrew Serra 24:19
so he's you know, he has no real power. He's out of everyone's hair and he's he's off and he's vice president. And know a few months into, you know, the first term of his vice presidency, President McKinley is assassinated. And Teddy Roosevelt becomes president. You know, and if they thought they had problems when Teddy Roosevelt was governor. Now he's president, you know. So, you know, the Progressive Era sweeps in and there's a lot of reforms. Civil service reform, which had actually started before Teddy Roosevelt. But it was really growing. And right around the turn of the century, civil service reform is, you know, really at its height. And that was probably the largest part of Tammany Hall's power, basically, You know, they would they would hand jobs for four, four votes, you know, So if if you were, you know, the the police departments, the fire departments, you know, civil service or, you know, up and down the ladder, you know, they would hand out jobs and or the only they wanted your vote in return, you know, so that's how they held on to the power with patronage in a lot of ways. And now with civil service reform, they can't do that. So now they have to find other ways of of holding on to power Tammany Hall. And so now they have to cozy up to business interests probably more than in the past. But have this progressive wave coming in at the same time and and they have to try and balance it, you know, So so you see, you know, there's a push for reform even before the fire, you know, and it has to be balanced with the business interests in Tammany kind of at this, you know, crossroads of these two competing interests. 

Rich Bennett 25:59
Right. Actually, with that. I mean, there were a lot of obstacles that reformers faced, especially in pushing for better safety laws after the fire. Can you tell us some of those obstacles? 

Andrew Serra 26:14
Well, in the lead up to the fire, you know, there had been a push ahead. The chief of the New York City Fire Department at the time was named Edward Croker. He is you know, I you know, he's I think he's a big part of my book because he's such an interesting story, really, his whole life. 

Rich Bennett 26:32
Mm hmm. 

Andrew Serra 26:33
He came. His uncle was the leader of Tammany Hall, Richard Croker. You know, a lot of people have probably heard of Boss Boss Tweed, you know, in like the 1870s, you know, very corrupt, a very famous leader of Tammany Hall. But then after, you know, his downfall, you have probably the next big Tammany leader is Richard Croker. And, you know, he basically, you know, through I guess, these patronage jobs, he gets his nephew appointed to the fire department. And then his nephew. And then three months later, he gets his nephew appointed to lieutenant. At the time, he called the decision, which is unheard of and ridiculous by today's standards that someone with three months experience can be, you know, leading firefighters and, you know, but it happens. So it would be easy to just pigeonhole Edward Croker and say, well, he's Tammany Hall corruption and you know, but he grew into, you know, he worked and he kind of had a you he basically told his uncle, you know, after that, you know, appointment and promotion that he wanted no more help from them. He wanted to do things on his own. And he worked hard and learned the job and worked his way up the ranks at the fire department on his own, you know, so much so that when there was an opening for the top chief job, the commissioner, I think, genuinely wanted him because he was the best person for the job. And even that, you know, was a bit of a mini scandal because, you know, the newspapers ran with the story that, oh, Richard Croker's nephew is appointed chief of the fire department. You know, it's even so much so that the Civil Service Commission that I mentioned, who was from Albany, you they they didn't like Tammany Hall. You know, they stepped in. They heard that the mayor, the fire commissioner appointed a new fire chief and said, oh, no, no, you know, you need a civil service test. This has to be fair. This has to be, you know, so they gave a test for all that the high ranking chiefs to take to see who was going to be officially appointed. The next chief of department and Richard Croker outscored all the other chiefs anyway. So he was you know, he be. He becomes chief in, I think, 1900 or 1899, he becomes chief. And for over a decade he's the top chief and he becomes very well-respected. You know, the newspapers all, you know, they turn to him and he becomes a national leader in fire safety. And and he's a very honest and hardworking civil servant by all accounts, you know. And so he's pushing for for reforms for that whole decade, really. There's some a couple of very, you know, terrible, tragic examples of large losses of lives and fires outside of New York. And he's making the case and, you know, in the state legislature and at the city council level that New York needs fire, you know, improved fire safety laws. He he fought for the most. He wanted sprinklers in every factory, which was, you know, a no go from the start. The factory owners fought him tooth and nail. He wanted. 

Rich Bennett 29:39
Back in the 19 early 19. 

Andrew Serra 29:42
In early 1900s. He wanted he wanted these things even before the fire. He fought for sprinklers and got nowhere. He fought for fire drills on factory floors, which would have made a huge difference at the Triangle Fire. And. 

Rich Bennett 29:56
Right. 

Andrew Serra 29:57
He went nowhere because the loss of productivity is ideal. The owners argued it took a half hour out of productivity, you know. 

Rich Bennett 30:04
Oh, good Lord. 

Andrew Serra 30:05
But the one thing he had success with Edward Croker was he fought for and got 

the city to build a high pressure water system in downtown. Because there were old, old fire hydrants that were connected to the to the water mains, you know, the same drinking water you get in your building. The hydrants were connected, too. But particularly in lower Manhattan at this time, you're building these bigger and bigger buildings, mostly factory lofts in this area. But any kind of high rise building anything over eight storeys now is a for the old water mains. There wasn't enough pressure to reach the upper floors, you know, because you're fighting against gravity, you know, for to bring even if you stretch your hose line up a wind it up a set of stairs. The water's fighting the gravity, you know, to get it up to these upper floors. And there was a pressure, even with hooking up to a steam pumper of the day, you know, they couldn't do it. And he did get in the in the in the middle of the first decade of the 20th century. They built a giant pumping station on the Hudson River and built these, you know, big wall, you know, large diameter water mains across lower Manhattan with these special hydrants. They were like twice as wide as 

Rich Bennett 31:19
Wow. 

Andrew Serra 31:19
regular hydrants just for this area. And that actually made a difference at the Triangle Fire. That was, you know, one of the sad ironies of the Triangle fire, It was a massive loss of life in many ways. The conditions encountered by the firefighters were. It was outpaced the technology they had. Right. The ladders weren't tall 

Rich Bennett 31:41
Right. 

Andrew Serra 31:41
enough. The gear they were wearing wasn't, you know, was it wasn't anything like we have today. But they had water. You know, they the fire actually for it was a heavy amount of fire on mostly two floors. It started on the eighth floor, which became fully involved in fire. And this is a large factory, open factory space. You know, it's a big building, big floor. The eighth floor is fully involved in the fire. And then eventually the ninth floor becomes fully involved in fire and from the time the firefighters got on the scene and got up to the to the floors and hooked up hoses to fire, went out pretty quickly, believe it or not, you know, from from the receipt of the alarm, I think until the fire was placed under control, if I'm not mistaken, was like 18 minutes. 

Rich Bennett 32:23
Wow. 

Andrew Serra 32:24
And that's you know, it's not it's not a terrible you know, and that's include you know, that's not including the time. You know, the alarm may have been translated two or 3 minutes after the fire actually started. 

Rich Bennett 32:35
Right. 

Andrew Serra 32:35
Remember. But from receipt of the alarm, I think to the I think it was 18 minutes in the hole. They estimate the entire from first spark to the fire being completely extinguished was, you know, like 25 minutes or less than 30 minutes. You know, it was too late for, you know, these victims, obviously, because they were trapped. And when you're burning, you know, you have seconds to make a decision. And the only decision left to the many of these victims was to jump out the windows of. But but at least, you know, back to your original question with Andrew Kirkwood, actual water pressure was not an issue. Yes. For all the obstacles facing the arena, in many ways, they weren't equipped to deal with this, but they did have water. 

Rich Bennett 33:18
You're listening in on the conversations with Rich Bennett. We'll be right back. 

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Did any idea how the fire started? 

Andrew Serra 34:55
The best guess that investigators were able to piece together was that was smoking on a cigarette on the eighth floor. The eighth floor of the factory. So now this is a big building, right? It's a loft. It's ten stories. 

Rich Bennett 35:09
Right. 

Andrew Serra 35:10
And the Triangle Waste Company. They called if anyone doesn't know. A shirtwaist was a type of women's blouse from the early 20th century. You know, if you saw one, you know it, you know, it's like 

Rich Bennett 35:23
know what 

Andrew Serra 35:23
usually 

Rich Bennett 35:23
it. 

Andrew Serra 35:24
like a roughly shoulder patch and, you know, just a button down blouse that was very popular for like from like 1900 to like 1920. And the Triangle Company was the biggest manufacturer of them all, the most successful. And they had the top three floors of this building with most of the sewing going on in the ninth floor. They had like 270 sewing machines on the ninth floor. But on the eighth floor they had what they call cutters, stations. And the cutters was a very skilled worker. If you've ever seen, like those big scissors that tailors used. 

Rich Bennett 35:55
Yeah. 

Andrew Serra 35:57
And they had assistants on on a big work table. They would stack fabric like really thick, like up to like 20 or more pieces of fabric stacked on top of each other. And they would cut templates of of the garment and then they would send them upstairs for the seamstresses to sew them together. So there was these big tables with cutters. There was large stacks of rolls of fabric next to them. And hanging from the ceiling were the actual templates that they used to, you as guides. So they would cut the shape that needed that needed to be made out of fabric. And then they would put a tiny little like a tin like border to hold it taut, you know, and then hang it from from strings, from the ceiling. So these things were hanging all over. So you had a very big fire load. You know, it's all kindling, basically. And underneath the cutters, 

workstations were waistbands that these little, you know, there would be scraps left over when they did these cuttings and they pushed them into the waste. They didn't really empty these waistbands like you would think like over, you know, twice a day. They would empty them. They would sit there for days or sometimes weeks. So were always full. The one, you know, the triangle factory, like all factories at the time, they had very few fire safety regulations in place. One thing they did have was no smoking. That was you know, that was, you know, an absolute zero tolerance of smoking if you were caught. But even before the fire on triangle smoking, you were fired instantly. So they they they knew, you know, there was no smoking allowed on the factory floor. In this instance, like something like this. You know, ironically, it may have contributed to the fire because, you know, if they were allowed to smoke, they probably would have walked to the window and smoked. 

Rich Bennett 37:46
Right. 

Andrew Serra 37:46
And, you know, here in this instance, the you know, the cut of whoever was smoking was probably, you know, crouched next to his desk, smoking, hiding it. And then, you know, when the man was walking over, he threw it in the waistband or, you know, you can imagine some, 

Rich Bennett 37:59
God. 

Andrew Serra 37:59
you know, somehow a cigarette butt or a match ended up in one of these waste bins. And it's and it took off very quickly. You know, the manager, the de facto manager fought the fire for a few minutes, which, you know, in hindsight, he probably his efforts would have been better spent evacuating people. But he you know, there were buckets of water, you know, stationed around the floor, and he dumped a few buckets of water on top of the bin. But the fire just was moving too quickly. That was too much for it to burn. And it just became out of control very quickly. 

Rich Bennett 38:34
I guess back at that time they didn't have fire extinguishers, right? I mean. 

Andrew Serra 38:38
No, it was buckets of water, you know. 

Rich Bennett 38:40
Wow. 

Andrew Serra 38:40
You know, if you know, if extinguishers were coming into play, they were usually just gravity said, you know, you would 

Rich Bennett 38:47
Right. 

Andrew Serra 38:47
turn it upside down and the hose would feed it out. You know, always just a bucket of water, you know, pressurized extinguishers. I think where it came a little bit later. If I'm not mistaken, by either way, Triangle didn't have, you know. 

Rich Bennett 38:58
Right. So did you uncover any historical details that actually changed the way you initially envisioned a story while writing this? 

Andrew Serra 39:07
Um. Yeah. You know, I tried to even from the owners of the factory who were greedy and in my mind, guilty, you know, And they stood trial and were acquitted after the fire. They had a very good lawyer. But, you know, and like I said, at the you know, the earlier in the conversation, I feel, you know, as a historical novelist, like you're not going to there's there's no version of this story where they're the good guys. You know what I mean? The the two owners, it was partners, you know, And I'm absolutely not, you know. But, you know, they're also human beings like everybody else. So, you know, rather than just, you know, the typical villain, you know, greedy villain. I wanted to explore a little bit of like, well, where, you know, where did they come from? What was their point of view? And, you know, and it's not as. Black and white, cut and dry is just, you know, these greedy millionaires squeezing every penny. You know, they 

Rich Bennett 40:07
There. 

Andrew Serra 40:08
they they they were immigrants themselves. They worked their way up from nothing. They worked in sweatshops and worked their way up to the garment industry and saved and scrimped and started companies and built up this empire. You know, and in a lot of ways, you know, from their point of view, which, you know, I'm not saying I agree with them, but from their point of view, the Triangle Factory was a step up. It was better. You know, we use the term sweatshop a lot to mean any kind of factory from this era. But that the Triangle factory really wasn't a sweatshop in in the true sense of the word. The word comes from probably a generation earlier. And what what you had going on was. You had a lot of small time manufacturers in tenement buildings in their apartment, putting sewing machines in the in the main room of the tenement. You know, they would squeeze four sewing machines facing each other. And there were foot pedal powered machines, and there was very little light, no ventilation, you know, And they would the sides of the apartment would be just stacked to the ceiling with, you know, with fabrics and garments and finished pieces. And you had runners, you know, taking crates in when the women would sew to take the crate and run it blocks away to some. 

Rich Bennett 41:27
Right. 

Andrew Serra 41:28
Emmanuel, you know, some Centrals where they and the owners of these small little tenement factories, they were basically independent contractors. They got paid from the umbrella company by, you know, by the piece. You know, the more garments they produced, the more they made, you know, and they in turn paid the seamstresses by the piece, by the finished piece, you know. So they you know, there was there were not very few breaks. They would, you know, from early in the morning to late at night. They were just sewing, sewing, sewing. So they would it was in everybody's interest to squeeze the most amount of, you know, number of garments out of these seamstresses. So they called that sweating, you know, sweating the the you know, to get every single piece to maximize 

Rich Bennett 42:18
Right. 

Andrew Serra 42:18
the volume, you know, that was the that's where the sweat, the term sweating comes from. You know, it's not really just about, you know, it was hot and sweaty. And so that was a sweat shop, you know. So now when these factory lofts. Start getting built, you know, later in the 1800s and these companies start moving to these loft spaces with these big windows and plenty of light, plenty of fresh air, even though conditions, by all standards are still terrible for these workers. You know, they were seen in a lot of ways, even by the women that you eat. You read the stories of the of the seamstresses themselves and they considered like going to triangle like as a better job than the jobs they'd come from before. So in a lot of ways, like years, these owners, you know, had the attitude like, well, well, you know, who's complaining if, you know, they have plenty of fresh air, plenty of light, plenty. You know, I wish I had it that good when I would, you know. So, so like, it's it's you know, so there's like that that human and that's, you know, the way these, you know, tragedies happen like, you know. 

Rich Bennett 43:20
Yeah. 

Andrew Serra 43:21
No one thinks they're wrong when they're, you know, everyone you know, they're making decisions thinking that they're making the right decision, you know, So these owners want you know, they felt like they were running a successful company employing hundreds of people. And that was their attitude, you know, they were greedy. That's the. 

Rich Bennett 43:37
Well, yeah. What? What's one of the biggest things that you hope readers take away from this? 

Andrew Serra 43:44
I think, like I said, you know, keeping the. 

The goals so narrow at the beginning, like it's just, you know, say if there's like maybe four or six main characters that I, you know, you know, just remember that, you know, the fullness of their lives, you know, and, and the, the, the story that makes us all human, you know, 146 people died. And you hear that. And it's a statistic, right? That's a big number, you know, But it's really it's it's 146 individual tragedies. You know, these are 146 families that were devastated. You know, their their daughter didn't come home that night. You know, these you know, it's just I tried to keep, you know, just, you know, add that, you know, know, it's almost like a remembrance of that, that these were all, you know, you know, full lives that, you know, that were brought together. And in some ways, you know, 

tragically affected by. 

Rich Bennett 44:46
Seeing a lot of people don't realize when it when it comes to something like that, even one tragedy can add up to more tragic tragedies just from that one person. So 146 tragedies, that's just from the fire. But think about how many more people were affected from that. 

Andrew Serra 45:03
Right. How many? 

Rich Bennett 45:04
Have you ever passed away or whatever? You know, you never 

Andrew Serra 45:06
I mean, 

Rich Bennett 45:06
know. 

Andrew Serra 45:06
there's 

Rich Bennett 45:06
Yeah. 

Andrew Serra 45:07
in some instances like, you know, the the person who died was was the breadwinner for the family and how many children went hungry or, you know, if the other if it's in the case of a seamstress if if if the you know if there were if the father was in the picture now they were in foster care or to the wind or, you know, it's like and I don't there's really no. There's no data on that. You know, 

Rich Bennett 45:30
No. 

Andrew Serra 45:31
there was no follow up. 

Rich Bennett 45:32
There ever can be. 

Andrew Serra 45:33
You know, it's individual family stories that survived Just oh, yeah, my grandmother was there and then my mother was born, you know, So individual families might have their own stories, but there was never any like. Following follow up on unlike a statistical level of 

Rich Bennett 45:49
Yeah. 

Andrew Serra 45:49
what happened to the families of the. 

Rich Bennett 45:52
How did you come up with the title Hell's hundred Acres? 

Andrew Serra 45:55
It's you know, I always found the term interesting. It's the neighborhood where I where my firehouse was, which encompasses this area where most of the factory lofts, you know, a large number of the factory lofts in New York City were built at the time that the neighborhood was given that nickname. Later in the 20th thing, around like the 1950s, the fire commissioner at the time called this neighborhood. He nicknamed it Hell's Hundred Acres because. 

Rich Bennett 46:25
Oh. 

Andrew Serra 46:25
By that point, the factory life said had changed. Right? So now you have them built in the late 1800s, the factories and these, you know, manufacturers, a lot of garments, companies. They set up shop here. By the mid-20th century, they move, you know, you know, the first wave they moved to Jersey. You know, once transportation becomes better, they don't have to be near each other. They don't have to be near the shipping, you know. So they move you know, air travel comes into play. So they you know, they move to wherever it's cheaper to manufacture. You know, so a lot of these loft buildings are abandoned in the mid-20th century. And then so now this neighborhood, you know, you have a lot of, you know, old abandoned buildings that, you know, just the scenes of a lot of deadly fires. And it was you know, it was a dangerous area in a lot of ways, too. To work as a firefighter. So they they nicknamed their area hell 100 acres from that, you know, And it was. 

Rich Bennett 47:21
I. 

Andrew Serra 47:22
It was always been like a little nickname almost for the firehouse I worked in. So, you know, I bring it in. But I think it's a good way of, you know, looking at at this neighborhood, you know, because I think it's an important part of the story. I think the history of the factory lofts and, you know, it is is an important part of the story. And it was really when I started out that the first spark of an idea was kind of to tell that story, you know, through the eyes of my firehouse and and firefighting in this area and the factory lofts. So I think it all ties in to the story. 

Rich Bennett 47:57
Now. Any plans on this also coming in audiobook form? 

Andrew Serra 48:03
You know, perhaps I know that, you know, become more and more popular in a lot of places. I have looked into it, you know, like, I guess, you know, it's it's I'd love to do it. You know, you got to find a good narrator and, you know, put, you know, for an independent author, it can be, you know, some challenges for resources, you know, to it's it's not it's not cheap to do it right 

Rich Bennett 48:29
Now. 

Andrew Serra 48:29
in. 

Rich Bennett 48:29
Well, especially 

Andrew Serra 48:30
So 

Rich Bennett 48:30
if you have 

Andrew Serra 48:30
it's 

Rich Bennett 48:30
different. 

Andrew Serra 48:30
a big up. Yeah, it's, it's a big upfront expense, you know, for it's worth it Usually I. 

Rich Bennett 48:36
Yeah. 

Andrew Serra 48:37
Looked into it and a lot of authors found that they're very happy to have done it. So maybe, you know, I would hope to be able to do it in the future. 

Rich Bennett 48:45
Get a lot of your buddies to sit the record and do the characters. 

Andrew Serra 48:49
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 48:50
how you got. 

Andrew Serra 48:52
I do know a lot of characters in. 

Rich Bennett 48:56
So you're I take it you're self published in. 

Andrew Serra 48:59
Well, you know, I kind of over the years of putting books out and stuff, I, I basically what most independent artists do I for my own publishing company. 

Rich Bennett 49:09
Okay. Oh. 

Andrew Serra 49:11
You know, and I used subcontracted for, you know, like like most, you know, four editors and cover design. 

Rich Bennett 49:19
So do any other any other authors publisher you 

Andrew Serra 49:23
You know, I have I've thought about that. And, you know, now that I have the company set up and I think that could be a direction I'm moving because I do enjoy the process of putting a book together. 

Rich Bennett 49:35
write. 

Andrew Serra 49:35
It's, you know, from from manuscript to finish up to holding a book in your hand. It's really cool, you know, when you get to that, you know, it's a different, you know, well, you know, type of operation. Obviously, once you move your publishing company to to start representing other authors and stuff like that. But I do see that maybe in the future I could go in that direction because I do enjoy the process. 

Rich Bennett 50:00
Well, I want you to do me a huge. Well, actually, I want you to do the listeners a huge favor if you can't really quick tell them the other books and yeah, the story behind the other books that you've written. The other seven books. 

Andrew Serra 50:15
Yeah. Like I said, the first like in 2012, the dead Florentines. It's called the historical novel about the Italian Renaissance. Basically a family and some characters living in Florence at the height of the Italian Renaissance, right in the early 1500s. And then in 2015. My next book was it's it's called La Petite Parisienne. It's about the French Revolution. No, 

that's you know, that came out in 2015. And then my next book was completely different direction. It was a nonfiction book was. It's called Finding John. It's I like to describe it as half memoir, half like investigative history of my 911 experiences. But, you know, I was people ask me, you know, over the years if, are you ever going to write about 911, you know, knowing that I put out other books and. I never really thought that I could. You know, years went by and I said, No, I don't. I don't think I am. It was it was a good 15 years after the events, and I think it was 2016. I, I just sat down one day and I said, you know what? Let me try something. I wrote the first chapter and I said, No, that's I think I could do this. You know, I think it's okay, you know? And then I turned around and then I stopped and I, I started, you know, doing a lot of research and. 

Finally some witnesses and it's like it's not it's not just a straightforward memoir. It's. 

It's, you know, without, you know, telling too long of a story. But basically it's called Finding John because the firefighter named John Tipping, that's the the where the name John comes from, basically in the months after the September 11th attacks, you know, firefighters were rotating, doing rotating shifts down at the World Trade Center site during the recovery operation. So in March of 2000 to myself and a team of firefighters were digging through the rubble and we found the remains of a of a dead firefighter. His name was John Tipping. And I didn't know him in life. I never met him. And but. 

Rich Bennett 52:40
The little brother, though. 

Andrew Serra 52:41
Yeah, absolutely. Still a brother. And I felt this connection to him. 

Rich Bennett 52:45
Yeah. 

Andrew Serra 52:45
Oh, you know, it was just. It's. It was a moment of my life I'll obviously never forget. And then, you know, time goes by and it's. 

It's what happens is late in late in the year in to a book is published from a journalist who spent time down at the recovery site. And he you know, he recounts the tale of the of the recovery operations at the World Trade Center site. And. This author basically alleges that one one crew of firefighters, a ladder company, arrived at the at the scene before the collapse of the towers, you know, while they were burning upstairs, while people were dying and trying to evacuate. While the rescue is underway, this team of firefighters pulls up in front of the Twin Towers and basically decides that this is a good opportunity to. To steal some loot. They, 

Rich Bennett 53:42
What? 

Andrew Serra 53:42
according to this journalist, they entered the World Trade because the Twin Towers had a concourse level below grade and it was a shopping mall. So in the shopping mall were a number of stores. And according to him, this company went into the concourse level, found the gap, the store, the gap. Found 

tons of clothing, including most of what he describes as stacks of jeans and walked it up through the lobby past chiefs and police officers, and just whistled as they walked through the lobby with all this free loot and started stacking it on their fire truck. And then the collapse happened and that's how they died. So that's the allegation that was made. And, you know, maybe outside of New York, it didn't get that much traction, the story, but it was a big deal. He was a famous, well-respected journalist and the book. 

Rich Bennett 54:36
Right. 

Andrew Serra 54:37
Was a bestseller and it was very controversial at the time, you know, firefighters. 

Rich Bennett 54:43
Yeah. 

Andrew Serra 54:44
We knew it was, you know, it couldn't be true. We knew there were protests outside some book signings that he had. And and then the story just kind of, you know, slowly, gradually. Went away, you know, like, look, all you know, the world moved on. But for me, I should get back the ladder company involved is where this firefighter, John Tipping, who remains. In fact, that's where he worked. 

So the story goes on. And I mean, years go by and it just eat away at me. You know, I just I, I never got over that. That anger and that feeling that this terrible injustice was was done. You know? There have been a couple of articles, you know, of like refuting the book, you know, here and there. You know, nothing ever got publicity like the book did. You know, none of the you know, So, you know, it just ate away at me. And that's what I wanted to write about. So, you know, when I say my my book is half memoir, half investigative history, I tell the story of, you know, what what I was doing on September 11th and the months afterwards and what was going on. But I also focus on, you know, I really wanted to set out to tell the true story of this company. And I tracked down witnesses to what they were doing, documentary evidence. There's film footage, there's, you know, dispatch records from the fire department. And just the story I pieced together is, I mean, these guys were heroes up until the last second of their lives. They saved basically they were special called Wilder Wilder while the fire was unfolding to the Twin Towers, because in the South Tower lobby, the elevators had dropped When the when the impact happened of the planes, the elevators had dropped to the lobby. But they would jammed in the lobby like half in between floors. They weren't lined up with the floor and the doors wouldn't open. And people were trapped in these elevators and jet fuel had fallen, had poured into the elevator shaft. So there were fires at the base of these. Of these elevator shafts and the people trapped. So this crew of firefighters was called specifically to address the people trapped in these elevators. And you've I'm sure you've heard of what we call the jaws of life. What people? 

Rich Bennett 57:07
Oh, yeah. 

Andrew Serra 57:08
So, you know, it's actually called the Hurst tool. There's other companies that make them. But, you know, but the public knows it as the jaws of life. And now they're different. They're lighter in. But back then, it was a bulky tool. You know, there was a generator, a large generator with hydraulic hoses. And then the tool, the spreaders themselves with these big, you know, steel jaws that. 

Rich Bennett 57:33
Walls. 

Andrew Serra 57:34
So it was you know, it was it wasn't the easiest thing to carry it around. So they pulled the truck right up to the front door of the south tower. That way they could carry, you know, and there's debris falling outside. So, you know, so I know that's why when the towers collapsed, the truck was pushed down into the concourse level. And when they excavated it, there were merchandise from the stores near the truck. So that was the germ of the rumor of this. You know, they 

Rich Bennett 58:07
Right. 

Andrew Serra 58:07
weren't stacked in the compartments or anything, you know, But there was merchandise near the truck when they found the actual truck. But 

Rich Bennett 58:14
Phone 

Andrew Serra 58:14
the. 

Rich Bennett 58:14
store. 

Andrew Serra 58:15
Of course, you know, and but the guys themselves, the firefighters, they brought the the jaws of life into the lobby. They rescued one woman who survived. You know, and they put her in an ambulance. Other rescuers put her in an ambulance and she lived. And they were still working on these elevator doors to get the rest of the people out of this elevator when the tower collapsed. So up until the last moment of their life, they were heroes in every sense of the word. You know, and, 

you know, so that's what I wanted to I wanted to tell that story. And, 

you know, that's what that's where the idea for my book came about. And that's what I what I wanted to do. 

Rich Bennett 59:04
With everything that that you went through, especially being a firefighter, you know, right there during 911. Was that good therapy for you when you wrote the book? 

Andrew Serra 59:14
Absolutely. And that's what you know, I was you know, I, I was holding on to a lot of anger over, you know, and putting the story together, I think was my my therapy of working through it, you know, and talking to the families of this fire crew, you know, and 15 years later, what, you know, their experiences And, you know, and it really did help me move forward in a lot of ways, you know. 

Rich Bennett 59:41
And what were the other books I need? You need to come back on. I would love to have you come on and talk about that, if you don't mind. 

Andrew Serra 59:50
Yeah, yeah, 

Rich Bennett 59:50
Find a john about being a firefighter 

Andrew Serra 59:53
yeah, for 

Rich Bennett 59:54
because 

Andrew Serra 59:54
sure. 

Rich Bennett 59:54
like I said in the beginning, I don't think you I don't think you guys, as a marine Corps veteran, we hear it all the time. You thank you for your service, but I don't believe first responders hear it enough. And when and I hope I hope you don't get upset with me about saying this, But I think a lot of people don't realize when it comes to like PTSD and everything and when it comes to battles, first responders have it worse, I believe, because you're seeing the stuff every day. A lot of people in the military may not ever see war time. You know, 

Andrew Serra 1:00:32
It's just different. It's in, 

Rich Bennett 1:00:33
it is 

Andrew Serra 1:00:33
you 

Rich Bennett 1:00:34
just. 

Andrew Serra 1:00:34
know, and it may be more maybe and I don't know, it's, you know, maybe an intense exposure to something like that in the span of six months or a year. 

Rich Bennett 1:00:43
Yeah. 

Andrew Serra 1:00:44
As opposed to a much a much less intense version of it. You know, over a 20 or 30 year career, I don't you know, I don't know what would be better or worse, you know. And, you know, I think it's on. On the individual experiences and, you know. 

Rich Bennett 1:01:00
Yeah. 

So I'm sorry. What were the other books? 

Andrew Serra 1:01:04
So. After that. I did another novel in 2021. I think I might come out it in January of 2022. It's called Zuccotti Park. It's a short like novella, basically about the the Occupy Wall Street movement in Lower Manhattan, which by the time the book came out, it did happen about ten years earlier. So it's just a it's just a you know, a. You know, a small little story about, you know, just a New York family and, you know, different dynamics of what, you know, the backdrop of this Occupy Wall Street movement, you know, is, you know, the background. But it's basically what goes on with this, you know, little group of characters and what's going on in their lives at the time. And then this, you know, I have a whole hundred acres is you know, is was the next book I put out which just came out last month. 

Rich Bennett 1:01:58
So those of you listening when you go and purchase, I actually tell everybody the website, first of all. 

Andrew Serra 1:02:05
Well, you 

Rich Bennett 1:02:05
Would 

Andrew Serra 1:02:05
can. 

Rich Bennett 1:02:05
help 

Andrew Serra 1:02:06
Andrew STRATCOM is my website and there's links there to all my books and everything like that, you know. The books are for sale on Amazon Barnes Noble, whether you know, whether books, 

Rich Bennett 1:02:17
everywhere. 

Andrew Serra 1:02:17
whether you get your books. 

Rich Bennett 1:02:19
So those of you listening when when you purchase Hell's Hundred Acres and Andrew's other books and make sure you follow him on Amazon too. That way you'll be notified of new releases. Make sure you leave a full review whether on good reads, Amazon, Barnes Noble, Walmart, wherever you can leave Reviews and purchase copies for other people as well. Yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot of people that could learn a lot from this. So purchase them. Before I get to my last question, is there anything you would like to add? 

Andrew Serra 1:02:58
Know, I think we covered a lot of area here, which, you know, I'm very happy about. mean, nothing nothing comes to mind that we missed. 

Rich Bennett 1:03:07
Well, in that case, what's the next big thing for Andrew? Sarah? 

Andrew Serra 1:03:13
Definitely no big thing planned at the moment. You know, it was, you know, a long year plus of, you know, putting this book together. You know, it's it's always crunch time towards the end with final edits and design and all that stuff. And then the book's released and now I'm right in the thick of publicity and marketing and making the rounds and trying to get the word out. So that's been my my main focus right now. Nothing. have nothing really, you know, jumped into, you know, into places like, Oh, that's my next idea. I got to write about that. You know, I didn't. I find when you force them, they kind of don't happen, you know, like 

Rich Bennett 1:03:53
But. 

Andrew Serra 1:03:53
even with this book. Like I said, when I first retired, I was trying to figure out I had a couple I think I started two other books where I were. I wrote like 20 or 30 pages, like, because I'm like, I'm looking around. I'm like, Oh, that's the idea. Like, you know, try to make it the idea. And, you know, it's like, you know, false starts and stops and, you know, you getting around and then when when sometimes when they just kind of grow organically. I think those are the best ideas like this. Like I said, it grew out of starting to be one thing and then it kind of shifted into like this bigger overall story. 

Rich Bennett 1:04:24
Andrew, I want to thank you so much. Everybody listening again, make sure you purchase the books, leave a full review and stay tuned for more books when he gets more ideas in his head. Andrew, thanks a lot. 

Andrew Serra 1:04:37
Great. Rich, thank you so much for having me. 

Rich Bennett 1:04:39
Thank you for listening to the conversations with Rich Bennett. I hope you enjoy today's episode and learn something from it as I did. If you'd like to hear more conversations like this, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode. And if you have a moment, I'd love if you could leave a review. It helps us reach more listeners and share more incredible stories. Don't forget to connect with us on social media or visit our website at conversations with Rich Bennett Dotcom. For updates, giveaways and more. Until next time, take care, Be kind and keep the conversations going.