Cocoanut Grove Fire
The Cocoanut Grove was Boston's premier nightclub during the post-Prohibition 1930s and 1940s. On November 28, 1942, this club was the scene of the deadliest nightclub fire in US history, killing 492 people (which was 32 more than the building's authorized capacity) and injuring hundreds more. It was also the second-worst single-building fire in American history; only the 1903 Iroquois Theatre fire in Chicago had a higher death toll, of 602.
The enormity of the tragedy shocked the nation and briefly replaced the events of World War II in newspaper headlines. In both fires, most of those who lost their lives would have survived had the existing safety codes been fully enforced. The tragedy led to a reform of safety standards and codes across the country, and major changes in the treatment and rehabilitation of burn victims.
Read more about Cocoanut Grove Fire: The Club, The Owner, November 28, 1942, The Fire, Victims and Escapes, Investigation, Advances in Burn and Psychiatric Care, Memorial
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Stain it by infusion. There aren’t enough tags at the end,
And the grove is blind, blossoming, but we are too porous to hear it.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“I am grown old, and have possibly lost a great deal of that fire, which formerly made me love fire in others at any rate, and however attended with smoke: but now I must have all sense, and cannot, for the sake of five righteous lines, forgive a thousand absurd ones.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)