Mid-way to Mid-town

When Joel is at the garment factory, he opens a door to the stairwell where he finds Manny standing on the landing, smoking. Joel says he shouldn't be smoking there, asking "Remember the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire?" to which Manny replies "Like it was yesterday." The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire occurred March 25, 1911, and is one of the most infamous incidents in American industrial history, as 145 workers perished in Manhattan. The tragedy brought attention to sweatshop conditions and led to better laws and regulations for worker safety. The fire was thought to be caused by a lit cigarette tossed into a bin of fabric scraps.

When Susie got the phone call in the previous episode to make the breakthrough booking that is the focus of this episode, the plan was clearly for February. Yet in this episode Abe and Rose have been in Paris for so long that the springtime blossoms are coming out in the parks. It is not specified what month the action occurs in, but somehow Abe suddenly has to return to New York because classes at Columbia are about to start - which would normally be either January or September. That is, if he had managed to arrange a spontaneous springtime sabbatical, then they could have stayed in Paris all through the summer, which they did not, but nor did he hurry home for the winter semester. Basically, several months were inserted on the Paris side that did not occur on the New York side.