November 28, 1942: One of the worst fires in American history struck the Cocoanut Grove in Boston.
The Grove was located at 17 Piedmont Street, a few blocks south of Boston Common, and was one of the Hub City's most popular nightspots. It hosted Big Band music, and was basically Boston's version of New York's Copacabana Club. Mayor Maurice Tobin was a frequent visitor.
The downside was that it was Mobbed up. Barney Welansky, a lawyer who inherited ownership of the club from a former client, bootlegger Charlie "King" Solomon, used his connections, both with the law (he and Tobin were friends) and outside the law to stay open. He was breaking fire laws left-and-right: Some exit doors were locked to prevent unpaid entry (or leaving without paying your tab), the palm-tree decor was flammable, and, with freon rationed for the war effort, the air-conditioning used flammable methyl chloride gas.
November 28 was the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend, and a lot of servicemen who hadn't yet gone overseas had passes and had gone home. The headliner was Arthur Blake, a popular comedian known for his impersonations, especially of women. (Actress Bette Davis, singer Carmen Miranda, and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt were specialties.) It was a barely-kept secret that he was gay, and he was so good a performer that nobody who watched him seemed to care.
So the capacity of 460 people was easily surpassed, possibly even doubled to more than 1,000. Ironically, Welansky was not among them: He was recovering from a heart attack at Massachusetts General Hospital, where he would be joined by some of the surviving victims.
The fire started at 10:15 PM. The official cause was never determined: The Boston Fire Department decided that the leading theory, that a busboy lighting a match to give himself more light to replace a light bulb, and insufficiently extinguishing it, was probably not the cause. Nevertheless, a drape caught fire, and with all the flammable material in the place, the fire spread very quickly.
Being an Atlantic port city, and thus considered a possible target for Nazi sabotage, Boston had been heavily preparing for what would now be called a "mass casualty event," repeatedly rehearsing emergency drills. A city of many renowned hospitals, including Massachusetts General, had its ambulances, blood banks and burn treatment centers on alert, and probably saved some lives and made some recoveries quicker.
But there were 492 deaths. It was the 2nd-deadliest single-building fire in American history. In 1903, the Iroquois Theatre in Chicago burned and killed 602. Technically, those are still the 2 worst: More of the victims of the World Trade Center attack died as a result of the buildings collapsing than from the fires inside.
One of the Cocoanut Grove victims was Buck Jones, an actor known for his Western movie roles, who allegedly pulled someone out of the burning building, rushed back in to see if he could save anyone else, did save a second person, went back in to see if he could save a third, and never made it out. He died 2 days later, at the age of 50.
The story that Jones went back to save someone was spread by John Wayne, who called Jones his role model for Western acting, but it has never been proven. One legend that is true is that, in his last film, Dawn on the Great Divide, he sang the hymn "Rock of Ages" over an open grave.
The tragedy could have been far worse. Boston College began the day as the Number 1-ranked football team in the country. They played the team that was then their arch-rival, Holy Cross of nearby Worcester, at Fenway Park. They were expecting to be invited to the Sugar Bowl to play for the National Championship. And BC had scheduled a victory party at the Grove.
But Holy Cross crushed the Eagles, 55-12. Mayor Tobin, a BC graduate, canceled the party, so the BC players didn't show up. He was so disgusted, he didn't even go himself. Had he gone, he might have been among the victims.
The Suffolk County District Attorney randomly selected 19 victims, and charged Welansky with 19 counts of manslaughter. He was convicted on all counts the next year, and was sentenced to 12 to 15 years in prison. Tobin, who had been elected Governor of Massachusetts in 1944, learned in 1946 that Welansky was dying of cancer, and commuted his sentenced. Welansky told reporters, "I wish I'd died with the others in the fire." He joined the victims a few weeks later.
Tobin served as U.S. Secretary of Labor in President Harry Truman's 2nd term. He died in 1953, just 6 months after leaving office. In 1967, the Mystic River Bridge, connecting Charlestown with downtown Boston, was renamed the Maurice J. Tobin Memorial Bridge.
Boston College dropped to Number 8 in the next poll, but were still invited to the Orange Bowl in Miami. They lost to Alabama, 37-21. After winning their 1st 8 games by an average score of 32-3, they lost their last 2 by an average of 46-16.
The remnants of the Cocoanut Grove was torn down in 1944. Urban renewal has changed the former Bay Village neighborhood tremendously. Part of the footprint of the Grove is now under the Revere Hotel. The rest is covered by condominiums, with an address of 25 Piedmont Street.
Only 3 people who were inside the Grove that day, 79 years ago, are known to still be alive. All are now 97 years old: Christian Murray-Allen, then a student at Radcliffe College, the feminine parallel to Harvard (not yet gender-integrated); Joyce Spector, then attending a secretarial school; and Robert Shumway, then a student at a nearby prep school. Shumway had gone to the BC-Holy Cross game at Fenway Park.
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November 28, 1942 was a Saturday. Most college football teams had already finished their seasons, but not all:
* Number 5 Georgia beat Number 2 Georgia Tech, 34-0 at Sanford Stadium in Athens, Georgia.
* Number 10 Tennessee beat Vanderbilt, 19-7 at Dudley Field in Nashville.
* Number 16 Mississippi State beat Mississippi (Ole Miss), 34-13 at Scott Field in Starkville, Mississippi.
* Number 17 Auburn beat Clemson, 41-13 at Auburn Stadium (later renamed Jordan-Hare Stadium) in Auburn, Alabama.
* Michigan State played Oregon State to a 7-7 tie, at Macklin Field (later Spartan Stadium) in East Lansing, Michigan.
* Kansas State beat Nebraska, 19-0 at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, Nebraska.
* Rice beat Baylor, 20-0 at Municipal Stadium in Waco, Texas.
* Washington and Washington State played to a 0-0 tie at Husky Stadium in Seattle.
* And Navy beat Army, 14-0 at Thompson Stadium on the campus of the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.
Ohio State went 9-1, but, until the 1946 season, the Big Ten Conference Champion was not guaranteed a place in the Rose Bowl, or any other bowl game. Georgia won the Southeastern Conference Championship, and won the Rose Bowl to complete an undefeated season. The national polls were divided between Ohio State and Georgia for the National Championship.
Baseball was out of season. There was no NBA yet. But there were 2 games played in the NHL that day. The New York Rangers lost to the Toronto Maple Leafs, 8-6 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. And the Boston Bruins beat the Montreal Canadiens, 6-2 at the Montreal Forum.