Fire At The Grove

It was a cold November evening when 24 year old Boston University medical student Daniel Weiss reported to his job as bartender at the Cocoanut Grove nightclub. Weiss was working the cash register that Saturday evening in the Melody Lounge of the Grove. It was November 28th, 1942. Boston College lost to Holy Cross during a huge upset played at Fenway Park and the war was starting to ramp up in the Pacific. Servicemen in uniform filled Boston and many of them were in attendance that evening at the Cocoanut Grove.
It was a little before 10 p.m. and already the Cocoanut Grove was filled beyond capacity. During the prohibition years, the Grove had served as an illicit speakeasy, but with the repealing of the 18th Amendment, the liquor flowed like water. The Cocoanut Grove was THE place to be in Boston at the time and this evening it was as crowded as ever. Downstairs in the Melody Lounge, a female piano player began to play a popular wartime tune and the patrons began to sing along with her. It was just about 10:15, when Daniel Weiss noticed a white jacketed bar boy had just turned a light in a dim corner back on after a love struck patron had unscrewed the bulb to give him and his date more privacy. There seemed to be some sudden movement in the dark corner as several patrons suddenly jumped up as if startled. Weiss then noticed a flickering blue light at the top of one of the fake palm trees that were used as decoration. Within seconds, the blue flame widened into a ring of orange fire in the fabric of the palm tree. “Get water, there’s a fire!” someone shouted in the crowd.
Weiss was taught to guard his cash register during any type of commotion in the club, which is what he did now. His uncle, Barney Welansky, was the owner of the Cocoanut Grove and would not take kindly to his nephew loosing the money from the till. At this point, several other bartenders were throwing water from a pitcher and using a seltzer bottle to combat the ever widening flames, but to no effect. By now, the flames were quickly spreading across the low ceiling and the music had stopped. Still the patrons continued as if nothing serious was happening. One of the bar boys managed to rip down the burning palm tree, but this had no effect on the flames in the ceiling which suddenly flashed across the highly flammable decorations. By now, the patrons were well and truly aware of the disaster before them and started to panic and scream in fright. Most headed up the stairs, which was the only obvious exit in the Melody Lounge. A lucky few were herded through a disguised service door which led into the kitchen. It only took a few seconds for the stairway to become a blowtorch, incinerating the panicked patrons as they tried to stumble up the crowded stairs. The smoke and flames raced up the stairway to the main club at street level with terrifying speed. Club goers who were not burned alive in the howling flames, simply dropped dead from smoke inhalation in the superheated air.
At this time, Weiss dropped to his knees and stuffed a water-soaked rag onto his face, covering his nose and mouth as the lights went out in the Melody Lounge. He then lay flat on the floor behind the bar as the screaming faded into moaning and then into an eerie silence. Weiss noticed that even the fire seemed to be gone. Weiss was fearful of dying with the rest of the patrons so he made a decision to escape via the service door. He stood up, bolted over the bar and landed atop a pile of bodies that had fallen in the inferno. Holding his breath, he managed to scramble through the service door exit which was wonderfully cool and smoke free.
Making his way into the kitchen, Weiss discovered as many as 24 people huddled there who had escaped the Melody Lounge just moments before the inferno exploded like a bomb. Weiss then tried to rally the crowd into following him up the service stairs to the main dining room. Weiss got halfway up the stairs and walked into a wall of intense heat. He then heard the screaming of patrons and roar of the fire and quickly realized that the inferno that had blitzed through the downstairs section of the club was now engulfing the upstairs. He quickly retreated down the stairs and back into the kitchen to plot another escape route. Weiss remembered there was a set of service stairs just beyond the boiler room nearby. He convinced the crowd to follow him to these stairs, but as the entered the warm, softly lit boiler room, a woman in the crowd screamed “He’s leading us back into the fire” and they all retreated back to the false safety of the kitchen. Back in the kitchen, Weiss noticed that smoke was starting to make its way into their sanctuary and pleaded with the crowd to follow him through the boiler room and up the stairs to safety, but none would. He promised he would send help and quickly bolted from the kitchen, through the boiler room, up the stairs and out into the cold night air of Shawmut Street, which was by now filled with chaos in the forms of injured patrons, police and fire personal, flashing lights and fire engines.
Weiss screamed that there were still people trapped in the basement and by now members of the Boston Fire Department were starting to enter the building. He walked around Shawmut Street in a daze and suffering from shock. He decided he would try to call his family to let them know he was alive. He headed over to a nearby nightclub, the Rio Casino, which was owned by another uncle. There he found several of the Cocoanut Grove’s entertainers and staff huddled about in the same state as he was in.
That Sunday afternoon after the fire been completely extinguished, Daniel Weiss was escorted back into the charred remains of the Cocoanut Grove to retrieve the cash register full of money. He noticed that the upper walls and ceiling were charred black, but nearer to the floor was unburned, which meant the fire was confined to the upper portions of the walls and ceiling. Later in life, Dr. Daniel Weiss would become a well known and successful psychiatrist and he today he is assumed to be the last person who escaped alive from the fire at the Cocoanut Grove.
The fire at the Cocoanut Grove was one of the worst in American history at the time. 490 people were killed that night or later died of burns and over 166 were injured. The fire caused a complete rewriting of the building codes used at the time. Revolving doors had to be flanked by two outwardly opening doors, exit signs had to be clearly marked, emergency exits had to be kept clear, decorations had to be constructed of non-flammable material and emergency sprinkler systems had to be installed……all things that were not done at the Cocoanut Grove. In September 1945, the burned shell of the Cocoanut Grove was finally torn down. For years, a vacant lot sat at the sight of one of the worst fires in American history. Today, the area of the Cocoanut Grove is dramatically changed. A major hotel now sits atop the site of the doomed nightclub and even the streets themselves have been altered. Running through what would have been the middle of the club is Shawmut Street Extension which connects Piedmont and Shawmut Street. Only a small portion of the original footprint can be seen off of Piedmont Street. A small square-shaped auxiliary parking lot, seldom used, sits behind a black metal fence with a locked gate. This would have been where the Melody Lounge once sat. Today, it sits empty and unused with only a small bronze plaque placed in the sidewalk as a reminder to the tragedy that took place at the site all those years ago.