Cocoanut Grove
The Cocoanut Grove was a restaurant and supper club located in downtown Boston, Massachusetts. The building was built in 1927 and was located near Park Square. The Grove, as it was called, had been very popular during the late 1920’s, but had come across hard times during the 1930’s. In the early years of World War II the restaurant became very popular again. In 1942, The Grove was the popular place to be and where everyone liked to hang out. The building was a single-story structure with a basement below. A bar, called the Melody Lounge, occupied the basement as well as the kitchen, freezers, and storage areas. Located on the first floor was a large dining room, a ballroom with a bandstand, and several bar areas separate from the ballroom. One of the features of the dining room was a retractable roof that allowed viewing of the moon and stars during the warmer months of operation. The main entrance was located on Piedmont Street and utilized a large revolving door.
On Saturday, November 28, 1942, the Boston College football team had lost in an upset to Holy Cross College played at Fenway Park. A famous Hollywood western movie star, Buck Jones, was in attendance at the game with Boston Mayor Maurice Tobin. Buck was persuaded by movie agents to attend the Grove for dinner that night despite feeling reluctant due to illness.
A busboy was ordered to fix a light bulb at the top of an artificial palm tree in the corner of the Melody Lounge at about 10:15pm. The bulb was thought to be unscrewed by a patron looking for more intimacy with his date. The busboy used a match to light up the area of the palm tree in order to locate the socket for the light bulb.
Moments later, several guests reported that they thought they saw a flicker of a flame in the palm tree. They started to notice that the decorations where changing color and appeared to be burning but