LYNN –It was 75 years ago today that 492 people were killed in a fire at the Cocoanut Grove nightclub in Boston, but for many in Lynn, the memories of the day are still painful.
The club, between Piedmont and Shawmut streets, had false walls of artificial leather, cloth covering the ceilings, artificial palm trees, a dance floor, the longest bar in the city, and an electric roof that rolled back to provide a glimpse of the sky.
Most of the doors and exits were illegally locked or blocked, and the main entrance was a revolving door that quickly jammed when crowds rushed out, causing people to fall and pile up, inches away from safety.
The club had a capacity of 460 people, but on Nov. 28, 1942, it was packed with more than 1,000 dancers and diners.
The Daily Evening Item reported on Nov. 30, 1942 that several Lynn residents were at the Cocoanut Grove on the night of the fire.
Twenty-three-year-old Leah Sudnovsky, a graduate of Lynn Classical and Burdett College, was there with her sister Hilda and cousin Norman Zeitsoff when she was killed. Hilda, who excused herself from the table to wash her hands in the bathroom when the flames broke out, survived.
“I left the table located close to the entrance and went to the ladies’ room,” she told the Item in 1942. “I was in there only a minute. As I opened the door, the lights went out and the piercing screams of women resounded through the dining room. Immediately the place was in an uproar. People rushed toward the door. There was a lot of flames. I tried to get back to the table occupied by my sister and cousin. I was close to the door and the gathering pushed me along, trampling over other people who had fallen. In some manner, I was carried through the doorway and outdoors. I don’t know how I ever got out.”
Lawrence Simpson of 138 Euclid Avenue, was with his wife Helen, and claimed to have seen the start of the fire, by the busboy, who lit a match while replacing an electric light bulb near the table, according to the 1942 article.
As the nearby imitation palm tree and decorations burst into flames, the Simpsons rushed to the main exit, hand in hand, but were forced apart near the door by the crowd. He was pushed through the exit. He lost the grip on his wife’s hand and that was the last he saw of her.
The couple was in Boston to celebrate their eighth wedding anniversary by attending a performance at the Boston Theatre. They decided to go to the Cocoanut Grove for dinner and drinks. They had finished eating and were about to leave when Mr. Simpson saw the boy light the match to replace the faulty light bulb and, in a flash, flames enveloped a dried up palm tree and paper streamers decorating the Melody Lounge, according to the story.
Helen Simpson was first listed as missing, and later listed among the dead.
One of the restaurant’s waiters, Daniel Rizzo, who lived on Summer Street in Lynn was credited with saving countless lives. He was treated for third degree burns on his face and hands at Boston City Hospital after he led a group of people to safety through a small window, which he broke in the basement kitchen.
He reentered the building to find his brother, John, but the heavy smoke forced him to retreat. He brought a group of people through the window as he exited again, and found his brother outside, helping rescue other. His brother had only a few bruises, sustained in a fall down a flight of stairs.
In a story in the Item 50 years later, John Rizzo said his brother and a sailor smashed a door with a table that was hidden behind a venetian blind.
“Nobody knew it was there,” he said. “We saw this big ball of fire — just like a forest fire coming at us.”
While Dan was coming up one set of stairs, his brother, John, was being forced down another set of stairs to the kitchen by the surge of the crowd in a panic. When he got to the basement kitchen, he remembered a small window high up on the wall that he had complained about being drafty earlier in the evening. He helped several others through the window and then escaped himself.
When he got outside, he heard screams coming from a woman in a fur coat on a ledge.
“I said ‘honey,’ you’d better jump,'” said John Rizzo in 1992. “The minute I said ‘jump,’ she takes off her shoes, jumps, and lands right on me.”
Christis Roumeliotis, another Cocoanut Grove waiter who lived in Lynn, Carolyn Gilbride, 21, who was born in Lynn but moved to Swampscott at age 6, United States Marine Corps Sgt. Anthony Marotta of Tremont Street and his wife Corinne of one year, and Natalie McCullough of Saugus were also killed in the blaze.
Arthur Clutchey, a Lynn funeral director, had reenlisted in the United States Army after Pearl Harbor and was assigned to the hospital unit at Fort Banks in Winthrop. He was awakened by Michael Cofilice, an ambulance driver, and spent the night transporting victims to the city morgue, said his daughter Mary Clutchey.
“He was not one to talk about these events, but one day, when we were driving past Massachusetts General Hospital, he told me about that night — not in great detail — just that they had made many trips that night,” she said.
The fire spread from the Melody Lounge in the basement to the first floor foyer and main dining room. It took only about 12 minutes for most of the fatalities to occur, according to the 1992 article.
Calls began to come into former Lynn Fire Chief Joseph Scanlon for backup at about 10:45 p.m., within 20 minutes of the fire breaking out.
The department was first ordered to set up a generator and lights, but plans changed and they recovered about 30 bodies from a hallway, said District Chief Stephen Archer.
Lynn Fire sent a rescue truck with firefighters Frank Carter, George Booth, Bernard “Beanie” Kelley, Emanuel Montibello, Fred Warren, and Clayton Pevear.
Lynn also sent its Post No. 6 ambulance, a private ambulance run by Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 6. It was donated to the city by the veterans in January 1942 and staffed by auxiliary firemen, said Archer.
Several building codes were changed to prevent similar tragedies, said Department of Fire Services spokeswoman Jennifer Mieth.
Revolving doors are no longer allowed to be the only means of entering and exiting a building; doors and exits are required to swing outwards, rather than pulled in; all exits are to be properly marked and accessible; exits cannot be locked; and regulations were added for flammable decorations; interior finishes must be flame retardant, she said.
Stairways are now enclosed so people have better protection from smoke as they escape, and occupancy limits are enforced.
“Overcrowding was a huge problem,” Mieth said. “Great advances also came in the medical community for the treatment of burns. The first person with burns over 50 percent of their body to survive came out of this fire, only to die several years later in a truck fire.”
