Piedmont Park Square (Coconut Grove site) | 21 Piedmont Street | Bay Village

[393b40]

Walked by this morning. The corner of Church and Piedmont is being excavated and you can see the exposed foundation and interior walls of the Cocoanut Grove Melody Lounge. There is also a mysterious brick portal under the church street sidewalk.

Pretty cool. Someone with a camera should head down and take a picture or two over the next couple weeks. There may be some interesting pictures to be had with the old Cocoanut Grove foundation being exposed.

 

[kz1000ps]

So the Melody Lounge--the place where the fire started--partially lies under this tarp.

The remnants at this end are from an adjacent garage-type structure but were never a part of the Cocoanut Grove complex. And my guess on the archway is that it's an old coal chute or sidewalk-to-basement entrance.

Bricks and dirt are what's in the ground.

 

[393b40]

So the Melody Lounge--the place where the fire started--partially lies under this tarp.

Correct you are. I had to go look up the schematics online; I thought it extended all the way to Church Street and abutted Erbaluce.

Still interesting.

 

[kz1000ps]

Yeah, I think it's about time we clear up exactly where the dang thing was...

Aerial shot comes from the BPL Flickr set: https://www.flickr.com/photos/boston_public_library/sets/72157631071090782/
Floor plans come from here: http://www.bostonfirehistory.org/firestory11281942.html

Note the gable-roofed houses in the middle left of the block (partially inside the dark red outline because of perspective) and the backside of 212 Stuart... those are the buildings now at the corner of Cocoanut Grove Lane. Also note the garage at Church and Piedmont whose basement is currently being dug up:

First floor:

Basement...the Melody Lounge is where the fire started:

And the site overlay:

 

[FK4]

That's very cool. I posted a picture way back of how Broadway used to cross over the rail yards into the Bay Village. I didn't know that it actually connected to Stuart Street - it looks like the road that runs left to right in the upper part of the vintage pic, now long gone due to the parking garage, was Broadway. That would be very cool connectivity if you could go straight from Park Square to South Boston now. And very sad how much the Bay Village and its streets were obliterated by urban renewal. I haven't read much about that particular neighborhood during the urban renewal period, but clearly it is a very different place now than it was - looks like there were many more streets and a lot more commercial life back then.

Edit, link to the other post. Didn't really look at the Bay Village end of it before, much more density than now...
http://www.archboston.org/community/showthread.php?p=158576#post158576

 

[kz1000ps]

That road most certainly is Broadway, and it most certainly extended all the way up to Park Square and Boylston. Here's a side by side comparison with a 1958 topo map:

HistoricAerials.com is flippin' sweet, mmmkay?

 

[BeeLine]

https://www.flickr.com/photos/beelinebos/14430190840/

 

[kz1000ps]

 

[Padre Mike]

Thanks for all this great research, guys.

 

[datadyne007]

Kz, thanks for all the research, pix and links. Those floor plans drawn after the fact are beautiful yet so haunting reading all the notes about windows concealed by furred out walls and non-functional doors. A single 4-foot staircase as public egress is just mind boggling too. The Boston Fire History write-up of it is fascinating and I'd recommend it to anyone who hasn't clicked the link yet.

Thank god we have the NFPA now.

 

[393b40]

They have been taking their sweet time digging this hole... with two excavators on site now no less. That's got to be expensive.

 

[stellarfun]

They seem to be approaching this like its an archeological dig. I don't think its a matter of salvaging old bricks, more like being careful if they unearth something tied to the fire, it doesn't get tossed into the bed of the dump truck. Great research kz.

 

[kz1000ps]

Note the old casement window ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ V

And now they begin the dig into the CG property

 

[underground]

Someone should write a ghost story about construction raising the spirits of dead partiers to terrorize Boston with jazz standards until 6 AM. Someone get me Steven King on the phone!

 

[davem]

I think he'd only be interested I'd the Coconut Grove had been in Bangor, or something.

 

[RandomWalk]

It's interesting to see the unearthing of the garage foundations after a couple of decades buried under a parking lot. I suspect a lot of Detroit has similar ghosts lingering beneath its vacant lots.

 

[BeeLine]

https://www.flickr.com/photos/beelinebos/14719356589/


https://www.flickr.com/photos/beelinebos/14902942741/


https://www.flickr.com/photos/beelinebos/14883028726/

 

[kz1000ps]

OK, what have we here...

^ Looking back at the basement floor plan it seems we have the doorway out to the old alley as well as the grey bricked over hole for the fan. And it seems once the alley space was sold off the owners of the right-most townhouse tore down the party wall and put up a new concrete one. Also, note the concrete ledge just sticking out of the dirt... that would mark line between the Melody Lounge and the service hallway leading to the kitchen.

Lastly here's a column infilled with brick that would've marked the corner of the kitchen.

^ On this side would've been the utilities hookups and the stairway.

 

[kz1000ps]

And the guy next door...

 

[BeeLine]

rebar arriving and sampler being constructed

https://www.flickr.com/photos/beelinebos/15278410037/