REDUCED TO ASHES

The Final Curtain at the Brooklyn Theater

On December 5, 1876, a crowd of excited theater goers packed into the Brooklyn Theater in New York City to see a heldover show called “The Two Orphans.” When the curtain rose for the final act, no one had any idea that it really was the final act, or that in less than 30 minutes, nearly 300 of them would be dead.

Built on the site of the old St. John’s Episcopal Church, the Brooklyn Theatre opened its doors on October 2, 1871. The theater was intended to be one of the premier production houses in the sister cities: Brooklyn and New York. Within a short time, it became highly respected within the legitimate theater. The structure, which seated 1,600 patrons, was an L-shaped building on the corner of Washington and Johnson streets, just one block from the former Brooklyn City Hall. The Dieter Hotel was tucked into the “crook” between the two wings of the theater. The larger of the wings housed the proscenium theater with the rear stage wall fronting onto Johnson Street. Included in the proscenium theatre wing was the auditorium seating area, the stage, dressing rooms and storage for scene decorations, flats, furniture and props. To accommodate bringing in and removing large scenery flats and props, there were 20-foot-wide scene doors opening onto Johnson Street. The stage doors, located on the same side as the scene doors, were smaller but still wide enough to allow people carrying large loads to enter with ease. Though these doors were readily accessible to the stage, they were used solely for production purposes and never available to the general public.

As “The Two Orphans” was nearing the end of its run, materials for the next two productions were already being stored at the theater. The backstage area, usually fairly open and spacious, was now packed with stored items. These extra materials made it difficult for actors and support personnel to navigate backstage and in the wings. The managers ordered that the fire buckets filled with water be removed, so people would not knock them over and spill them while trying to maneuver around all the extra set pieces. The additional flats were piled up against the back wall, blocking the fire hose apparatus.

The smaller wing, fronting on Washington Street, was the public face of the Brooklyn Theatre. Here were the public street entrances, the main and secondary box offices for ticket sales, the lobby and the staircases leading to the two balconies. The production offices were located on the upper floors of this wing.

Each of the theater’s three seating levels had its own special designation and commanded different ticket prices accordingly. There were six hundred floor-level seats in two sections known as “parquet” and “parquet circle.” Parquet circle seats were the best of the floor seats and tickets sold for a dollar fifty. Parquet seating was very close to the stage and considered to be less desirable so the cost was lower at seventy-five cents. The lower balcony, known as “dress circle.” contained 550 seats and tickets sold for one dollar. The “family circle,” made up the upper balcony and seated 450 patrons. These seats were farthest from the stage and nearest the ceiling so tickets were just fifty cents. The most choice and elegant seating was in eight private boxes, four on each side of the stage. Each box held up to six seats at a premium ticket cost of ten dollars.

The theater’s architect, Thomas R. Jackson, was very conscience of safety. He designed the structure so that it could be completely emptied within five minutes in case of emergency, even though there were no external fire escapes. In addition to the public entrances and the large scene and stage doors, he built three special exits into the long wall that made up the far side of the seating auditorium at ground level. These were large six-foot-wide double doors opening onto Flood’s Alley, which in turn led to Washington Street. One set was near the rear corner, the second in the center of the wall and the third just in front of the stage. Although these doors were kept locked to thwart intended gate crashers, the ushers had keys so they could be opened easily and quickly.

The staircases were also designed for ease and safety. The main flight from the dress circle on the first balcony was ten feet wide and opened into the box office lobby. There was also a narrow emergency staircase on the opposite side of the balcony that lead to the Flood’s Alley exit nearest the stage.

The family circle had a different design than the parquet and dress circles on the two lower levels. It had only one exit staircase leading from the upper balcony. Though it was a generous width at nearly seven feet, guests still needed to traverse two full flights separated by a long corridor. As was the custom of the day, the theater’s family circle was viewed much as the steerage on a ship. Third class ticket holders were basically third class citizens. They had a separate entrance, separate box office and a separate set of stairs, so they could not mingle or interact with those patrons in dress circle or parquet.

On that fateful night in December 1876, there were nearly 1,200 people inside the Brooklyn Theatre including over a hundred theater employees and members of the acting company. The house manager reported that they had sold approximately 250 tickets for parquet and parquet circle, 360 tickets for dress circle and 400 for family circle. Not quite a packed house, but still, a very sizable crowd for a frigid Tuesday night.

The lighting for the body of the theater was provided by gaslights. The stage itself was lighted with gas-lit border lights equipped with reflectors. These lights were ignited by an electric spark and the level of light from each was controlled by regulating the gas flow. To ensure that these “open-flame” lights didn’t ignite drops, props, furniture or curtains, they were covered with a protective wire frame, intended to keep objects at least a foot away from the flame.

The fifth and final act of “The Two Orphans” involved a major setting change. This act was to take place inside an old, derelict boathouse, poor Louise’s family home. First, the drop and borders from the previous scene were raised into the fly space and the new set moved onto center stage. The set was a simple wooden frame draped with dark brown painted canvas. There was little in the way of set pieces, just a pallet of straw in the center of the “boat house.”

It was just past 11:00 p.m. on December 5. The border drop from the previous scene had been raised and the stage crew was preparing the stage for the boathouse scene. Shortly before the curtain was to rise, stage manager J. W. Thorpe noticed that a border that had just been raised into the fly space had a broken frame corner and seemed to be hanging down at an angle, as if it had snagged on something. More importantly, he saw a small fire, not much larger than a fist, burning in the torn corner. Apparently the drop had gotten caught on the protective wire cage over one of the boarder gaslights and had ignited.

Kate Claxton, star of the show, had taken her place on stage and was lying on her back upon the straw pallet. Also on stage were two other actors, Henry Murdock and J. B. Studley. Waiting in the wings for their entrance cues were Mary Ann Farren and Claude Burroughs. Everyone had taken their places. Everything was ready to go. The audience was waiting.

Thorpe was unable to get to the fire hose that was behind the stored flats on the back wall and the fire buckets had been removed. He thought that the fire could be easily extinguished, and not wanting to disrupt the play, he directed two nearby carpenters to put the fire out and for the curtain to be raised for the final act.

Waiting to start the scene, Kate heard a rumbling sound “as if the roof were coming down” as the two carpenters, armed with long poles, were attempting to beat the fire out over their heads. Kate, looking up as she lay on her bed of straw, could see sparks floating down from the flies. But the curtain went up and she began the scene, delivering her first few lines without hesitation. As she lay there, Lillian Cleaves knelt just behind her on the other side of the canvas, out of sight of the audience, and whispered, “Save yourself, for God’s sake! I am running now!”

More sparks and tongues of flame drifted down and were now in full view of the audience. Mary Ann Farren came on stage and knelt next to Kate, as if she were playing her roll, but instead whispered that the fire was steadily gaining. The audience, seeing the smoke and flames jumped up and began to lunge about as panic overtook them. A few, who were seated closest, tried to crawl up onto the stage. J.B. Studley, one of the actors on stage, tried to take command of the situation by addressing the audience directly. He stepped to the edge of the stage and shouted out at them that, “The play will go on and the fire will be put out. Be quiet. Get back in your seats.” The crowd began to quiet and some returned to their seats.

Kate, in a further attempt to quiet the crowd, stepped forward and tried to tell the audience that the fire was part of the play and to remain calm. Within seconds, it became apparent that this could not be true as sparks continued to rain down. As she spoke her last words, a burning piece of wood fell to the stage at her feet and all attempts to calm the crowd were abandoned and panic took over, on the stage and in the audience. Most of those in the stage area made their way to the large stage doors and out to safety, a route blocked from audience members by the growing fire.

As the crowd attempted to flee en masse, head usher Thomas Rochford was able to unlock the emergency exit onto Flood’s Alley at the rear of the floor seating area. Audience members in the parquet and parquet circle easily found their way out through that exit or to the Washington Street foyer. However, when Rochford opened the rear exit door, a rush of fresh air reinvigorated the fire and it rushed towards the back of the auditorium and up toward the balconies.

The story was quite different on the dress circle level. Almost no one knew of the emergency stairs on the opposite wall from the main staircase. In a panic, people will nearly always try to exit the same way they entered. And so, those in the dress circle all headed toward the main staircase that would take them directly into the Washington Street lobby and then out into the street. This should have been a simple process, but for the panic. As the frenzied crowd rushed toward the stairs, it quickly became jammed. Some stumbled and fell, and others piled on top of them. Feet were tangled up in the balusters. Still others pulled and clawed at those in front, trying to climb over the mass to get to safety. Escape became next to impossible.

Fortunately for these poor trapped individuals, the First Precinct Police Station was just next door so assistance was quickly at hand. Several police officers and theater employees, working at the bottom of the stairs, were able to untangle the crowd as the crush pushed them down toward the exit. Nearly everyone from the dress circle eventually made it out of the building. Almost all of their injuries stemmed from falls or the massive crush, rather than from the fire.

An anonymous witness described the scene in the dress circle balcony for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. “With few exceptions, the audience in the orchestra [floor seats] rushed headlong toward the doors. Those in the dress circle followed suit, and the most fatal and appalling evils resulted. Bereft of calmness and self possession...the panic stricken throng dived headlong forward, using brute force to escape the disaster which was still comparatively distant, and which was only converted from an ordinary accident into an awful calamity by that very ruthless and reckless haste. The weaker went down before the charge of the stronger, and women and children were the sufferers, as usual. In the body of the theater and in the corridor scores were crushed and jammed almost to death, and many were thrown to the floor and trampled on.”

In the family circle, conditions were far worse. The seating area with the most people had the poorest evacuation possibilities. Within seconds, all 400 of the family circle patrons moved toward their only exit. As in the dress circle, the stairs became immediately jammed with bodies packed in so tightly that almost no movement was possible. Down below, the fire was raging, sending heat and smoke toward the ceiling where it collected in the upper balcony. In a short time, those who were trapped up next to the ceiling began to collapse, unable to breathe in the thickening smoke and hot gasses.

In the Washington Street lobby, District Engineer Farley and fireman Cain along with several policemen and theater janitor Mike Sweeny, had finally succeeded in clearing the dress circle stairs. They made their way up to the dress circle balcony but found no signs of activity. They then opened a connecting door to the family circle stairs. Met with thick black smoke, they were unable to continue any further. They shouted up but got no response. They heard no human sound or movement upon the stairs. Believing that everyone who had been sitting in the family circle had already escaped, Farley ordered everyone out of the building. Within minutes of their evacuation, large cracks appeared in the theater wall along Johnson Street. Just under half an hour after the tiny fire was first spotted, bystanders heard a giant crash as the entire wall collapsed into the burning theater, just feet from where the fire had started.

It took only a matter of minutes for anyone arriving at the site to acknowledge that the building was lost. When Brooklyn Fire Department Chief Engineer Thomas Nevins took command just before 11:30 p.m., he understood that his job was not to save the theater, but to keep the fire from spreading to other buildings. The Dieter Hotel, nestled in the crook of the theater, was at the greatest risk. With its lower profile, the chance that floating embers and burning debris landing on the roof and setting it alight was very likely. Several other buildings in the general vicinity were also in jeopardy. Nevins ordered that fire-fighting apparatus be positioned throughout the area, on and around buildings most likely to catch and spread the fire. As for the Brooklyn Theatre, she would burn herself out without any possibility of being saved.

Several of those who had made their escape, found refuge in the police precinct next door. At some point in the night, Kate Claxton was found standing alone in the frigid street, still wearing only the thin, ragged costume of Louise, her character in the play. She seemed to be in a daze, not really aware of the chaos around her. After being led into the police station she sat quietly, only occasionally asking of the whereabouts of some of her fellow actors.

The fire raged into the night, the crowd of onlookers grew; some merely curious, others frantic with worry as they searched for friends and loved ones among the survivors. Despite the growing number of people inquiring about the missing, authorities believed that few, if any had been lost to the fire. A physical search had been done of the dress circle balcony and it was found to be empty. No one had been able to get into the family circle balcony but rescuers had found no evidence of anyone still up there. They believed they had every reason to be optimistic.

Uncontrolled until well after 1:00 a.m. when the Flood’s Alley wall collapsed, the fire began to burn down. At about 3:00 a.m., Chief Nevins made his first attempt to enter the building through the Johnson Street lobby into the vestibule but was forced back by heat and smoke. Eventually, he was able to enter the building to just inside the lobby doors where he found the body of a woman, sitting on the floor propped up against a wall. She was horribly disfigured and her legs had been largely burned away. Nevins exited the building with a new understanding that where there was one body, there would likely be many more. He kept his discovery to himself, fearing the crowd might storm the crumbling building.

No one entered the building again until well after 6:00 a.m. The fire was nearly out and nothing remained of the auditorium except for a very small portion of the vestibule (seating area) nearest the lobby doors. The entire structure had collapsed into the cellar. Chief Nevins decided it was time to take in a recovery party.

The first sight that greeted them was a mass of charred and tangled debris in the cellar toward the rear of the auditorium. As they descended into the rubble, they made a grim discovery. The tangle of debris was in reality a tangle of human corpses. They had fallen into the cellar when the family circle balcony and staircases collapsed. Though their bodies were horribly burned, they had fallen victim to the smoke and heat long before the flames had reached them.

News rose from the smoldering crater that as many as twenty people had perished. The search, and body removal continued but by 9:00 a.m. the number had risen to nearly seventy. Within two more hours, twenty more were added to the growing total. By early afternoon the true depth of the tragedy became apparent as the estimation surpassed two hundred.

It would take nearly three days to remove all the bodies from the building’s wreckage. Some had been scattered when the balcony collapsed and became tangled in the debris. The task was made particularly difficult by the extremely poor conditions of the remains. Recovery became problematic as many body parts disintegrated at the slightest touch. Some bodies simply fell apart when rescuers tried to lift them from the floor of the cellar.

The crowd around the ruins grew throughout the day. Worried, distraught, and sometimes frantic people wandered from person to person, officer to officer, imploring of anyone who would listed for information about some missing person. In several cases, the only reason someone might have been thought to have been at the theater was that they didn’t come home that night, didn’t appear for work the next morning, or simply hadn’t been seen since the previous evening.

The city morgue filled quickly. An unused market was found nearby on Adams Street for the overflow. In the end, the market floor provided the best location for the victim’s remains and shreds of clothing, jewelry and personal items that survived the inferno. Identification was going to be difficult as most faces were burned beyond recognition. In many cases, the damage from the fire was so great that even gender was not evident. The victims who were identified were largely done so by personal items found on or near the bodies.

With the large open market space of the temporary morgue, human remains, extracted from the theater, could be prepared and arranged for viewing in the hopes of possible identification. A steady flow of mourners passed through the office of Kings County Coroner Henry C. Simms, requesting passes to enter the morgue. As they moved up and down the rows of the dead, they were guided by an official because so many had collapsed or passed into fits as they saw something they recognized on a particular body. As each individual was identified, their body was removed to their home or that of a family member. This procedure ensured a fairly rapid and simple reduction in the mass of human bodies laid out upon the floor. Regrettably, it also ensured that mistakes in identification would surely be made as well.

Brooklyn fell into a period of mourning. Funerals were held all over the city. Several neighborhoods and organizations held memorial services for the victims of the fire. Prayer vigils and special church services and masses were performed for those who died and their friends and families.

Nearly 100 of those who lost their lives in the Brooklyn Theatre fire could not be identified. The City of Brooklyn secured a large plot in the Green-Wood Cemetery to use as a mass grave. A large arch-shaped common grave was dug for those who remained unidentified and for families who couldn’t afford to pay for private burials. One hundred and three people, in donated coffins trimmed in silver, were laid to rest in the common grave, arranged with their heads towards the center of the arch. Over two thousand mourners braved the bitter cold to attend the graveside service and mourn the victims. After two hours of speeches, ceremonies and music performed by a sixty- voice German choir, fresh soil was shoveled over the long lines of coffins creating a large burial mound topped with a floral crown and cross. Later, the mass grave was marked with a thirty-foot-tall granite memorial, engraved with a brief history of the disaster. The memorial, also purchased by the City of Brooklyn, was placed atop the mound.

The final number killed would fluctuate for several days. It was hard to determine how many complete bodies could be made up from the piles of arms, legs, heads and torsos, and impossible to account for the body parts that had burned completely away. Henry Simms, the Kings County Coroner announced the death toll as 293 on Friday, but later scaled that back to 283. The number engraved on the memorial marker erected in Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery was 278. That number is by no means definitive however as researchers have estimated the true number is likely nearer to 300. Regardless of the final count, the horrific tragedy could not be denied, nor its impact on a stunned city.

Three years after the Brooklyn Theatre had been reduced to ashes, Haverly’s Theatre was built on the same site, but was torn down just eleven years later. The next structure was a simple office building, used by the Brooklyn Daily Eagle until it went defunct. The approximate site is now a lovely wooded park-like seating area just north of the New York Supreme Court Building. Sadly, there is no marker of any sort, recalling or commemorating the terrible tragedy that had taken place there.

For the first two days, while the recovery efforts were continuing, much of the work going on inside the ruin and guard duty around the crumbling structure was done by the Brooklyn Police Department. Many of these men had been working around the clock with very little rest. They were near exhaustion and there were few officers on their regular patrol of the city. It was noted in the Brooklyn Union that: “The city is comparatively uncovered, and if New York thieves should make raid it would, no doubt, be highly successful.”

One hundred members of the Thirteenth Regiment of the New York National Guard presented themselves to the Brooklyn Police Commissioner, offering their services to take over for the police officers, that they might get some rest and return to their regular duties protecting the city. The Fourteenth Regiment did likewise and it was determined that they would rotate duties every twelve hours until the work was completed. The Fourteenth Regiment would have the night shift, starting at 6:30 p.m.

Those long nights in the frigid December weather must have worn heavily on the men of the Fourteenth. At first, they kept busy, as there were still crowds of mourners, curiosity seekers and scavengers. Soon enough, the crowds began to thin down to almost nothing after the bodies had been removed and the novelty of the tragedy had worn off. The long, dark vigil had gradually become a quiet one. The men walked or stood their posts and chatted quietly when they had occasion to pass each other.

But the nights were not completely quiet. As the guardsmen spoke in hushed tones, their attention was on occasion called to the cellar floor, where they reported hearing the soft sound of a woman’s sobs. This would continue until someone would call down for the woman to come out; that it was dangerous, especially at night, and that no one was allowed inside. Two of the men went so far as to venture into the building to find and escort her safely out. They later described what they saw as the dark, shrouded shape of what they thought was a woman. She was walking through the debris, bent over and weeping, as if she were looking for something. She stopped here and there as if to peer into some cavity, then moved on. One of the men climbed toward her to entice her away from the danger, but she simply vanished as he got closer. They knew that there was no other way out and that she hadn’t gone past them. They left the cellar area frightened and confused, but wondering if a poor lost soul was left searching for someone she had gotten separated from on that terrible night. The mysterious apparition appeared two more times over the next week, then was seen no more.

This story is an excerpt by Rene Kruse from the book AND HELL FOLLOWED WITH IT by Troy Taylor and Rene Kruse. 

INNOCENCE LOST: THE OUR LADY OF ANGELS FIRE

On December 1, 1958, one of the most soul-crushing fires in American history occurred on the west side of Chicago when 92 children and three nuns died at the Our Lady of Angels School. The horrific event shattered scores of lives on that day and the neighborhood where the school was located has never fully recovered. 

Our Lady of Angels was located at 3820 West Iowa Street. It was surrounded by a quiet Catholic parish of about 4,500 families from mostly Irish and Italian backgrounds. They lived modestly in apartments and brick bungalows until after the fire, when many of these hardworking families abandoned the neighborhood, never to return.

On December 1, between 1,200 and 1,300 students were sitting through their last hour of classes for the day at the parochial school. The fire started around 2:25 p.m., about 20 minutes before class was going to be dismissed. Like many other schools of that era, Our Lady of Angels was tragically without many of the safety measures that exist today. The forty-year-old building had no smoke detectors, no sprinkler systems, no outside fire alarm and the building had only one fire escape. Unbelievably, the school had passed a fire inspection two months before. By 1958 standards, the building was legally safe.

Two students on an errand returned to their classroom and said that they smelled smoke. The teacher took them seriously and after consulting with a teacher in the room next door, both decided to evacuate their students. The rest of the school was not, at this time, alerted to the fire. The two classes left the building – one using the fire escape, the other an inside staircase – and reported to the church, which was on the same grounds. The janitor entered the school building and noticed that it was on fire. He told the parish housekeeper to call the fire department. It was suggested later that she may have delayed calling for a few minutes since an alarm was not received until 2:42 p.m. This was the same time that the building’s fire alarm was also sounded. It was a manual alarm and not connected to the fire department. 

This was the first warning received by the rest of the school that the building was in danger. 

It is believed that the fire started in a trash can at the bottom of the basement stairwell. There, it smoldered for a good part of the day and then spread to the stairs, thanks to air from an open window. 

Once it was ignited, the fire quickly spread and burned up to the second floor, devouring the building as it went. By the time the first fire trucks arrived, the upper floor of the north wing was engulfed in flames. The fire had already been burning for a number of minutes before the alarm went off and more precious time was lost when the fire department trucks mistakenly pulled up to the church rectory, and not the school. The dispatchers had been given the wrong address by the person who phoned in the report. Then, when the first trucks arrived at the school, they had to break through a locked gate to get inside.

Inside the classrooms, which were rapidly filling with smoke, the students heard the sound of the fire trucks approaching, but then nothing, as the trucks went to the rectory instead. At that desperate moment, the nuns asked the children to bow their heads in prayer. When the trucks finally arrived, and the extent of the blaze was realized, another alarm was sent out, ordering all available vehicles to the scene. Before it was over, 43 pieces of fire equipment were at the school.

When the firefighters arrived, they saw children calling for help from the second-story windows. Since it was the rescue of the children that most concerned the firemen on their arrival, the fire continued to spread and eventually burned off a large portion of the roof.

Occupants on the first floor of the school were safely evacuated in orderly fire drill formation but the situation was more difficult on the upper floor, which was now filled with thick clouds of smoke. The fire escape had become unreachable through the burning hallways. The only way out was through the windows and soon, screaming children were plunging to the frozen ground below. The desperate firemen, icicles hanging from their helmets, behaved heroically and managed to save 160 children by pulling them out the windows, passing them down ladders, catching them in nets, and breaking their falls with their own bodies. One rescuer who climbed a ladder up to the building's second floor was Lieutenant Charles Kamin. When he reached the window of Room 211, he found a number of eighth graders were crammed together and trying to squeeze out. He reached inside and, one a time, began grabbing them, swinging them around his back and dropping them onto the ladder. He saved nine children, mostly boys, because he could grab hold of their belts. He was only stopped when the room exploded and the students fell back out of his reach.

In one classroom, the children were so gripped with fear that they refused to leave. The teacher instructed them to crawl to the staircase and she pushed them down and out, saving the entire class. Math was being taught in another room when the fire broke out. The quick-thinking teacher ordered the students to pile books around the doors where the smoke could seep in. She told them to put their desks in front of the doors to keep out the smoke and the tremendous amount of heat that was starting to come in. The alarm had not been sounded at that point, so she convinced all of her students to loudly chant in unison that the school was on fire; that way, she told them, they would help by alerting students and teachers in other classrooms who might not know what was going on. By keeping the children occupied, and by quick actions that increased their confidence in her, she was able to keep them calm while they awaited rescue. Some safely jumped to a staircase a few feet below, while others waited at the window for fire department ladders. After all of the students had been rescued, the teacher descended the ladder. Even though this room was heavily damaged by smoke and fire, only one child died. The students in the classroom across the hall were not so fortunate – the teacher and 29 students burned to death.

A nine-year-old girl named Margaret Chambers had stayed home that morning with a cold but she hated missing school and begged her mother to let her go for the afternoon session. Her mother, Rose Chambers, agreed and Margaret never returned home.

Max Stachura, father of a nine-year-old boy who attended Our Lady of Angels, rushed to the school as soon as he heard about the fire. He was able to save 12 children by either catching them as they jumped or breaking their falls. He couldn’t save his son, Mark, however. He found the boy standing at the window of his classroom and shouted for him to jump. Mark either didn’t understand what his father wanted him to do or was too frightened to jump. He perished in the fire.

Firemen groped their way through smoke and fire, searching for children who might be trapped. Hallways and rooms were filled with smoke and gases but the firemen remained, looking in every room for signs of life. They found many groups of children still alive but, unfortunately, they were too late for many. They fought their way into one classroom to find 24 children sitting dead at their desks, their books open in front of them. It was a scene that members of the rescue party would never forget.

The scene outside the school was one of chaos. Between children jumping from windows and screams and cries for help, firefighters also had to deal with the terrified parents who began to arrive. They hampered the efforts of the firefighters as they rushed the police lines, hysterically trying to reach their children who were trapped in the building. It took the crew a little over an hour to put out the fire. The blaze had consumed the second-story classrooms, claiming the lives of dozens of children and nuns. 

For the hundreds of parents and relatives who stood outside, the huge loss of life was soon apparent as cloth-covered stretchers began to emerge from the smoldering building. A long line of ambulances and police squadrons slowly collected the bodies and took them to the Cook County Morgue, where family members could identify them. Confusion and mystery made the tragedy even worse. Many parents had no idea if their children were dead or alive. Some of them were discovered standing in the street outside the school. Others were given shelter in nearby homes. However, many parents had no choice but to search the seven hospitals to which the injured were taken or, worse yet, to wait in the grim line at the county morgue. 

Chicago was stunned by the appalling loss of life and word of the disaster spread around the world. In Rome, Pope John XXIII sent a personal message to the archbishop of Chicago, the Most Reverend Albert Gregory Meyer. Four days later, Meyer conducted a mass for the victims and their families before an altar set up at the Northwest Armory. He called the fire "a great and inescapable sorrow."

Nearly as tragic as the fire itself was the fact that no blame was ever placed for the disaster. In those days, there was no thought of suing those responsible (the Catholic Church, which ran the school) for the conditions that allowed the fire to happen. Outwardly, the families accepted the idea that the fire had been simply "God's will," but it cannot be denied that a number of those involved left the Church, their faith as shattered as their lives. No one dared to challenge the Church over what happened and life moved quietly on.

But in January 1962, the fire was news again when police in Cicero questioned a 13-year-old boy about a series of fires that had been set in the city. When they learned that he had been a troubled student at Our Lady of Angels at the time of the fire, their interrogations took another direction. The boy's mother and stepfather hired an attorney, who recommended that the boy submit to a polygraph test. 

In the interview, polygraph expert John Reid learned that the boy began starting fires at the age of five, when he set his family's garage alight. He had also set as many as eleven fires in buildings in Chicago and Cicero, usually by tossing burning matches on papers at the bottom of staircases. This was exactly how most believed the Our Lady of Angels fire started and so Reid pressed him harder. The boy denied starting the fire at first, but test results indicated that he was lying. Later, the boy admitted that he had set the blaze, hoping for a few extra days out of school. He said he hated his teachers and his principal because they "always wanted to expel me from school." His attendance record had been poor and his behavior was described as "deplorable." 

In his confession, he said that he had started the fire in the basement after leaving his classroom to go to the bathroom. He threw three lit matches into a trashcan and then ran upstairs to his second-floor classroom, which was soon evacuated. When Reid asked him why he had never told anyone about setting fire to the school, the boy replied, "I was afraid my dad was going to give me a beating and I'd get in trouble with the police and I'd get the electric chair or something."

Reid turned the confession over to the police and the boy was placed in the Arthur J. Audy Juvenile Home. Charges were filed against him, but after a series of hearings that ended in March 1962, Judge Alfred Cilella tossed out the boy's confession, ruling that Reid had obtained it illegally. Also, since the boy was under the age of 13 at the time of the fire, he could not be tried for a felony in Illinois. He did charge the boy with starting the fires in Cicero, and he was sent away to a home for troubled boys in Michigan. The boy's identity has never been released, but there are those who know it. Despite pleas from surviving family members of the Our Lady of Angels victims, it has never been publicly released. 

Despite the passage of time, the fire has never been forgotten. A new parish school was constructed on the site in 1960, but it was closed in 1999 because of declining enrollment. The only memorial to the victims of the fire is located in Queen of Heaven Cemetery in Hillside, where 25 of the victims are buried. It was constructed from private donations in 1960 and to this date, no official memorial to the fire has been erected.

For those who survived the fire, or lost friends or family members to the blaze, the Our Lady of Angels disaster remains a haunting memory that has been impossible to shake. To this day, they continue to hold reunions and services in memory of those who died, and many of those with connections to the fire tell strange stories and personal experiences with those who died in 1958. 

One woman recounted how her parents were relieved to see that she and her brother had survived the fire when they found them on the street outside the school. Her mother later told her that, shortly after arriving, she saw her son running from the building and heading toward his parents. He had a big smile on his face, thrilled to have escaped the burning school with his life. The parents and son became separated in the confusion and after the fire was out, they were unable to find the boy. Hours later, it was learned that he had died in his second-floor classroom and had not left the school at all. Until the day she died, the woman’s mother was convinced that she saw her son outside the school that day. 

Others with a first-hand connection to the fire have also spoken of encounters with loved ones who did not survive. Mothers claimed their children came to visit them and some who were children at the time of the fire stated that they were consoled by perished brothers and sisters, who stayed only briefly before moving on. Some visitors to the fire memorial at Queen of Heaven Cemetery say that they sometimes smell the strong presence of smoke nearby. 

Are such stories merely imagination, or perhaps wishful thinking? No one can say for sure, but there is no denying that the Our Lady of Angels Fire remains one of the most poignant and heart-breaking in Chicago’s history and will continue to be a wound that cannot be healed for many years to come.

DEATH AT THE COCOANUT GROVE

The Horrors of America's Worst Nightclub Fire

On November 28, 1942, one of the worst nightclub fires in American history took place at the famed Cocoanut Grove in Boston. The most elegant club in the city, started in 1927 and taken over a few years later by wealthy gangsters, was destroyed in less than 15 minutes and the blaze claimed the lives of nearly 500 people – and left an eerie haunting behind. 

The Cocoanut Grove, named after the famed Cocoanut Grove nightclub in Los Angeles’ Ambassador Hotel, started out as a Boston restaurant turned speakeasy. Musician Mickey Alpert had conceived of an idea for a roaring twenties’-style nightclub for Boston. With hundreds of thousands in financing provided by California mobster and swindler Jack Berman (hiding out in Boston), Mickey turned a vacant building near the Boston Common, located in what is now Bay Village, into a fine eatery with top-notch entertainment. After several owners (all mob-connected), the floor space of the Cocoanut Grove was multiplied several times as adjacent buildings were acquired and added to the Grove’s original footprint. The design of the place was to reflect the tropical setting of Casablanca. The walls were lined with imitation leather and the ceilings were draped with thousands of yards of satin. Six pillars, three on each side of the dance floor, were designed to look like palm trees, with large paper palm fronds extending far out over the floor in a circular pattern. An elevated area called “the terrace” was inside the main dining room just off the foyer. Wrought iron railings had been installed along the edges of the terrace, which created a feeling of separation and maintained prime views of the floorshow for VIPs.

The dark basement was created as the Melody Lounge, an intimate area that was so successful that it had to be enlarged twice, finally ending up in an octagon shape that was roughly 35 by 18 feet, in the center of the lounge. This place was to be a bar, pure and simple. No floor show, no dancing and no fancy food. The only entertainment was a singer, playing the piano on a small revolving stage. The basement was also given an exotic feel. There was one soft light in the center of the room, aimed at the floor, and neon lined the underside of the bar. The only other illumination was from the tiny seven and one-half watt lights that twinkled out from the fronds of the imitation palm trees in the corners. The dingy walls were hidden by flimsy paneling and the ceiling was covered with nearly 2,000 square feet of dark blue satin over wooden slats. This was meant to give the customers a feeling of sitting beneath a star-filled night sky. The draped satin extended up the ceiling of the staircase leading from the Melody Lounge to the main floor. 

As the club was expanded, it was done without any concern about the design. No attention was paid to the original layouts of the different buildings the Grove had consumed; they just kept adding and adding. The result was a confusing maze of coat check rooms, dressing rooms, restrooms, service rooms, kitchens and store rooms connected to each other and the three large public rooms by winding and twisting corridors, and to the basement Melody Lounge by a single narrow stairway. Scant attention was paid to Boston’s fire codes either. Thanks to mob connections in the Building Department, licensing boards and elsewhere, the owners could pretty much do whatever they wanted. 

By 1942, shortly before it was reduced to ashes, the single-story Cocoanut Grove was an amalgam of six interconnected buildings, fronting on the south by Piedmont Street, on the north by Shawmut Street and Broadway Street on the east. The Grove’s original size had nearly tripled. There were three large public rooms with three bars, a dining room, a dance floor and a stage for the band. During fair weather, the roof above the dance floor could be electrically rolled back, revealing the night sky and allowing patrons to dance under the stars. The basement had been converted into the dark, intimate Melody Lounge. The newest expansion, The New Broadway Lounge, had opened only 11 days before the fire.

Saturdays were always packed at the Cocoanut Grove and November 28, 1942 was no exception. Legal occupancy was listed as 460 but on that evening, with extra tables and chairs covering every square foot of floor space, over 1,000 patrons were enjoying a night out at the Grove. Among the merrymakers was Buck Jones, the famed cowboy celebrity, star of more than 200 movies. In town promoting war bonds on a bond tour, he was having dinner with a group of fellow promoters. As a VIP, he was seated with his party on the terrace. 

In the Melody Lounge, people drifted back and forth between the basement and the dining room or the dance floor or the restrooms, but as the night went on, the lounge filled up with nearly 400 guests. In one corner, a sailor and his date were enjoying the privacy created by the dim lighting. As their passions heated up, or because the young woman grew shy, the sailor reached up and unscrewed the tiny light in the artificial palm tree over their heads. Goody Goodelle had just started playing the piano and singing Bing Crosby’s new hit, “White Christmas,” when head bartender John Bradley looked up and noticed that their corner was now pitch black. 

Annoyed with the sailor but too busy serving the customers lined up four deep around the bar, Bradley called out to Stanley Tomaszewski, a 16-year-old bar boy, and told him to get the light back on right away. Tomaszewski walked over to the corner and politely explained that it was dangerous having the light out and he had to get it re-lit. Unfortunately, the bulb had fallen completely out and it was far too dark for young Stanley to see the socket inside the tree. Striking a match, he found the socket and got the bulb back on. He blew out the match, dropped it to the floor and stepped on it to make sure it was out. 

As Tomaszewskiy returned to work, he heard someone shout that there was a fire in the top of the palm tree. John Bradley ran from behind the bar and together, the two young men pulled and batted at the tree attempting to put the fire out. As other employees ran to help by throwing pitchers of water on the tree, the scene became almost comedic and witnesses chuckled at their hapless attempts. As the burning fronds were finally pulled down, Bradley looked up in time to see the satin fabric above the tree start to smoke and then burn. A ball of fire erupted from the corner, feeding on the fabric-covered ceiling, and rapidly spread across the room heading for the open staircase. 

Don Lauer, a Marine private, jumped onto a chair and tried to use his pocket knife to cut the fabric down to stop the fire from spreading, but he was too late. In mere seconds, the entire ceiling was a sheet of blue and orange flame, dripping fire onto the frantic patrons below. Almost immediately, the crowd panicked as hair and clothing began to burn. The crowd moved toward the only exit they knew -- the narrow staircase -- and the fire did the same. As the fire reached the staircase, it continued on its path, burning away at the fabric ceiling over the stairs. The staircase quickly became jammed, as four hundred people tried to escape the inferno, not knowing that the fire was taking the same route, in search of the fresh oxygen on the main floor. 

Ruth and Hyman Strogoff were Wednesday and Saturday night regulars at the Melody Lounge. They spotted the “little fire” and deciding not to take their chances, headed toward the stairs. Ruth believed that she and Hyman were among the first to reach the foot of the stairs but by that time, the fire had spread and the crowd began a mass rush behind them. In their frenzy to escape, several people grabbed and pulled at Ruth and Hyman to get past them and Hyman went down. Though Ruth pulled hard on his arm, she was unable to get him up. He was held fast to the floor as screaming men and women trampled on him to get past, or by those who simply collapsed on top of him. Within a matter of seconds, there was a growing tangle of bodies at the bottom of the stairs. As Ruth’s hat and jacket caught fire, she was pushed up the stairs by the moving mass, after which she rolled on the floor to put her own fire out. Knowing there was nothing she could do for her husband and that he was likely already dead, she was forced to leave him behind. Before the night was over, hundreds of others would have to face the same terrible choice of having to leave loved ones behind that they might themselves survive.

Gunner’s Mate Matt Lane was farther back in the crowd. When he finally reached the bottom of the stairs, the way was completely blocked with bodies, some dying, some already dead. He jumped onto the railing and used it to pull himself along as he climbed over the others to make his escape. He had come to the Cocoanut Grove with his friend Don Lauer, who had tried to slice the fabric from the ceiling only moments before. He would never see Don alive again. 

The way to safety wasn’t easy. The frightened patrons had to make their way up a narrow flight of 15 steps, past the locked emergency exit at the top, then make a U-turn to the right and down a 10-foot hallway, then another right turn around an office and coat check room for 28 feet, then another right turn and 12 more feet across the foyer to the revolving door opening onto Piedmont Street. All of this with a fire raging over their heads and thick black smoke filling the air around them. 

The owners had ordered all the service and emergency exits to which the public had access to be locked while the club was open. This was intended to keep patrons from sneaking out without paying their check. 

Many terrified, confused people never made it out of the basement Melody Lounge. They were overcome by the thick choking smoke or by the heat resulting from the fire. They weren’t aware that there was an exit door in the back of the lounge, as it was disguised with the same paneling used on the walls. It would have taken them down a hallway, up three steps and to an outside exit. The exit door was partially blocked by a sewer pipe so it only opened about 18 inches. But none of that mattered. No one found the door so no one was able to escape that way. 

Two of the people who survived inside the Melody Lounge were Daniel Weiss, a bartender, and singer-pianist Goody Goodelle. They dowsed napkins with water and held them to their noses and mouths to breathe through and then lay on the floor until the fire had passed out of the room and up the stairs. They then crawled along the floor and into the kitchen, where they escaped through a barred window. The fire had been mainly limited to the ceiling so when firemen made their way down the steps to recover the bodies, they found much of the furniture was hardly damaged. The fire had moved on in little more than a minute or two. 

When Melody Lounge customers finally stumbled to the main entrance off the Piedmont Street foyer, only the first few were able to make their way through the revolving door before it was completely clogged by the crush of people behind them. They were unaware that there was a conventional exit door right next to the revolving door. Welansky had installed a coat check room in front of it, with a large wooden coat rack blocking the door from sight. It is questionable however, whether this door would have saved many lives as it swung inward and would have been forced shut by the crush of the crowd.

In a strange irony, at 10:15 p.m., while Stanley Tomaszeswky and John Bradley were trying to put out the small fire in the palm tree, the fire department was responding to an alarm for a car fire just three blocks from the Cocoanut Grove. It only took a few minutes to put out that small fire, and a firefighter noticed what he thought was smoke coming from the area of the Grove. As the firefighters headed toward the club to investigate, people started running toward them to report the fire. When they arrived, they found heavy black smoke pouring out of the building and patrons and employees scrambling out into the street. In short order, the fire chief on site ordered a third alarm to be issued, skipping the second alarm as he realized the scale of the disaster. A fourth alarm was issued at 10:24 p.m. and the fifth alarm went out at 11:02 p.m. By this time, the fire was largely extinguished and the departments responding to the fourth and fifth alarms were called for the rescue and recovery efforts.

While the fire department was assembling outside, the fire continued to rage through the club. 

As the fire arrived at the main floor in search of fresh oxygen and fuel, several hundred unsuspecting revelers were just beyond the foyer, not knowing that many of them would be dead within minutes, and the rest would be frantically searching for any way out of the blaze. Just as the fire entered the main public room, the lights went out, tumbling everyone into near total darkness, except for the firelight.

The dining area, dance floor, bandstand, and the Caricature Bar were all in the main public room. Customers complained that the tables and chairs had been packed in so tightly that they had to twist and turn and walk sideways just to get through the room to the dance floor. Tables were added along the side walls as well, some blocking emergency exits. 

Some heard the screams first, commenting that there must be a fight. Then they smelled the smoke. Then they saw the flames blast through the doorways and charge across the room. The fire was feeding off the fabric on the ceilings and walls. With the flames came extreme heat that seared flesh and lungs as people tried to breathe. The fire gave off carbon monoxide and toxins as the air filled with thick, acrid smoke, making it even harder to breath. The flames moved through the room so rapidly that many were overcome with heat or smoke before they even had a chance to leave their chairs. Some bodies were found burned beyond recognition while others were found next to their tables without any signs of injury. 

Movie star Buck Jones was one such victim. A popular story about Jones circulated after the fire. As the story went, he had escaped the fire but ran back into the building several times, carrying out injured victims until he collapsed on the sidewalk and was rushed to the hospital, where he died a short time later. In reality, Buck Jones was at the club that night having dinner, even though he would have preferred to be resting in his hotel room, nursing a bad head cold. Instead, he found himself sitting at a table on the terrace when the fire advanced across the room. He was rapidly overcome by the heat and smoke and fell to the floor next to his table. Firefighters found him where he had fallen, barely alive. The only accurate part of the story was that he was taken to the hospital where he died. 

It is well known to firefighters that unless directed otherwise, a panicked crowd will attempt to leave a building the same way they came in. The Cocoanut Grove had only two public entrances -- the revolving door in the main foyer on Piedmont Street and the exit leading from the New Broadway Lounge opening onto Broadway Street. This exit entailed a single, inward-swinging door that led into a small vestibule then to double doors opening onto the street. Most of the patrons had entered the club through the Piedmont entrance with only a single revolving door. These two exits were nearly a full city block apart.

Men and women who were able to run did so. They were desperate to find a way out -- any way out. And some of them did get out. All but twenty of the club’s employees survived the fire, largely because they knew where the hidden exits were and where windows would open. Some of the patrons were able to follow employees to safety. The rest were on their own -- lost in the dark.

As the Piedmont foyer continued to fill with people, bodies continued to pile up against the revolving door. Eventually, under the extreme pressure, the door mechanism gave way and collapsed outward. Nathan Greer saw the collapse and jumped forward onto the sidewalk. Sadly, a ferocious wall of fire followed him through the opening as a blast of fresh air rushed in from outside, burning up most of the people in or around the opening. 

A set of emergency doors was located along the Shawmut Street wall behind the terrace. These double doors were covered with wooden slatted doors and were blocked off with tables that were added to accommodate the large crowd. Even so, several people were able to find the doors. Each door was only twenty inches wide and the door on the right was bolted near the top of the frame, where no one could find the bolt in the dark. Joyce Spector witnessed the chaos in the dining room. “The men were the worst. Honest. There were men pushing and shoving to get out.” She was knocked down and started crawling across the floor, lungs burning, eyes stinging, until she felt fresh air on her face. She had found the Shawmut Street exit. As she struggled to get out someone outside pulled her through the door and “threw me across the sidewalk, and grabbed for more people inside. It seemed like an hour I lay there. I couldn’t tell. More people were pulled out and tossed down beside me.” Joyce survived her ordeal but her fiancé, Justin Morgan, did not. 

Charles and Peggy Disbrow found themselves descending the service stairway to the kitchen where they joined a group of people already there. After searching the kitchen in the dark, they found a small window above a counter that had been boarded up. Knocking the boards away, they saw that a pipe was blocking the opening, except for about eighteen inches. Still, most were able to climb through and into a blind alley behind an apartment building. Margaret Foley, sitting in her living room, was unaware of what was going on only a few feet from her home when a woman burst through her back door, ran through her apartment and out the front door. Stunned, Margaret watched as another person, then another, repeated the performance. She later estimated that at least fifty people had escaped through her home. 
Don Jeffers, also having made his way to the kitchen, dropped to the floor as the room filled with smoke. Crawling around trying to find a way out, he heard a voice in the darkness. Following the voice, he joined four other people hiding in the walk-in refrigerator. They waited there until the fire department entered the kitchen and escorted them out. 

Two more exits were located on the main floor but both proved useless. One was a service door located to the left of the stage platform. This door also opened inward but it, too, was locked. The other door was in the New Broadway Lounge, locked and well hidden behind a coat check room. 

The 250 or so customers enjoying themselves in the New Broadway Lounge remained blissfully unaware of the carnage that was taking place on the other side of the adjoining wall for several minutes. 

Meanwhile, the fire in the dining room was getting hotter. When it reached the velour-lined passageway into the Broadway Lounge, extreme heat built up a massive amount of pressure that blasted the flames and hot gasses down the short passage and into the lounge like a torch. That room did not contain the large amounts of flammable decorations that the other rooms had, but the pressure, hot gasses, and scorching temperatures created an environment that caused the fire to burn more completely than in any other area of the club. Twenty-five bodies, burned to blackened cinders, were found where they fell. Dozens of bodies were piled against the only unlocked exit in the room.

Next to the Broadway Street entrance, two large windows had been replaced by glass block. One man was able to break a small hole through the glass block and attempted to crawl out but became stuck. Firefighters found the man reaching partially through the hole but were unable to get him out. They doused him with water but in the end they had to watch helplessly as the man burned to death. 

A long wall on the Piedmont Street side of the building contained four large plate glass windows. These windows, if broken out would have provided an excellent escape route for those trapped in the dining room area. Unfortunately, they had been covered with wood panels and no one knew they were there. Experts estimate that if these windows had not been covered, hundreds could have been saved. 

Firefighters needed to get hoses into the building quickly to save anyone trapped by the fire. Early on, wherever they tried to break through, they were driven back by the extreme heat and thick black smoke. When they were finally able to enter, they went through the area where the revolving door had collapsed. They had to climb over a six-foot-high stack of bodies to get to the dining room area. By the time they were able to enter the foyer, the fire had nearly burned itself out.

Less than half an hour after it started, the fire was largely extinguished, inside and out. Rescuers now needed to clear the entrances. They pulled body after body from the stack blocking the doorway, piling them on the sidewalk in the cold November night. Police officer Elmer Brooks remembered rescuers lifting bodies and having arms and legs come off in their hands. 

Clearing the entrances had been a terrible job in itself, but nothing could have prepared them for the gruesome task that lay ahead. As they moved through the building, they found bodies everywhere. Some were piled up against locked doors, while others were by themselves. Some were horribly burned, while other were unmarked by flames. Some were found where they had been sitting when the fire started while others were in found in the far reaches of the club. Firefighter Winn Robbins saw a dead woman, propped up in one of the Grove’s phone booths, still holding a telephone receiver in her hand.

Firefighters, police officers and volunteer military men began removing the bodies, piling them on the sidewalks. Some of the victims were still alive but there wasn’t time to separate the living from the dead (except for badly charred bodies) so they were all loaded into ambulances and trucks and taken to area hospitals. Medical professionals triaged the victims as they arrived, sorting out the dead and determining the level of medical care required by the living. 

Everyone who died at the Cocoanut Grove, died as a result of the fire, but there were several causes of death. The most straightforward were those who were physically burned. Some died from smoke inhalation or carbon monoxide poisoning and still others died from internal burns - burned lungs and nasal passages from breathing the superheated air. Several bodies showed signs of being crushed by a mass of people pushing in on them, or at the bottom of a pile as people collapsed upon them. Even more disturbing was the number of people who had fallen and were trampled to death by the stampeding crowd. 

As they went about their work inside with stunned calm, outside it was rapidly becoming chaotic. The temperature was falling and the water on the cobblestones was making the roads icy. Fire hoses froze to the ground as smoldering bodies, living and dead, were doused with frigid water. Family members, friends and bystanders were pressing in on the building, forcing officials to form a human chain to stop people from entering the building to search for loved ones or to satisfy their curiosity. Unfortunately, some of the bodies piled on the sidewalk suffered the further indignity of being stripped of their money and jewelry as they lay dead or dying by ghouls in the crowds. 

Over the next few hours, nearly 450 fire victims were transported to hospitals. Massachusetts General Hospital received 114 of which 75 were already dead or died soon after. Of the 300 bodies to arrive at Boston City Hospital, 168 were dead on arrival and 36 more died within hours. Some were sent directly to temporary morgues but were found to be alive and transferred to hospitals; a few of those eventually made it home.

For several days, newspapers were filled with stories of those who lived and those who died. Eleanor Chiampa, only fifteen years old, was very excited to be there that evening. This was her first visit to the famous Cocoanut Grove and to top it off, she was sitting on the same terrace as movie star Buck Jones! Her big brother, home on leave from the war, had taken her to the Grove along with his wife and another couple. The two men were the only people from their party to survive. Eleanor lived for a few days in the Mass General Hospital before she became the youngest victim of the fire.

Married earlier that evening, John O’Neil and his bride, Claudia Nadeau O’Neil, had originally planned to celebrate their wedding at the Latin Quarter, another fashionable Boston nightclub. However, at the last minute, they decided to move the celebration to the Cocoanut Grove. Their marriage had lasted only a few hours as neither of them left the Grove alive. Their bodies were found in the dining room, next to those of their best man and maid of honor. 

Harold Thomas was in the main dining room and Thomas Sheehan, Jr. was in the New Broadway Lounge when the fire started. As people dashed madly about, each of them was knocked to the floor and were unable to get up as others fell on top of them. This likely saved their lives. They were shielded from the flames and heat by the layers of bodies above, and from the bottom of the piles, they were able to breathe the cleaner air near the floor. Both men walked away from the fire that night with only a few burns. 
Pvt. Harry T. Fitzgerald of the Army Air Corps, was home on leave from Florida. He had not been home for several months and his three older brothers were anxious to welcome him home and show him a good time. James, John and Wilfred Fitzgerald treated Harry to a night at the Cocoanut Grove. None of the four brothers or their dates survived the night. Their mother, a widow of twenty years, lost her entire family to the fire.

A few found interesting ways to save themselves. One young soldier reportedly urinated into a handful of napkins and placed them over his mouth and nose. Another young man found a container of ice cream to bury his burning face in as he searched for an exit. Both men survived the fire without injury to their lungs or throats. 

A party of ten, members of a family of funeral directors from a nearby town, were enjoying a night out, dining and dancing at the Grove. One of the couples decided not to stay for the second floor show, opting to see a program at a theatre just a few blocks away. When they returned, nearly their entire family had been wiped out. 

Two young couples were at the Grove to celebrate their wedding anniversaries. Helping them celebrate were 11 of their friends and family, including five brothers and sisters and their spouses. One member of their party had risen to walk to the Caricature Bar when he noticed the fire moving rapidly across the ceiling. He shouted for his group to follow him out of the room, but none of them did. He was the only one from the group of fifteen to survive. The others were found later, still at their table.

Coast Guardsman Clifford Johnson, who was at the Grove that night on a blind date, got out safely but went back into the inferno four times looking for his date. He wasn’t aware that she had already gotten out safely. He aided others in their escape until he finally collapsed onto the pavement with third degree burns over fifty percent of his body. No one had ever survived such severe burn injuries but Clifford became a medical miracle. Twenty-one months later, he was discharged from the hospital. In an ironic twist of fate, fourteen years later, back in his home state of Missouri, Clifford was killed when the car he was driving left the road, rolled over and burst into flames.

Francis and Grace Gatturna were waiting for the floorshow to begin when they smelled smoke. Francis grabbed Grace by the hand and attempted to pull her from the room. As they tried to make their way out, they became separated. Francis made it to safety but Grace did not. After Francis was dismissed from the hospital, he became very depressed, telling family members that he should have either saved his wife, or died with her. His family became worried and checked him back into the hospital. He seemed to be improving with the help of therapy when on January 9, 1943, he jumped through a closed hospital window to his death.

The last Cocoanut Grove victim died in the hospital on May 5, 1943.

By the time it was over, the fire had involved 187 firefighters, 26 engine companies, 5 ladder companies, 3 rescue companies, 1 water tower and countless volunteers. The property losses were in the hundreds of thousands. The cost in human suffering was immeasurable.

Just twelve hours after the fire was extinguished, Arthur Reilly, Boston’s Fire Commissioner, convened a series of public hearings to determine the cause of the fire and find who was to blame. More than 100 witnesses gave testimony, including several public officials and over 90 survivors. The results of the inquest revealed that club owner Barney Welansky manipulated local politicians to his advantage and cut corners, putting his customers at risk, to save a buck or make a buck. 

At the same time, the politicians and public officials were busy playing pass the buck. Everyone had a good story that seemed to be designed to leave the teller free of any blame or questionable activities. 
Lieutenant Frank Linney, an inspector for the fire department had inspected the Cocoanut Grove just eight days before the fire. His report gave new meaning to “cursory inspection.” The entire report took only one page. Linney passed every topic and made only two specific notations -- No flammable decorations and a sufficient number of exits. The testimony of the 93 survivors corrected Linney’s erroneous observations.

Perhaps the most bizarre testimony was in the form of an opinion offered by James Mooney, commissioner of the Boston Building Department. “I don’t believe a panicked crowd would get out even if there were no exterior walls. They would get entangled among themselves and not get out anyway.” Mooney’s department had allowed the New Broadway Lounge to open without the fusible fire door, no new fire exit, no final inspection and the only emergency exit blocked by a coat check room.

The only person who came forward and told the truth as he knew it, regardless of the implications, was 16-year-old Stanley Tomaszewski. He testified to exactly what happened just before the fire started. Tomaszewski had been vilified in the newspapers but he stood tall and told the truth about lighting the match near the paper cocoanut tree in the ill-fated Melody Lounge. He insisted that he had carefully blown out the match and stepped on it. In the end, he admitted that he believed that this was probably how the fire started. 

Fire Commissioner Reilly did everything he could to ease the strain on Tomaszewski and ease his fright. He praised him and described him as an honorable young man. The Boston Globe advanced the idea that the blame should not be placed on the shoulders of this fine young man, but rather on the heads of the corrupt officials. Even with high praise and reassurances supporting the shy young man, his life was threatened. For the next several months he was kept under protective guard in a Boston hotel. 

On New Year’s Eve, a Suffolk County Grand Jury handed down 10 indictments, carrying charges from neglect of duty to twenty counts of manslaughter. Barnett “Barney” Welansky and his brother, Jimmy, received the harshest charges. Indictments were distributed to such officials as Frank Linney and James Mooney. Also charged were interior designer Reuben Bodenhorn, and the construction contractor and construction foreman. Stanley Tomaszewski was officially exonerated of all blame.

Barney Welansky alone was found guilty on 19 counts of manslaughter and was sentenced to 12 to 15 years in prison. Nearly three years into his sentence, he was diagnosed with lung cancer. Governor Tobin, mayor of Boston at the time of the fire, quietly pardoned Welansky. When he walked out of prison, Barney was a sick, bitter man. While speaking with reporters, he told them “If you were wrongfully convicted, framed, you’d feel you had a perfect right to be free. I only wish I had been at the fire and died with those others.” Welansky got his wish and died just nine weeks after being released from prison. 

Stanley Tomaszewski died in 1994 at the age of 68. He had gone to college, married, and raised three children and led a responsible life as a federal auditor. No matter what he did or how he lived, he was never able to escape the shadow of the tragedy. He had escaped the fire without injury but was terribly scarred just the same. For decades, he had been called “every bad name in the book” and had received threats and phone calls in the night. Shortly before he died, he said he had suffered enough and wished to finally be left alone.

The burned shell of the infamous Cocoanut Grove was finally demolished in September of 1945.

Today, the streets that used to box the Cocoanut Grove nightclub have been reconfigured to allow for the construction of the Boston Radisson Hotel and Theater Complex. The Grove’s original footprint has been swallowed up by the much larger hotel along with a tiny parking lot. The only physical reminder of what happened on the site is a small bronze plaque with the Cocoanut Grove’s floor plan. The plaque was prepared as a memorial by the Bay Village Neighborhood Association and embedded in the brick sidewalk next to the parking lot in 1993.

Though all other physical reminders of the Cocoanut Grove are now gone, there are other reminders that still linger. Hopefully, most of those who lost their lives have moved on in peace. So many lives were snuffed out before they could know what was happening; bodies were found still sitting where they had been sitting or collapsed where they had been standing when the smoke and fumes found them. It is considered by many that these unfortunate victims are still wandering the site, trying to find their way to safety, or maybe discover a friend or loved one. Several employees of the Boston Radisson Hotel might agree that they are. On a few occasions, people have witnessed strange appearances throughout the hotel. Disheveled and confused men or women, seeming to appear out of nowhere, wander past and disappear just as mysteriously. There have been other experiences reported in the hotel bar and in the kitchen, odd noises, flashes, and loud popping sounds, without any discernible cause.

The Stuart Street Playhouse, the Radisson’s theatre, is another location where fire victims make their presence known. On occasion, the quiet, shadowy form of a man can be seen passing a doorway or walking down an empty hall. When approached by employees, he fades away to nothing. Other phenomena include water -- unexplained flooding in different areas within the building and a singular water faucet in a restroom on the second floor that reportedly turns itself on, even when no one is in the room. On one occasion, employees entered the auditorium and found a seat completely soaked, with no explanation. Others have described hearing their names called while working in the theatre at night, with no one else around.

It seems that not all of those who stayed behind after the fire remained at the Cocoanut Grove. Another Boston location believed to be haunted by victims of the fire is Jacques Cabaret, just a few blocks away from where the tragedy occurred. Not everyone at Jacques is willing to discuss the ghostly happenings there, but one former bartender said that, “spooky stuff happened there all the time.” The most significant experience he had while working at the bar happened late one night when he was cleaning up after closing. He had left the bar area for a moment and when he returned, he saw bodies lying in long rows all across the floor. He turned to switch on the overhead lights and when he turned back, everything had returned to normal. 

The night of the fire, as bodies were pulled from the building, some were taken directly to hospitals while others were taken to a temporary morgue or to one of the designated mortuaries. Many who were believed to be still alive and taken to hospitals were already dead, and conversely, some of those taken to the morgue or mortuaries were still alive. A film distribution garage located near the Cocoanut Grove was set up as a temporary morgue on the night of the fire. The bodies were laid out side by side in rows on the tile floor to await identification and transportation. That garage is now known as Jacques Cabaret. 

There is a record of every person who was killed or injured in the Cocoanut Grove fire, but there will never be a complete list of everyone who was inside when it started. Some of the people who escaped the building unharmed, or with only minor injuries, left the scene and went home. In this case, lists didn’t matter. What bound these people together for the rest of their lives was the common experience. They went from joy and celebration to horror in a matter of seconds. Most of those who saved themselves lost someone dear. They had to contend with their own horrifying experience while simultaneously grieving their loss. They wondered at the randomness of who was taken and who was spared. And none of them ever forgot...

DEATH UNDER THE BIG TOP

The Hartford Circus Fire

On the hot, humid afternoon of July 6, 1944, a crowd of almost 9,000 people, mostly children, crowded under a huge tent in Hartford, Connecticut, for a special matinee performance of the Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey Circus. Mothers and grandparents brought their young ones to the Barbour Street fairgrounds for a day of joy and merriment and to forget about the war overseas for a while.

But later that afternoon, the day turned into horror and death as a fire broke out under the big top tent. The ensuing inferno killed 168 people and injured another 484. Five bodies still remain unclaimed and unknown in Hartford today. The Hartford Circus Fire would turn out to be the worst tragedy to ever occur in the history of the American circus – and it left a heartbreaking haunting in its wake.

People came to the circus that July day in Hartford to forget about their troubles for a few hours – they had no idea that they were coming to their deaths.

The circus began its history in American in 1790. Since then, more than 1,000 circuses have toured the country and have become a part of colorful part of America that few can resist. In the first half of the twentieth century, the mere rumor that a circus might be coming to town was enough to excite every child in the community.

Perhaps the best-known showman connected to the circus was Phineas Taylor Barnum, an eccentric promoter who became known for his novelty museums and engaging hoaxes. Barnum eventually became the founding father of the spectacular traveling show that would develop into the renowned Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey Circus. Before leading the life of a showman, Barnum was a storekeeper and when he failed in business, he started a weekly magazine, which folded under the weight of several libel suits that landed him in prison.

In 1834, Barnum relocated to New York and one year later, he became involved in putting on shows. His first venture involved the exhibition of an African-American woman who was purported to be the 160-year-old nurse of George Washington (she wasn’t) and he enjoy short-lived success with this exhibition. Unfortunately, his attraction died and her age was proven to be no more than 80.

Several years of failure followed and then, in 1841, he purchased Scudder’s American Museum on Broadway in New York and he re-named it “Barnum’s American Museum.” Word quickly spread across the city about the numerous fascinating exhibits on display and it soon became one of the most popular attractions in New York.

P.T. Barnum and one of his most famous “attractions,” General Tom Thumb.

In 1842, Barnum’s museum became the talk of the town with exhibits like the midget “General Tom Thumb” and the Fiji Mermaid, a crudely concocted mummy, part monkey and part fish, which was alleged to be the preserved body of an actual mermaid. He also showcased the original Siamese twins, Chang and Eng Bunker, and continued to expand his offerings with the likes of Native American dancers and the giantess, Anna Swan.

Barnum may have been the first to promote the sort of exhibits that would become circus staples, but he was also the first to suffer the kinds of calamities that would also be connected to the circus – fires, train wrecks and storms. His museum burned so many times that it was nearly impossible for him to obtain fire insurance. But what would become the tradition of “the show must go on” always prevailed. After his museum burned the first time, he moved to a new building. However, a second fire put him out of business.

After the loss of his last museum, Barnum attempted to take a break from show business, but looming debt wouldn’t allow him to leave. Finally, Barnum was convinced to create a partnership with William Cameron Coup, who owned a circus in Delavan, Wisconsin. With his famous name and Coup’s financial backing, the "P.T Barnum's Grand Traveling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan & Hippodrome" was born. His closest competition at the time, James Bailey, would later become an ally.

In 1872, Barnum coined the phrase, "The Greatest Show on Earth," as his traveling circus and sideshow toured the world, undergoing a series of name changes and billings in the process. In 1881, a significant merger took place when Barnum joined forces with James Bailey and James L. Hutchinson. The original name, "P.T. Barnum's Greatest Show On Earth, And The Great London Circus, Sanger's Royal British Menagerie and The Grand International Allied Shows United" was shortened to "Barnum & London Circus" for obvious reasons. A series of splits ensued until the "Barnum & Bailey Greatest Show on Earth" and later "Barnum & Bailey Circus" became the final name for the show.

When P.T. Barnum passed away in 1891, Bailey purchased the circus from his widow. He successfully toured the eastern part of the United States until he transported the circus to Europe in 1897 and began a lengthy tour of the continent. He remained abroad until 1902 and when he returned to the United States, he found that the Ringling Brothers, a new circus that had been formed by five brothers, had established a reputation in the east. The new rivalry forced Bailey to tour the Rockies for the first time during 1905. The next year, Bailey passed away and the Barnum's much-loved circus was sold to Ringling Brothers in 1907 for the sum of $400,000.

In a few short years, the Ringling Brothers show became the most popular circus in American. As was the method of the times, the circus traveled from town to town, setting up their tents and sideshows in whatever venue was available. They started out touring the Midwest, where they achieved great success, and eventually began traveling all over the United States. The circus eventually became so large that a train was needed to transport the bulk of their business. It is through this mode of transportation that the Ringling Brothers became known as the largest traveling show of their day.

With the combined shows, the Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey Circus became the largest and most profitable show in the world.

The Ringlings purchased the Barnum & Bailey Circus in 1907 and kept the circuses separate for several years. In 1919, the last remaining Ringling Brothers, Charles and John, decided to combine the two circuses into one grand enterprise. The "Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Combined Shows" made its debut at Madison Square Garden in New York City on March 29, 1919.

Throughout the 1920s, the circus continued to generate great success and when Charles passed away in 1926, John Ringling became recognized as one of the richest men in the world. Although the circus was affected by the Great Depression of the early 1930s, it managed to do well, largely because people counted on the circus to take them away from their troubles for a while. After the United States entered World War II, the lure of the circus stayed strong. Despite travel restrictions that were created by the war, President Franklin Roosevelt made a special declaration to allow the circus to use the rail system.

People still wanted to escape from reality, which is what they came seeking that July afternoon in Hartford, Connecticut.

July 6 was a hot day in Hartford, but no one wanted to miss the show. The previous day’s performance had been cancelled because the circus had arrived six hours late from Providence, Rhode Island. The circus management had decided to offer a special afternoon show to make it up to the disappointed children and adults who had planned to come the night before.

People began arriving at the Barbour Street fairgrounds several hours before the circus was scheduled to begin. Children ate hot dogs and cotton candy and mothers purchased tickets for the sideshows and the rides. When it came time for the show to begin, thousands hurried into the tent while the Wonder Band played “The Star Spangled Banner.”

The nineteen-ton big top tent was almost as wonderful an attraction as the animals and performers inside. The massive canvas tent had cost more than $60,000 and was carefully maintained by the circus crews. It had been weatherproofed the previous April with a coating of paraffin, thinned with gasoline, to keep out the rain. Most of the crowd sat on bleachers under the tent, while those with reserved seats sat on folding chairs in the front. On the long north side of the tent were three exits, although all of them were blocked with chutes that were used to bring the animals into the tent. On the south side were three additional exits, one of which was blocked with cables.

The Flying Wallendas, who almost didn’t survive the fire on July 6, 1944

The performance began with Alfred Court’s wild animal act, which was hugely popular with the crowd. As the animals were being escorted out through the steel enclosures that would take them back to their cages, the Flying Wallendas, the famed aerial act that was known for their seven-person pyramid on the high wire, were climbing the poles and getting ready for their performance. Emmett Kelly, America’s most famous hobo clown, was busy going through his antics, which brought laughter to children and parents alike. He was one of the stars of the circus and a universal favorite. Ironically, he never smiled during a show, always making others laugh with his deadpan expression.

Suddenly, a cry of “fire!” was heard in the tent.

A spot of flame appeared on the tent at the main entrance. A Hartford police officer was on duty there and said that when he saw it, the hole was no bigger than a cigarette burn. Slowly, the tiny flame traveled up the canvas wall, increasing in size as it climbed toward the tent’s roof. It was still a small fire at first and most of the performers and the audience were not even aware of it. The spotlights were focused on the Wallendas.

Merle Evans, the circus bandleader, saw the fire at about the same time the policeman saw it. He instantly led the band into a lively rendition of “Stars and Stripes Forever,” the song traditionally used in the circus world to warn performers and circus employees that something was amiss under the big top.

Almost immediately, someone threw several buckets of water (which were kept in place inside the tent in case of just such an emergency) but it had no effect. Trainers tried desperately to hurry the wild animals out of the ring. All personnel knew that any impending tragedy would be made worse by animals in the tent’s center. Unfortunately, time was lost when two leopards proved reluctant to leave. Trainers had to turn a water hose on them in order to prod them into the chutes. Meanwhile, the Wallendas had descended speedily on their ropes and were hurrying to safety.

The crowds who previously did not know that the band was playing the “disaster march” now were undecided whether to watch the trainers struggling with the animals or to watch the growing fire. Buckets of water were still being thrown on the blaze, which had now climbed to a height of five or six feet. Circus hands ran back and forth, trying to decide what to do. Perhaps this was why there was no panic from the audience – the fire was still small and it was being dealt with by people who surely knew what they were doing. Though the fire was still growing, and was about two feet in width, there was no mass migration toward the exits. Before that actually happened, a strong wind whipped into the enclosure and the fire suddenly swept across the top of the tent with alarming speed. It rose across the west end and moved toward the northeast corner. Soon, the “entire top became a mass of flames,” as one witness later recalled.

The circus big top became an inferno, certain death for those trapped inside.

Burning bits of canvas and liquid paraffin began to rain down onto the now-panicking crowd, inflicting severe burns on everyone they struck. The band gave up on their music and proceeded to march calmly from the tent in hopes of encouraging the audience to do the same – but it was too late for that. As support ropes burned, the tent’s six huge poles began to fall, taking flaming pieces of canvas with them as they toppled over. Screams filled the tent as the frightened crowd began to run. Hundreds climbed around the circus wagons, stumbled over the animal chutes and became tangled in the metal folding chairs that had been tossed aside in front of the bleachers. Parents tossed their children into the open arms of strangers at the bottom of the grandstands. Some of these parents and children left the black smoke unscathed, while others were trampled and burned amid the confusion.

Many children, separated from their parents, wailed and screamed. One little boy tried to shield his fallen grandmother from the stampeding crowd, begging someone to help him get her to her feet. Pieces of flaming canvas continued to fall and women, their hair and dresses on fire, shrieked and wept. The human barricade that had been caused by the knocked-over folding chairs prevented many from reaching the exits. Many rushed to the entrances on the north side, only to arrive there and find them blocked by the animal chutes. Hundreds of bodies were later found piled there.

   

One by one, the heavy support poles crashed over. As the sixth and final pole toppled, the entire tent, which was now engulfed in flames, swooped down on the crowd, blanketing them in fiery canvas. Those trapped and screaming beneath the collapsed tent were doomed and soon they fell silent. It had taken the fire only ten minutes from the time the first warning cry had gone up to wreak its havoc.

  

Sirens screamed at the five alarms triggered and fire trucks raced to the fairgrounds, but they were too late to save lives. All they could do was spray water on the charred ruins. To make matters worse, there were no hydrants on the fairgrounds and the firefighters had to use hydrants located almost three hundred yards away.

Ambulances lined up to take victims to the hospital. Hartford hospitals were prepared for such a disaster. It was wartime and major hospitals were instructed in burn treatment in case of enemy air raids. Victims were given morphine, wrapped in sheets and given plasma injections.

Volunteers and rescue workers carry out the survivors – and the dead.

The dead numbered 168 – half of them children. All of them had come to the circus that day for an afternoon of carefree fun. All of the circus people escaped alive, although the Wallendas had barely made it out safety. The villainous and heroic acts of the fire became apparent in the hours, days and weeks following the disaster. Some threw chairs at others to clear from their escape route. Some jumped from the tops of the bleachers into the crowds of people, not knowing or caring if they hurt someone. On the other hand, Emmett Kelly, the famous clown, rallied performers to get buckets of water and help however they could. Some grabbed scared and crying children and stayed with them until they could be reunited with a loved one.

The aftermath of the fire was grim. The Connecticut State Armory was turned into a temporary morgue and families filed through, lifting white sheets and trying to identify the charred remains. State and city investigators followed clues about the causes of the fire, which ranged from a tossed cigarette, a motor that was left running near the tent that ran out of oil, and even arson. The likely cause was determined to be a cigarette that was tossed into some dry grass at the edge of the tent. The rapid spread of the fire was blamed on the improper weatherproofing of the canvas and the use of highly flammable materials. State investigators listed eight causes of the fire and issued citations to Ringling Brothers for various offenses, including failure to flameproof, location of the animal chutes, insufficiency of personnel, failure to maintain an organization to fight the fire, lack of firefighting equipment, failure to distribute firefighting equipment, and the location of the supply wagons. Five circus employees were charged with manslaughter and arrested and warrants were issued for four more. Later, seven of the defendants received one- year prison sentences. Legal claims against Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey totaled nearly $4 million.

The fire captured America’s attention in 1944 and was ranked tenth among all stories reported by the Associated Press that year. It was the only one not related to the war.

Funeral parlors were forced to hold services for the dead in fifteen-minute intervals and services were conducted for several victims at the same time.

In Hartford and the Connecticut River Valley, the story was more than just a news report. It was a heartbreaking occurrence that touched almost every family in the region in one way or another. Flags flew at half-staff for weeks and funeral parlors were forced to hold services at fifteen-minute intervals. The burning of the big top on July 6, 1944 was the worst circus disaster in history and it continues to haunt the people of Hartford even now, more than 65 years later.

And not all of those haunting memories are physical scars, mental trauma and bad memories.

Several legends grew in the wake of the fire, including one that stated that the ghosts of the fire victims remained behind at the site of the tragedy. Two years after the fire, a housing project was erected nearby and many claimed the place was haunted. Residents told of hearing screams, strange cries, disembodied weeping and they spoke of seeing apparitions of people who seemed to be smoldering, or on fire. One man stated that he was unlocking his door one night and looked up to see a little boy go running past his apartment. The boy left a trail of smoke behind him, as though his clothing was burning. The man dropped the bag of groceries that he was carrying and hurried off to see if the boy needed help. When he turned the corner in the direction the “burning boy” had gone, he was shocked to see there was no one there. The man who recounted the story had recently moved to Hartford and was unaware that the 1944 fire had occurred a short distance away.

A few years later, the housing project, which had been a temporary arrangement to ease the home shortage being experienced by returning war veterans, was torn down and replaced by a school. The weird haunting tales also plagued the school and it was generally accepted that the ghosts were victims of the fire.   

A memorial to the fire victims now stands at the site and some say the ghosts remain, lingering at the place where their lives were cut short so tragically.

From the book, AND HELL FOLLOWED WITH IT by Troy Taylor & Rene Kruse