Cocoanut Grove fire
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The fire
The club, a former speakeasy located at 17 Piedmont Street in what is now Boston's Bay Village neighborhood, was filled with approximately 1,000 occupants that evening, more than twice its official capacity of 460. The club had recently been expanded with the addition of a lounge which opened onto an adjacent street. Decorated in a Casablanca tropical style, the restaurant, bars, and lounges inside were decorated with romantic but flammable paper palm trees, cloth draperies covering the ceiling, flammable furniture, and other flimsy decorations, some of which obscured exit signs.Official reports state the fire started at about 10:15 p.m. downstairs in the dark, intimate Melody Lounge. It was believed that a young man, possibly a soldier, had removed a lightbulb in order to give him privacy while kissing his date. Stanley Tomaszewski, a 16-year-old busboy, was instructed to put the light back on by retightening the bulb. As he attempted to tighten the lightbulb back into its socket, the bulb fell out in his hand. In the dimly-lit lounge, Tomaszewski, unable to see the socket, lit a match for a moment to illuminate the area, found the socket, blew out the match, and replaced the bulb. Almost immediately, patrons saw something ignite in the canopy of artificial palm fronds draped above the tables.
Despite waiters' efforts to douse the fire by throwing water on the it, it quickly spread along the fronds of the palm tree, igniting nearby decorations on the walls and ceiling. Flames raced up the stairway to the main level, feeding on oxygen and burning the hair of patrons who were stumbling up the stairs. A fireball burst across the central dance floor just as the orchestra was beginning its evening show. Flames raced through the adjacent Caricature Bar, then down a corridor to the New Lounge. Within five minutes, flames had spread to the main clubroom and the entire nightclub was ablaze.
As is common in panic situations, many patrons attempted to exit through the main entrance, the same way they had come in. However, the building's main entrance was a single revolving door, immediately rendered useless as the panicked crowd scrambled for safety. Bodies piled up behind both sides of the revolving door, jamming it to the extent that firefighters had to dismantle in order to get inside. Other avenues of escape were similarly useless: side doors had been welded shut to prevent people from leaving without settling their bills. A plate glass window, which could have been smashed for escape, was instead boarded up and unusable as an emergency exit. Other unlocked doors opened inwards, rendering them useless against the crush of people trying to escape. Fire officials later testified that, had the doors swung outwards, at least 300 lives could have been spared. Many young soldiers perished in the disaster, as well as a married couple whose wedding had taken place earlier that day.
The aftermath
Boston newspapers were filled with lists of the dead and stories of narrow escapes and deaths. It was erroneously reported that Hollywood movie star Buck Jones had made it safely outside, but died two days later in the hospital. In fact, Jones had fallen where he sat in the prime Terrace area near the bandstand, which was behind a wrought iron railing that acted as a trap. Stories claimed that Buck had gone back in to rescue people. In truth, he had been incapacitated at his seat and would linger in the hospital for some hours before dying.Coast Guardsman Clifford Johnson went back in no fewer than four times in search of his date who, unbeknownst to him, had already safely escaped. Johnson suffered extensive third-degree burns over 50% of his body but survived the disaster, spending 10 months convalescing in Boston City Hospital. Ironically, years later, he burned to death in a fiery auto crash in his home state of Missouri.
The undefeated Boston College football team had made victory party reservations at the club that evening, but canceled after an upset loss to Holy Cross dampened their spirits.
In the year that followed the fire, Massachusetts and other states enacted laws for public establishments which banned flammable decorations and inward-swinging exit doors, required exit signs to be visible at all times, and stated that revolving doors used for egress must either be flanked by at least one normal, outward-swinging door, or retrofitted to permit the invidual doors to fold flat to permit free-flowing traffic in a panic situation.
Barney Welansky, whose connections had allowed the nightclub to operate while in violation of the loose standards of the day, was convicted on nineteen counts of manslaughter (nineteen victims were randomly selected to represent the dead). Welansky was sentenced to twelve to fifteen years in prison. He served nearly 4 years before being quietly pardoned by Massachusetts Governor Maurice Tobin, who had been mayor of Boston at the time of the fire. Busboy Stanley Tomaszewski, who had survived the fire and later testified at the inquiry, was exonerated, as he was not responsible for the flammable decorations or the safety code violations.
In 1997, the case was reopened. New information & improved understanding of fire dynamics led to the determination that the flash fire was caused by extremely flammable methyl chloride leaking from a faulty refrigerator in a service area near the Melody Lounge.
For decades it was believed that by order of the Boston Licensing Board, no Boston establishment may again call itself the Cocoanut Grove. This is a myth, as no law or regulation on this subject exists.
The lessons of the Cocoanut Grove fire were eventually forgotten by some people who operated nightclubs. In 1977 the crowded Beverly Hills Supper Club in suburban Cincinnati burned and killed 165 people, largely due to poor enforcement of existing fire safety codes. In 2003, another 100 people died while trying to exit the same door they entered at The Station, a nightclub in Rhode Island.
Burn Treatment
Many of the burn victims were admitted to hospital. Drs. Francis Moore and Cope treated them and in the process learned much about inhalation injuries, topical antibiotics, and the metabolic consequences of thermal injury. As terrible as the fire was, it lead to many advances in the care of burn patients.References
- Benzaquin, Paul, Holocaust! The shocking story of the Boston Cocoanut Grove fire (1959) No ISBN available, but Library of Congress Control Number is 59014396.
- Schorow, Stephanie, The Cocoanut Grove Fire (2005) ISBN 1889833886.
- Keyes, Edward, Cocoanut Grove (1984) ISBN 0689114060.
- Esposito, John, Fire in the Grove: The Cocoanut Grove Tragedy And Its Aftermath (2005) ISBN 0306814234.
- Am J Surg. 1993 Dec;166(6):581-91. The 1942 fire at Boston's Cocoanut Grove nightclub. Saffle JR.
See also
External links
- [The Boston Globe archives, featuring coverage of the tragedy from 1942]
- [With the Command Historical Perspective: US Naval Academy Fire Dept - Cocoanut Grove Fire]
- [Article on Buck Jones and his role, if any, in rescuing victims from the fire]
- [Celebrate Boston: Disasters - Cocoanut Grove Fire]
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