Talk:Cocoanut Grove fire

Untitled

According to the page here: http://www.surfnetinc.com/chuck/terms15.htm Buck Jones was unlikely to have gone back to rescue people.

My father was in Boston that night (statinoned there at that time in the Navy). He and a friend were leaving a movie when my father asked his friend, "What is that awful smell?" to which his frriend replied, "It smells like human flesh burning!" The tale of this event told from the perspective of the Holy Cross football team is probably the very best of Paul Harvey's "The Rest of the Story". Rlquall 21:32, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

There is a book about the Cocoanut Grove fire: "Holocaust" by Paul Benzaquin. It was published a number of years ago. Thanks...Kurt

Stanley Tomaszewski

I suggest that the Stanley Tomaszewski be merged into this article, trimmed down, if necessary. He is only notable for the fire, he started the fire and the articles can be merged without making the article too long. -- Kjkolb 06:38, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

I think a merge would be a good idea. Stanley Tomaszewski had no other notability outside his role in the fire. SteveB 10:32, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

agree with merge. Argyrios 03:37, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Support but keep a redirect from the name. rxnd ( t | € | c ) 16:04, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

OK. I merged the information from Stanley Tomaszewski into this article, then changed it into a redirect here.--Ssbohio 21:27, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Notes

I know nothing about this fire, but I see two mistakes someone who understands more might be able to fix: firstly, there is no mention of how the fire got from the lit match to starting an inferno. Someone strikes a light and then the club is on fire - did he drop it? was there a gas leak? How did it start. Secondly, when talking about aHollywood actorm, it is said he was incapacitated in his seat, but then it says "similarily" and then goes on to talk about someone who did something completely different. --Jackyd101 03:30, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

The fire started when highly flammable decorations on the wall and ceiling ignited. It was not necessary for a match to hve been dropped. The reference to "incapacitated in his seat" refers to the many people in the downstairs bar where the fire started who were overcome by smoke, lack of oxygen, and poisonous fumes (cyanide gas, if I recall correctly) that were emitted when the wall coverings burned. In the downstairs bar, firefighters found dozens of people still sitting in their seats, apparently unburned, but all dead. The first firefighters actually shouted at them to get out before realizing that they were all dead. I'm not sure how to rewrite the article, but that's what it refers to.

The wasted-looking people and the instant spreading of the fire are both consistant with a chloromethane leak from a refridgeration system, which was the page that linked me here, actually.

Also, isn't the twin towers on 9/11 the first and second deadliest building fires now (regardless of the fact that the arson was perpetrated with jet fuel poured from inside, on top.)70.162.81.229 10:14, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure how it's mentioned in the article, but the Grove remains to be the largest nightclub fire in history.

Legal evidence banning usage of 'Cocoanut Grove' as name of new nightclub?

The History Channel's "Modern Marvels" series (episode "Engineering Disasters 13") again affirms that it is against the law in Boston (or Massachusetts?) to name any new nightclub The Cocoanut Grove. Is there any actual legal evidence of this? The current page states that it is a myth, but this appears to be based solely on the information in John Esposito's book. I think a legal citation here would be the definitive proof, if it so exists. Evixir (talk) 20:55, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Natl Fire Protection Association, in an extremely well-written piece that contains a lot of detail from a great number of perspectives, states "immediately following the fire, the Boston Licensing Board ruled that no place of entertainment could ever again use the name Cocoanut Grove." http://www.nfpa.org/publicJournalDetail.asp?categoryID=1517&itemID=36513&src=NFPAJournal&cookie_test=1 Irish Melkite (talk) 06:33, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Casablanca?

It seems unlikely the decorations were an attempt to imitate the Casablanca movie as it was not released until 2 days before the fire, and then only in California. A more plausible explanation for the decorations is that they were part of a general tropical theme suggested by the name Cocoanut Grove and the resemblance to the movie was a coincidence.

The "Casablanca" style actually predated the movie Casablanca, and began in the Thirties with the immensely popular Charles Boyer movies "Algiers" and "The Garden of Allah". Whether the Cocoanut Grove was decorated in a pseudo-North African style or in a pseudo-Caribbean style I don't know, but "Casablanca" was a common name for the pseudo-North African style long before the movie - if anything, the movie was named after (and influenced by) the style, not vice versa. --NellieBly (talk) 00:36, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Incidentally, fair use photos

A few weeks ago I added two photos from the Boston Globe archives to the article, but I didn't explain the additions here as I should have. I believe there's an excellent fair use justification for using them. The first photo shows the boarded-up front windows (you can see where the boarding was hacked away by firefighters) and also shows how surprisingly narrow the entryway was, something difficult if not impossible to describe in words. The second photo shows how patrons were blocked from exiting, and in addition shows both the destructiveness of the fire and the fact that it wasn't all that hot - the wooden chairs didn't burn. Because the images illustrate not just the fact that a fire took place but why the fire was so unusually deadly (and, in addition, why it was obvious to investigators from the beginning that the building was not in compliance with code), I believe these images constitute fair use. --NellieBly (talk) 00:49, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't think these images qualify as fair use in this context. Maghnus (talk) 05:53, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

this has no context and makes no sense in the article.

November 28, 1942

Thirteen days earlier, six firemen had been killed and 43 injured in the collapse of a building.[1] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.38.197.76 (talk) 16:56, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Investigation section has no investigation information

Maybe the Investigation section should be re-titled "Aftermath"? It's important information, but it doesn't describe any investigation. Dcs002 (talk) 10:57, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

External links modified

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Links work and seem very useful. Both links are the same, so I will combine references. Dhtwiki (talk) 12:25, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

Links are for a reference and an external link, which may be worthwhile to keep as such. Dhtwiki (talk) 12:40, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

Freon

The use of the word "freon" is inaccurate as it is a brand name for a large line of refrigerants now produced by The Chemours Company. In 1942, the most likely refrigerant originally used was dichlorodifluoromethane (R-12) produced jointly by General Motors and DuPont under the business name Kinetic Chemicals. "Freon" is commonly used as a generic term for all refrigerants, but this is incorrect. Instances of the use of the word "freon" should be replaced by the term "CFC refrigerant" because referring to the refrigerant used as "freon" is equivalent to referring to all motor vehicles as "Chevrolets".

66.189.254.40 (talk) 22:46, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

References

Please explain further. Chemours is a 2015 spin-off from DuPont. They may own the patent now, but what was used in 1942 was Freon according to its article, being designated R-12. Is the Chevy analogy apt? Are we not talking about differentiating Chevys sourced from different GM plants (other than by VIN)?

The relevant sentence in this article is Since the US entry into the war, air conditioning systems had been serviced and the freon refrigerant was replaced by methyl chloride, a flammable gas, due to the wartime shortage of freon. Should that be changed? Is there a source for the statement? Dhtwiki (talk) 10:55, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Reference #10

Reference number 10, "Recalling Cocoanut Grove". The Boston Globe, is currently listed (correctly) as a dead link, however a cached text-only version of the page is available here: http://cache.boston.com/news/daily/21/archives_cocoanut_052592.htm I'm unsure if it is appropriate to use this as an archive link, since it's technically not an archived version of the page that was originally cited, but rather is that site's own cached version of the page at a different URL. Can anyone advise whether this would be appropriate? Msgerbs (talk) 02:38, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for finding that. I've reworked the reference URL so that it points to the cached version (the only difference being "cache" instead of "www"), and have not treated that as an archive. Dhtwiki (talk) 19:56, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

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Link works and seems useful. Dhtwiki (talk) 21:09, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

Buck Jones death

The article asserts that Buck Jones died in the fire, where he sat. It also claims that it was "erroneous" that he was reported to have died two days later without citation. However, the only source/citation we have on him DOES list him (in a newspaper clipping) as dying two days after as his wife tried to "race to his bedside" only to miss his being alive. There was no citation that he died within the nightclub itself, let alone where. His official date of death is also two days post-fire. I searched and could not find a single source (other than this Wiki listing) that he died inside the building. No official documents exist on his location, therefore, we must refer to the newspaper reporting at the time. Seola (talk) 18:20, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

"After ten minutes"

In the Rescue and Escapees section it says that some survivors were found in a walk on refrigerator and an icebox located in the kitchen, and that "rescuers reached the kitchen after ten minutes". Ten minutes after what? The start of the fire? This paragraph could use a good source and some clarity. Henry Hannon (talk) 00:58, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Ozone Disco fire which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 01:01, 20 October 2022 (UTC)