Roslindale native Charles Capone stopped by the Cocoanut Grove the night of Nov. 28, 1942, to wish a farewell to some of his buddies who were going off to fight in World War II.
“A pleasant evening ended in tragedy,” says his niece and goddaughter Phyllis Cavan, of Medfield.
Capone and 489 others lost their lives in the deadliest nightclub fire in history, while 166 people were sent to city hospitals with injuries, an event that many refer to as Boston’s “worst catastrophe.”
Decades in the making, a memorial honoring those who died and the major advancements in burn treatment, trauma response and fire codes that came out of the blaze is set to break ground at Statler Park on Sunday.
Cavan said she will be attending the grand occasion, carrying a picture of her uncle, who was 26 years old at the time of the fire, which robbed him from the chance to “live, marry and have children.”
Around the time of the anniversary, while growing up, Cavan and her father would attend mass at Holy Name Church in West Roxbury to honor her uncle. She admitted she didn’t think the memorial would come to fruition but she is “very grateful that it will be a reality.”
“It means so much that he and the other victims will be honored in this way with a memorial,” said Cavan, who was 16 months old when her uncle died. “This will be something for history, something I can show my grandchildren, and they will always remember.”
The monument will be built to the specifications of the club – 18 feet wide and 11 feet tall – with three 7-foot arches, said Michael Hanlon, vice president and treasurer of the Cocoanut Grove Memorial Committee. There will be 490 granite bricks inscribed with the names of each victim along with informational panels describing the history of the fire.
Construction is slated to wrap up next September, after Labor Day, Hanlon told the Herald, adding roughly 60 married couples and four brothers died in the fateful blaze.
“We want to make sure those bricks are side by side or up and down from each other,” Hanlon said Wednesday. “There is some method to the madness in terms of the placement of each one of these bricks.”
Hanlon estimated the cost of the memorial to be roughly $750,000, including $250,000 that the City Council awarded in 2021 in Community Preservation Act funds as well as an additional $450,000 allocated towards the project in the city’s 2023 fiscal year capital budget.
“The Cocoanut Grove fire was a horrific and painful memory for Boston, but it also brought our city together as a community,” City Council President Ed Flynn told the Herald.
Though the cause of the fire is officially unknown, it is believed to have been sparked by a busboy who didn’t fully extinguish a match he was using to change a lightbulb. Faulty wiring, a club at twice its allowed capacity, and side exits that were either blocked or bolted shut are thought to have made the catastrophe exponentially worse.
A plaque erected by the Bay Village Neighborhood Association in 1993 has honored those who died and were injured in the area of 17 Piedmont St., the address for the Cocoanut Grove. The city in 2013 changed a nearby street name to Cocoanut Grove Lane.
“There was very little publicity about preserving the history of the Cocoanut Grove,” Hanlon said. “I kind of thought that something more should be done about this, but it was just kind of a wish.”
The fateful blaze is credited with triggering an overhaul of building and fire codes, including requiring emergency exits and sprinklers.
More than 80 years after the fire, officials at Massachusetts General Hospital continue to explore ways to improve treatment for burn patients.
In September 2022, researchers introduced what the hospital calls “a first-of-its-kind hydrogel for second-degree burns that can be dissolved quickly and easily to reduce the pain of wound dressing changes in burn patients.”
“We look at this memorial as an educational feature,” Hanlon said. “We think this memorial will attract people to come and read the information panels … and people will learn from this giant mistake, what it has brought forward in terms of fire prevention and fire procedures.”
The 81st anniversary of the Cocoanut Grove fire and groundbreaking ceremony will be held Sunday at 1 p.m. at Statler Park, on Stuart Street, across from the Revere Hotel.
