On a cold tardy November nighttime in 1942 , in the Bay Village neck of the woods of Boston , the Cocoanut Grove club was absolutely hop . The Grove , as it was called by the locals , was a well - known hangout in that area of the metropolis . It had open in the late 1920s , then hobble its way throughProhibition , a few dissimilar owners , and a less - than - spicy reputation as a place where the city ’s mobsters gathered .
By the metre this Thanksgiving weekend rolled around , though , The Grove was distinctly the topographic point to be in Boston . For everybody . soldier , sport buff ( a openhanded Holy Cross - Boston College football game had been played to begin with that twenty-four hours ) , and those just out for a night on the town crowded into the sprawling building complex for the food and live medicine .
The Grove hold , at its upper terminus ad quem , maybe 460 people . But with the holiday time of year starting , a growing war raging in Europe and the Pacific , and everybody appear for a discharge , the place was throng . On that Saturday evening , as many as 1,000 well - dress customer were there looking for a good meter .
It was a night — Nov. 28 , 1942 , — that Boston has never forgotten , a night in which revelry turned almost in a flash to tragedy . It also was a nighttime that reverberated across the world , and that deepen the metropolis of Boston eternally .
" This is 77 twelvemonth later , and there ’s still all this energy around this case . unremarkably , if it ’s not done in the first five years , it disappears and it ’s forgotten . That ’s not the case with Cocoanut Grove , " says Casey Grant of theNational Fire Protection Association , which is establish in the Boston field . " We still do presentations , and it ’s amazing the people who show up . There ’s hoi polloi that show up and tell us they were orphaned . It ’s just strike the issue of masses who were direct impacted . It depart cryptical mark . "
What Happened at Cocoanut Grove?
The now - notorious Cocoanut Grove nightclub fire claim 492 lives that dark . It remains the deadliest nightclub ardour in U.S. history . Theblack and white pic from the evening , almost 80 geezerhood later , are a sobering reminder of its toll ; stagnant bodies being carried from the nightclub on stretchers , dazed and unconscious clubgoers lie in limply in the munition of strangers , other victims facedown in the cobblestone street .
Two cleaning lady , clothe for a night out , one with a monogrammed frock , lying on their backs , a sheet at their waist , ready to be pulled over their faces .
" We often talk about the everlasting storm , " Grant says . " When cock-a-hoop - scale events go on like this , it ’s a confluence of all the wrong thing come together in unfortunately the worst way . "
The Grove was a disaster waiting to happen . On that night , not only was the club overcrowded , but the owners had sealed off six of the nine exit , seemingly to keep people from leave without pay . The club ’s décor — an island - inspired theme that included imitation decoration tree diagram with cocoanut and draperies over delusive ceiling — was prevalent with inflammable materials . The main entrance was arevolving threshold , which quick became stuffed and unworkable when frightened patrons surged to miss .
" The crowding in this night club is hard to think , " Paul Christian , the former Boston attack commissioner , told filmmakers in 2014 . " It was just elbow to elbow . There was no emergency lighting at the Cocoanut Grove . The doors opened inwards . The door jammed up immediately . The windows were all looking glass block . And those , you’re able to just not unwrap . "
How Did the Fire Start?
The flak begin below , in the Melody Lounge . The exact parentage never have been officially determined , but for age many people blamed a busboy , base on an consultation of the waiter’s assistant and the eyewitness accounts of John Heyman , a survivor of the fire .
From theBoston Globe ’s obit of Heyman , who publish an earlier musical composition in the newspaper about his recollections of the night . He died in 2019 at historic period 99 :
Why Did So Many Die?
A single 4 - foot ( 1.2 - meter ) broad stairway led up from the Melody Lounge to a door at the top of the stair . The door , fit with a terror ginmill , was locked shut .
As the fire leap up the stairs and into the principal ballroom area , patron bolted toward the revolving threshold , which obstruct with the onrush and then broke altogether . Most of the other doors in the golf-club open inward and were force exclude by the surging gang .
Within five minutes of the fire igniting , the full ball club was engulfed . The toll was annihilating .
" The whole thing was dealing with the human wreckage , the butchery , " Grant sound out . " Really , that ’s what Cocoanut Grove was all about . It was a remarkable event in that , of the around 1,000 people in that building that night , one out of every two would perish . You had a one in two hazard of find out alive . And if you take four multitude , two of them would perish , and then one of them would be spite . Only one of four would get out unscathed . "
Those stale statistics — the injured and drained compared to the safe and sound — are unheard of in any fervidness disaster before or since , Grant allege .
What We Learned From the Fire
Out of the disaster of Cocoanut Grove , some good arose . Over the calendar month and years that followed , the fire and its wake became the impetus for some important changes in fire safe and prevention , and served as a design for how future emergencies should be approached .
Grant bespeak to four areas that changed nationally — and internationally — because of Cocoanut Grove :
Maybe the most striking of those changes came on the medical front . Then , as now , Boston was a major hub of medical founding . Thanks to the speedy activeness of what are now hump asfirst responders — and the formulation of Civil Defense mathematical operation in place because of the warfare — the many victims that night were rushed to several hospital in the city , mainly Boston City Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital . There , they were given forethought that is often routine now for burn victims .
" This was the first in the world in the civilian universe of the utilization of penicillin , " Kenneth Marshall , a Boston - area plastic sawbones and the United States President of theCocoanut Grove Memorial Committee , secern movie maker . Marshall ’s female parent was a Boston City Hospital nursemaid who treated victims of the Cocoanut Grove fire .
The fire also changed how burn are handle , topically and otherwise , and how affected lungs and breathing are wish for in burn victim . It was , Marshall said in the documentary , the beginning of blood banking as we sleep together it today . And the first academic mention of post - traumatic accent upset issue forth out of the fire .
The Key to Preventing Fire Tragedies
For all its good , though , the lessons of Cocoanut Grove have not prevented other flack tragedies , too legion to number . Almost 35 years after the Boston tragedy , a ardour at theBeverly Hills Supper Clubfire in northern Kentucky , just south of Cincinnati , killed 165 masses . That was in May 1977 .
More of late , the Stationnightclub fire in Rhode Island ( 2003 ) kill 100 . TheGhost Shipfire in Oakland , California , in 2016 kill 36 . And in England , a fire in the gamey - riseGrenfell Towerapartment building in West London in 2017 killed 72 .
codification can be write , inspection made , fines imperil , citizenry immure . But in the end , it ’s still up to local officials and property owner to keep these tragedies from happening again .
" We realize , as much as we work firmly and we put in safeguards , we still also find cagey way to get around safeguards , or we see new hazard introduced , " Grant pronounce . In the Station fire , for example , combustible soundproofing and indoor pyrotechnics led to the flaming .
" If you were expect for any one thing that seems to continually catch everyone off precaution , it ’s self-satisfaction . citizenry , the populace , we tend to think it ’s not go to chance to us , " Grant adds . " And it does . We ’re really good at forgetting story . "
