Cocoanut Grove Fire

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

Famous quotes containing the words grove and/or fire:

    I can’t make head or tail of Life. Love is a fine thing, Art is a fine thing, Nature is a fine thing; but the average human mind and spirit are confusing beyond measure. Sometimes I think that all our learning is the little learning of the maxim. To laugh at a Roman awe-stricken in a sacred grove is to laugh at something today.
    Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)

    Is not prayer also a study of truth,—a sally of the soul into the unfound infinite? No man ever prayed heartily, without learning something. But when a faithful thinker, resolute to detach every object from personal relations, and see it in the light of thought, shall, at the same time, kindle science with the fire of the holiest affections, then will God go forth anew into creation.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)