Hotel Vendome fire
{{short description|1972 fire in Boston, Massachusetts}}
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{{Use American English|date=January 2025}}
File:Hotel Vendome, Boston, Mass. LC-D420-1979.jpg
The Hotel Vendome fire in the United States was the worst firefighting tragedy in Boston history. Nine firefighters were killed during the final stages of extinguishing a fire on June 17, 1972. The Hotel Vendome was on the southwest corner of the intersection of Commonwealth Avenue and Dartmouth Street, in the Back Bay area of Boston.
Background
The Vendome was a luxury hotel built in 1871 in Back Bay, just north of Copley Square. A massive expansion was undertaken in 1881 according to plans by architect J. F. Ober and completed in 1882.{{Cite web|url=http://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/Ryan'sII.htm|title=Ryan's Mammoth Collection Part II|last=Kuntz|first=Andrew|date=2005|website=www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/Ryan'sII.htm|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=}}
During the 1960s, the Vendome suffered four small fires.{{Citation | vauthors=((Juda, D.)) | year=1969 | title=Fire Forces 120 Out at Vendome | url=https://bostonglobe.newspapers.com/image/434651617/ | access-date=15 May 2024 | page=8}}
In 1971, the year of the original building's centennial, the Vendome was sold. The new owners opened a restaurant called Cafe Vendome on the first floor{{Citation | vauthors=((Spinazzola, A.)) | year=1972 | title=Let’s Eat Out / the Cafe Vendome | url=https://bostonglobe.newspapers.com/image/434846557/ | access-date=15 May 2024| page=19}}
and began renovating the remaining hotel into apartmentsBoston Fire Historical Society and a shopping mall.{{Citation | vauthors=((Yudis, A. Y.)) | year=1972 | title=Somerset another feather in "Pat" Franchi’s cap | url=https://bostonglobe.newspapers.com/image/435377204/ | access-date=15 May 2024 | pages=B1-B2}}
Fire and collapse
The building was largely empty the afternoon of Saturday June 17, 1972, except for a few people performing renovations. Approximately 100 patrons were in the Cafe Vendome and were evacuated shortly after the fire broke out.{{Citation | vauthors=((Abbott, J.)), ((Kindleberger, R.)) | year=1972 | title=7 firemen killed in Vendome blaze | url=https://bostonglobe.newspapers.com/image/435351939/ | access-date=15 May 2024|page=2}}
One of the workers discovered that a fire had begun in an enclosed space between the third and fourth floors, and at 2:35 p.m. rang Fire alarm call box 1571 at the intersection of Newbury and Dartmouth streets.{{Cite web|url=https://bostonfirehistory.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/51/2016/10/bookvendomewithoutwarning1972.pdf|title=Without Warning- A Report on the Vendome Hotel Fire|last=Vahey|first=John P.|date=1973|website=bostonfirehistory.org|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=}} A working fire was called in at 2:44 p.m., and subsequent alarms were rung at 2:46 p.m., 3:02 p.m., and 3:06 p.m. A total of 16 engine companies, five ladder companies, two aerial towers, and a heavy rescue company responded. Approximately 200 firefighters were at the scene.{{Citation | vauthors=((Robinson, W. V.)) | year=1972 | title=Soot, smoke, fear shroud rescuers | url=https://bostonglobe.newspapers.com/image/435351921/ | access-date=15 May 2024}}
The fire was largely under control by 4:30 p.m.. Several crews, including Boston Fire Department Ladder 13 and Engines 22 and 32, remained on scene performing overhaul and cleanup. At 5:28 p.m., without warning, all five floors of a {{convert|40|x|45|ft|m|adj=on}} section at the southeast corner of the building collapsed, burying Ladder 15 and 17 firefighters beneath a two-story pile of debris. Ladder 15 was wiped out completely. Nine of the firefighters died, making this the worst firefighting disaster in Boston history in terms of loss of life. The men who were killed were:
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- Firefighter Thomas W. Beckwith
- Firefighter Joseph F. Boucher
- Lieutenant Thomas J. Carroll
- Firefighter Charles E. Dolan
- Lieutenant John E. Hanbury Jr.
- Firefighter John E. Jameson
- Firefighter Richard B. Magee
- Firefighter Paul J. Murphy
- Firefighter Joseph P. Saniuk
}}
Aftermath
District Fire Chief John P. Vahey wrote a comprehensive report on the Vendome fire. Although the cause of the original fire was not known, the subsequent collapse was attributed to the failure of an overloaded {{convert|7|in|cm|adj=on}} steel column whose support had been weakened when a new duct had been cut beneath it, triggered by the weight of the firefighters and their equipment on the upper floors.
On June 17, 1997—the 25th anniversary of the Vendome fire—the Hotel Vendome Fire Memorial was dedicated on the Commonwealth Avenue Mall, a few yards from the site of the fire. The monument, designed by Cambridge sculptor Ted Clausen, features a fireman's helmet and coat cast in bronze draped over a low arc of dark granite. An inscription bears the timeline of the fire, the names of the men who died, and quotations from firefighters about firefighting.{{Citation | vauthors=((Leung, S.)) | year=1997 | title="We the living...remembering always" | url=https://bostonglobe.newspapers.com/image/441369189/ | access-date=15 May 2024 |page=20}}
One faces the site of the fire when reading the names.
After the fire, the Vendome was successfully renovated and re-opened in 1975, hosting 110 residential condominium units and 27 commercial units, including a restaurant.{{Citation | year=2020 | title=Barkan Management Adds The Vendome to its Portfolio of High-Profile Luxury Condominiums in Boston – Barkan Companies | url=https://www.barkanco.com/barkan-management-adds-the-vendome-to-its-portfolio-of-high-profile-luxury-condominiums-in-boston/ | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201024093946/https://www.barkanco.com/barkan-management-adds-the-vendome-to-its-portfolio-of-high-profile-luxury-condominiums-in-boston/ | archive-date=24 Oct 2020 | access-date=15 May 2024}}
References
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Additional sources
- Bunting, Bainbridge, Houses of Boston's Back Bay: An Architectural History, 1840-1917, 1967, {{ISBN|0-674-40901-9}}
- Moore, Barbara W. and Weesner, Gail, Back Bay: A Living Portrait, 1995, {{ISBN|0-9632077-3-3}}
- Sammarco, Anthony Mitchell, Images of America: Boston's Back Bay, 1997, {{ISBN|0-7524-0828-3}}
- Schorow, Stephanie, Boston on Fire: A history of Fires and Firefighting in Boston, 2003, {{ISBN|1-889833-44-4}}
- Shand-Tucci, Douglass, Built in Boston: City and Suburb 1800-1950, 1988, {{ISBN|0-87023-649-0}}
- Southworth, Susan & Michael. The Boston Society of Architects' AIA Guide to Boston, 1992, {{ISBN|0-87106-188-0}}
External links
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20060929200817/http://www.cityofboston.gov/fire/memorial/vendome_fire.asp Boston Fire Department web page about the Hotel Vendome fire] via Wayback Machine
- [https://josephbrooks.smugmug.com/Boston-Fire/Boston-Fire-2019/2019-06-17-Vendome-Memorial/ Vendome Memorial photos June 17, 2019] via SmugMug
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Category:1972 fires in the United States
Category:June 1972 in the United States
Category:Urban fires in the United States
Category:Hotel fires in the United States
Category:Building and structure collapses in 1972