Fire in the Grove : the Cocoanut Grove tragedy and its aftermath / John C. Esposito.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Esposito, John C., 1940-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Cocoanut Grove (Boston, Mass.)--Fire, 1942.

Cocoanut Grove (Boston, Mass.).

Fires--Massachusetts--Boston--History--20th century.

Fires.

History.

Boston (Mass.)--History--20th century.

Boston (Mass.).

Boston (Mass.)--Buildings, structures, etc.

Massachusetts--Boston.

Physical Description:

x, 254 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm

Edition:

First Da Capo Press edition.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, MA : Da Capo Press, 2005.

Summary:

The first thing Stickel saw through the thick smoke was a man's head and arm poking through an impossibly small hole.... The firemen began smashing at the glass block to help the man, but the awful rush of smoke and heat pushed them back. Stickel ordered his men to play the hoses on the man, but it was too late. He could only watch as the water splashed ineffectually off the block onto the sidewalk. "And then a flame took him up," Stickel said.

At the end of this long night, Deputy Chief Stickel would learn that the fire had started nearly a city block away from where he watched that first death, at the farthest end of the jumble of building that made up the Cocoanut Grove nightclub.

He would also learn that by the time he had arrived at the scene-at 10:23 P.M.-that nameless man reaching out through the glass block was one of nearly five hundred people-one of every two persons on the premises-who were either already dead or doomed. Stickel was witness to the worst nightclub fire in American history.

Contents:

Prologue: Saturday Night, November 28, 1942 1

1 The Rehearsal 17

2 The Intimate Place 25

3 No Exit 41

4 The Eight-Minute Fire 59

5 Don't Panic 71

6 The Unalterable Laws 81

7 It's Not My Job 99

8 Present at the Creation 117

9 The Man Who Wasn't There 127

10 The Bright Side? 143

11 Indictments-General and Specific 159

12 Recklessness 171

13 Ex Post Facto 185

14 The Verdict 203

15 Reckonings 211

16 Fact or Fiction? 229

Postscript: The 90-Second Fire 235.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0306814234

OCLC:

61285512

Publisher Number:

9780306814235