MFDJ 12/04/23: Royal Beach Hotel Fire

Today’s Dark Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

In the roaring twenties, the Royal Beach Hotel in Chicago had been a fashionable venue, home to young singles and married couples lured to the bright lights and bustle of Uptown. During the Jazz Age years, the densely-populated north side neighborhood was one of the largest retail and entertainment districts outside the Loop, boasting speakeasies, movie theaters, dance halls, and jazz joints. Among the better-known was the splendid Aragon Ballroom on Lawrence Avenue and, just around the corner on Broadway, the famed Green Mill nightclub that had once been run by mobster Machine Gun Jack McGurn. Nightlife aside, Uptown had also served briefly as the center of the fledgling moving picture industry. Prior to 1918, before filmmakers moved to California, many movies were shot at the Essanay film studio on Argyle Street, including pictures starring Charlie Chaplin, Gloria Swanson, and Wallace Beery.

But the Depression years delivered hard times to Uptown, and as its allure faded, the once glamorous neighborhood became a forsaken transient district. After World War II, southern blacks, Appalachian whites, and Native Americans moved into the area, drawn by the cheap rents of an abundant stock of rooming houses, residence hotels, and apartment buildings. By 1981, Uptown rivaled that of any urban tenderloin: taverns, currency exchanges, and cut-rate stores lined its streets while its alleys and dark corners were frequented by pimps, prostitutes, thieves and dope-pushers. Uptown was also one of Chicago’s most arson-plagued neighborhoods, many of the fires the result of insurance fraud schemes in which building owners hired professionals to burn down dilapidated structures and then collected large cash settlements. In 1979, six people lost their lives in one such apartment building fire.

The once stylish Royal Beach was not untouched by the downfall of Uptown. It had become just another apartment hotel. Though several elderly men and women on public aid lived there, it was also home to recovering alcoholics, drug addicts, prostitutes, the unemployed, and the mentally ill.

On March 14, 1981, residents were still asleep in the hotel at 5523 N. Kenmore when smoke began to fill the hallways at 3 A.M. Someone finally noticed it and starting screaming, alerting the residents. By the time they realized what was happening, flames and smoke were spreading rapidly throughout the four-story hotel. Panic caused by the fire was heightened when the electricity failed, plunging the building into darkness, leaving occupants to grope their way through the smoke in search of an exit.

When the closest firefighters pulled up in front of the Royal Beach they went right to work, throwing up ladders to panicky residents hanging out windows. But as they scrambled to save those trapped inside, flames and smoke thwarted their efforts by cutting off escape for many tenants and forcing some to jump. After stretching hoselines through the building and positioning a snorkel in the alley next to the hotel, firefighters gained the upper hand by extinguishing the main body of fire. But when they conducted a room-by-room search, instead of survivors they found unconscious and lifeless bodies. Most of the victims had been asphyxiated by dense smoke. Nineteen were dead and 14 injured.

The cause of the fire was attributed not to the actions of any resident but to faulty electrical wiring in a first-floor laundry room. Fire officials also suspected that a second point of origin might have been in the rear stairwell, though this was never officially determined due to the extent of the damage. Investigators did reveal that the hotel’s management had been in and out of housing court for numerous building code violations. The Royal Beach had no sprinkler system, and because smoke detectors in the building reportedly failed to operate, many occupants were unaware of the fire until it was too late. As in previous hotel fires, some of the Royal Beach victims were never identified because they lacked proper identification and had no known family.

Culled from: Great Chicago Fires: Historic Blazes That Shaped a City

The Royal Beach Hotel building is still there, interestingly enough.

 

Morbid Mirth Du Jour!

Whilst antiquing one day I stumbled across a copy of ‘Slovenly Peter’ (aka Der Struwwelpeter aka “Shock-headed Peter”), an 1845 German children’s book by Heinrich Hoffmann. Per Wikipedia: : “It comprises ten illustrated and rhymed stories, mostly about children. Each has a clear moral that demonstrates the disastrous consequences of misbehavior in an exaggerated way.  The title of the first story provides the title of the whole book. Der Struwwelpeter is one of the earliest books for children that combines visual and verbal narratives in a book format, and is considered a precursor to comic books.”

Here’s one of the jolly stories: The Story of Cruel Frederick!

And here are the words for our visually-impaired patrons:

The Story of Cruel Frederick

This Frederick! this Frederick!
A naughty, wicked boy was he;
He caught the flies, poor little things,
And then tore off their tiny wings;
He kill’d the birds, and broke the chairs,
And threw the kitten down the stairs;
And oh! far worse and worse,
He whipp’d his good and gentle nurse!

The trough was full, and faithful Tray
Came out to drink one sultry day;
He wagg’d his tail, and wet his lip,
When cruel Fred snatch’d up a whip,
And whipp’d poor Tray till he was sore,
And kick’d and whipp’d him more and more;
At  this, good Tray grew very red,
And growl’d and bit him till he bled;
Then you should only have been by,
To see how Fred did scream and cry!

So Frederick had to go to bed;
His leg was very sore and red!
The Doctor came and shook his head,
And made a very great to-do,
And give him bitter physic too.

But good dog Tray is happy now;
He has no time to say “bow-wow!”
He seats himself in Frederick’s chair,
And laughs to see the nice things there:
The soup he swallows, sup by sup,—
And eats the pies and puddings up.

 

Andersonville Prisoner Diary Entry Du Jour!

This is the continuation of the 1864 diary of Andersonville prisoner Private George A. Hitchcock (see the archived version for all entries up until now).

Here’s today’s entry:

August 22d. To-night finds me better able to write. I feel that I have been very near to death’s door. The weather has continued hot as ever, and my diarrhea, which took the form of dysentery, made me nearly helpless. Then my head ached till I thought I should become crazy. I thought of the regiment as the 19th of August came round, when I suppose they were to be mustered out. My spirits went down to zero as I thought of the prospect of my old comrades compared with my own. Oh, that the old pale horse would not stare me in the face so hard and so constantly. Yesterday I felt that my pluck had nearly vanished, and it seemed as if the only hold on life which I had was in the comfort derived from the previous words which I read, “My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him, for whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth.” Shep has been very kind, and I feel thankful that my prayers have been answered and I am really better. The mortality on these cold, wet nights is terrible. A large prayer-meeting was held on the flat in the evening. Rations of corn-bread, beans, and molasses.

Culled from: Andersonville: Giving Up the Ghost