Eighty years ago, on November 28, 1942, just after 10 p.m., a 16-year-old busboy had been ordered to fix a light bulb located at the top of an artificial palm tree at the Cocoanut Grove “restaurant-supper club” in Boston, Mass. (legend has it the bulb had been unscrewed by a patron desiring more intimacy with his date in the Grove’s basement lounge). He lit a match to locate the socket for the light bulb, and moments later, a flicker of a flame in the palm tree quickly spread to the highly flammable cloth-covered ceiling.
U.S. Army Signal Corps, Boston Public Library
The Cocoanut Grove’s Piedmont Street entrance after the fire. The entry’s revolving door—inset from arched openings below the club’s marquee—became jammed as patrons rushed to escape the rapidly spreading inferno.
The official Boston Fire Department report states that “from the first appearance of flame until it had explosively traversed the main dining room and passed, almost 225 feet away, to the entrance of the Broadway Lounge, the commissioner estimated at total time of five minutes at most. At this point in time all exits normally open to the public, of which each had something functionally wrong, were useless for a safe escape.” A revolving door at the main Piedmont Street entrance was the worst culprit; it became jammed as patrons pushed toward the door to escape. See “Cocoanut Grove: Estimated Path of Fire and Timeline,” below.
U.S. Army Signal Corps, Boston Public Library
Army personnel help document the fire damage in the new cocktail lounge on Broadway. The Broadway lounge had opened only 11 days earlier, and planned fire doors separating the lounge from the rest of the club were not installed. See plans, below.
1
of 15
The Grove opened in 1927 during Prohibition as a B.Y.O.B. nightc…
The Grove opened in 1927 during Prohibition as a B.Y.O.B. nightclub and became a speakeasy run by organized crime a few years later. After weathering some down years during the depression, it reemerged as “the” nighttime hotspot by the late 1930s. Club advertising offered patrons a South Seas-like "tropical paradise", beckoning them to “see the rolling roof” and “dine and dance under the stars and sky”. By late 1942, the structure had become a firetrap, having grown into a confusing agglomeration of public and service space through haphazard, unpermitted expansion (see plans on main page).
Courtesy Boston Fire Department via “Fire in the Grove” (2005)
The club’s décor consisted of bamboo, rattan and leatherette …
The club’s décor consisted of bamboo, rattan and leatherette wall coverings, suspended satin cloth ceilings, and heavy draperies. Here, the Grove’s Maître d' poses in front of a support column made to look like a palm tree in the main dining room. The interior finishes were supposed to be flame resistant, but the club owner cut corners and avoided applying flame retardant chemicals in order to save money—a particularly critical omission with regards to the satin.
Courtesy of the Boston Public Library
The fire happened quickly and got knocked down quickly (coincide…
The fire happened quickly and got knocked down quickly (coincidently, the fire department happened upon the Cocoanut Grove scene after extinguishing a nearby car fire). Within 20 minutes of fire department’s arrival, the fire was largely extinguished, rescue and recovery efforts continued into the early hours of the next day. Author Charles Kenney recounts in “Rescue Men” (2007) how his grandfather, Charles “Pops” Kenney (a Boston firefighter) was laid up in the hospital with “raw red scratches on legs … scratches on his legs from people who had been lying in the doorway of the Cocoanut Grove … people scratching and clawing, desperate to be rescued.”
Courtesy of the Boston Public Library
First responders included taxi drivers and members of the armed …
First responders included taxi drivers and members of the armed services, who happened to be at the club or nearby. Fifty-one servicemen and two WAC (Women Army Corps) service woman were killed. In addition to ambulances, victims were transported to local hospitals via taxis, private automobiles, and delivery trucks.
U.S. Army Signal Corps, Boston Public Library
Like previous renovations to the nightclub, the Melody Lounge wa…
Like previous renovations to the nightclub, the Melody Lounge was constructed without building permits. It was fashioned out of a basement storage room and built with a lone public exit from the basement—a narrow, 4-foot-wide staircase. In addition to its tropical décor, a blue satin ceiling was suspended 18 inches from the concrete floor above to help create an intimate space. The room’s lighting was comprised largely of low-wattage bulbs placed within cocoanut shells. On the night of November 28, 1942, after a busboy lit a match to search for an unscrewed bulb, the cloth ceiling caught fire. Partially combusted gasses emanating from the oxygen-deprived lounge followed the fleeing occupants up the staircase. Surprisingly, most of the damage to the lounge’s décor was concentrated up high; the upholstered furniture was left largely intact.
U.S. Army Signal Corps, Boston Public Library
Here, the main dining room and dance floor as seen after the fir…
Here, the main dining room and dance floor as seen after the fire. A retractable roof located over the dance floor was closed for the winter, its opening concealed by a suspended cloth ceiling below. The flammable satin ceiling—which stretched wall to wall—contributed to the rapid speed of the fire across the grade-level rooms.
Courtesy of the Boston Public Library
Fire damage as viewed from and the Shawmut Street entry door. Th…
Fire damage as viewed from and the Shawmut Street entry door. The roof adjacent to a glass block partition in the main dining room is caved in. Collapsed rattan wall and ceiling coverings are seen in the background in the Caricature Bar area. (The “Caricature Bar” was filled with photographs and illustrated caricatures of celebrities and local luminaries; hence its name.)
Courtesy of the Boston Public Library
The “rolling” roof, seen here in the middle of photo behind …
The “rolling” roof, seen here in the middle of photo behind the damaged roof, is partially open.
Courtesy of the Boston Public Library
Recently-installed, glass block “replacement” windows adjace…
Recently-installed, glass block “replacement” windows adjacent to the grade-level Broadway entrance were knocked out to save lives. Some occupants—mostly entertainers—managed to escape via second- and third-story windows. (The second and third floors housed dressing rooms and offices.)
Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection
On the Shawmut Street side of the building, the exit doors were …
On the Shawmut Street side of the building, the exit doors were locked and the storefront windows were concealed by false walls. Here, firemen broke holes through the false walls and sheet-stock-covered glass in an effort to save patrons.
Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection
The Grove was a comparatively small building and the estimated o…
The Grove was a comparatively small building and the estimated occupancy of the club at the time of the fire was 1,000 (more than twice its legal capacity). What made the fire uniquely horrifying was the speed of the conflagration and its lethality. Disasters often have an anticipated injury-to-death ratio of 3 to 5 injured for every death. Here, this ratio was reversed with roughly 3 deaths for every injured victim (492 dead and 166 injured). Put another way, for every 4 people that were in the Grove that night, only 1 would get out uninjured, 1 would be injured, and 2 would die.
Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection
Here, a burn victim is receiving blood plasma. Due to the number…
Here, a burn victim is receiving blood plasma. Due to the number of injured Grove patrons admitted to area hospitals, medical personnel were forced to adopt new methods of care regrading burns and internal injuries—some methods had been well tested, while others had not. The one silver lining of this calamitous event is that methods honed for treating burn victims (such as using antibiotics, skin grafting, and treating the affected skin areas with petroleum jelly—Vaseline) would be used to help burn victims, both military and civilian, during and after the war. Advances in treating fire-related respiratory injuries also occurred as a result of Cocoanut Grove, as well as nascent research into the causes of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Tim Healey
A bronze plaque, laid in 1993 on the 50th anniversary of the dis…
A bronze plaque, laid in 1993 on the 50th anniversary of the disaster, marks the approximate site of the Cocoanut Grove nightclub. John Esposito writes in his gripping account of the disaster, “Fire in the Grove” (2005), “… The building was torn down in September 1945. Since then, the site has been radically reconfigured by modern super-block development that truncated Broadway. It is now the site of the twenty-story Boston Radisson Hotel [now the Revere Hotel Boston Common]. At the back of the hotel, next to a loading platform, is a small bronze plaque stating that the building is on the site of the Cocoanut Grove nightclub, where nearly five hundred people died in the fire that occurred there on November 28, 1942.” Eighty years later, Cocoanut Grove still resonates. It remains as the cautionary tale of what not to do regarding safety in places of public assembly.
Tim Healey
In 2013, Shawmut Street Extension was renamed “Cocoanut Grove …
In 2013, Shawmut Street Extension was renamed “Cocoanut Grove Lane” (the lane is a small side street that runs through the former site of the Cocoanut Grove. (The bronze plaque, seen at the base of the lamp post, was controversially moved several hundred feet from its original location to make way for high-end condos in 2016—the plaque was initially placed where the Grove’s revolving door was located.)
Tim Healey
The revitalized neighborhood at the corner of Shawmut Street and…
The revitalized neighborhood at the corner of Shawmut Street and Cocoanut Grove Lane.
A combination of corruption, greed, and wanton disregard of local fire regulations led to the deadliest “nightclub” fire in U.S. history (Chicago’s Iroquois Theatre fire in 1903 ignominiously holds the title of deadliest fire in an assembly occupancy, with 602 fatalities). So lethal was this disaster—which occurred somewhat ironically in the National Fire Protection Association’s own backyard—that it is still taught to this day in architectural and engineering schools, as well as by the NFPA itself, as a cautionary tale.
Lessons learned. As a result of the fire, building codes were amended in Boston and elsewhere. Revolving doors were outlawed (and later reinstated, provided a revolving door is placed between two outward-opening exit doors). Exit doors were to be clearly marked, unlocked from within, and free from blockage by screens, drapes, and furniture. No combustible materials were to be used for decorations in places of public assembly. Sprinklers were recommended in any room occupied as a restaurant, night club, or place of entertainment. The definition of places of “public assembly” was changed (surprisingly, “restaurant-supper clubs” had not been considered as places of public assembly in many jurisdictions).
By the Numbers The estimated occupancy of the club at the time of the fire (more than twice its legal capacity): 1,000
The total number of egress doors on the grade-level floor (all deemed “functionally wrong … useless for a safe escape”): 8
The number of egress doors in the basement: 1
The official number of victims: 492 dead and 166 injured (the number of deaths is disputed, the Boston Fire Department fire report states “490 deaths”).
The approximate number of bodies found piled up at the Piedmont Street revolving door entry: 200
The approximate number of bodies found at the in-swinging Broadway entry: 100
The number of victims received in one hour by Boston City Hospital (the highest admission rate ever recorded by a hospital in the U.S.): 300
The years served by Cocoanut Grove owner, Barney Welansky, of a 12-to-15-year sentence for involuntary manslaughter before being pardoned for health reasons: 3.5
Cocoanut Grove: Estimated Path of Fire and Timeline
A calamitous event like Cocoanut Grove doesn’t just happen. In this case, years of unethical behavior and negligence laid the groundwork for what would become the deadliest nightclub fire in U.S. history. The lion’s share of the blame was attributed to the following factors: a total disregard of local fire regulations and building codes; a politically-connected club owner who sought maximum profits by regularly exceeding the nightclub’s legal capacity (all while cutting corners on the quality of construction, wiring, and interior finishes); and city inspectors—corrupt at worst, inept at best—who signed off on the veracity of the building’s safety.
According to the official Boston Fire Department report, the fire began at 10:15 p.m. in an artificial palm tree in the basement lounge. Within two minutes, it had spread to the room’s suspended cloth ceiling, gained momentum, and crossed the 35-by-55-foot space toward the stairway—the only public exit from the basement room. Fire Commissioner William Reilly wrote, “The fire did not burn itself out in the Melody Lounge primarily because in that confined space it lacked sufficient oxygen for complete combustion and lacked also adequate means for dissipation of heat produced by the partial combustion … instead, it projected a large quantity of extremely hot, partially burned but still inflammable, gasses toward and up the stairs.” (The Melody Lounge’s décor included rattan, bamboo, unfinished wood walls, light fixtures with low-wattage bulbs in placed in cocoanut shells, and a suspended cloth ceiling that, according to Reilly’s report, may have contained “pyroxylin”—a highly flammable nitrocellulose compound used to make munitions and celluloid or "nitrate film" for early motion pictures.)
Within seconds, the fire had flashed past the first-floor foyer and into the main dining room. By 10:20 p.m., it had traversed the grade-floor level to the Broadway entrance, some 225 feet away. A tremendous amount of energy was released in a short time period. Witnesses described the flame as a “ball of fire traveling below the ceiling” and that it was “yellowish” and “blueish” in color—a possible indication of incomplete combustion. (The décor in the grade-level rooms included a mix of rattan, artificial palm fronds, suspended cloth ceilings, and faux leather, or “leatherette,” wall coverings and upholstered furniture; the burning leatherette contributed to the toxicity of the smoke).
Officially, the Boston Fire Department report lists the “cause or causes” of the fire as “being of unknown origin.”
![A bronze plaque, laid in 1993 on the 50th anniversary of the disaster, marks the approximate site of the Cocoanut Grove nightclub. John Esposito writes in his gripping account of the disaster, “Fire in the Grove” (2005), “… The building was torn down in September 1945. Since then, the site has been radically reconfigured by modern super-block development that truncated Broadway. It is now the site of the twenty-story Boston Radisson Hotel [now the Revere Hotel Boston Common]. At the back of the hotel, next to a loading platform, is a small bronze plaque stating that the building is on the site of the Cocoanut Grove nightclub, where nearly five hundred people died in the fire that occurred there on November 28, 1942.” Eighty years later, Cocoanut Grove still resonates. It remains as the cautionary tale of what not to do regarding safety in places of public assembly.](https://jlconline.stg.zonda.onl/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/06/0722-jlc-backfill-cocoanut-grove-web-ss-13-new.jpg?w=551)
