The Pickwick Club Disaster

Yay. And you know it's crazy. We don't have any business. Nope, this is. No real business.

No. And I sound more like a real person this time. Yeah. You know somebody literally said who

“narrated the last one. Yeah. And the thing is this is why you need to listen to the beginning of the”

episode because they told you this is where we tell you if one of us is sick we might sound a little weird or like you know I just have this coming out like who the fuck was. I'm sorry okay. I don't want to tell you and I think somebody else was like what happened Ash's voice and I was like if you listen to the beginning we said one of my babes only so many things can happen. Yeah. I don't know Ursula visited me in the night and took it like was listen to the beginning. Come on. It's just us chat and

would be up. It's us trying to match up with you. That's all I tell you just going on. I'm trying

to connect but that's all. We won't connect this time because there's no business. I'm not sick. No, anymore just hot. The only thing I can say is get tickets to the live show while they're available. Mother Haught, radio city music called June 27th. For some reason I keep saying like get it while it's hot and I keep thinking of success in the city thing. Get it well it's hot. It's one of the most cringy clips ever because it's when she's dressed in like a collision and she's holding the

McDonald's right. Yeah. Get it while it's hot. I don't know why it's been like my vocal stump lately. I love that a lot. So get them while they're hot. And get your us into racing. Yeah, do that. And pre-order what you're legacy. Yeah, get that while it's while it's hot. Do it.

“It's great. It's I promise. That's my guarantee. That's great. It's a great. You should put that on the”

cover. A little period to the trilogy. I like it. So, so go. Not an ellipsis, a period, a trilogy. Okay. Didn't say to the series of the trilogy. All right. I see what you're doing. It's a little story. I like that. Yeah. All right. But that's it. So here we are. We're going to start. All right. Today we're going to talk about something that I think needs to be taught to more people. This thing that happened, especially people in Massachusetts, because I didn't know about this.

And I was like, hi, boring race. Am I going to know about this? What? No. Absolutely not. Okay. Because like, I don't think most people don't know. Yeah. Because the other thing about this, we're talking about the Pickwick Club disaster. And there's also what I found out at the end was there's no plaque or memorial for this. What's the hell? Yeah. So I think we need to like try to make that happen because I feel like it needs to happen. Yeah. A lot of people. Because you didn't

“you're saying that I don't think I've heard about. And I think that's why a lot of people don't know about it.”

Because there's nothing. No, like, oh, no matter you existed at all. That's really good. So we need to make that happen. Yeah. I love you Boston. Let's do this. Do it. Damn. We're, we'll try for the coconut grove. Fire. Yeah. There is a memorial. Yeah. And like if you take a duck tour, they talk about the coconut grove. But I don't think they talk about this one. We need one for the Pickwick. There's a lot of people who died in this. And it was pretty rough. Oh, no. Yeah. Again, I have not heard of this.

Yeah. So let's begin. Shall we? On Beach Street in Boston's Theada District. Yeah. In 1924, Highman Bloomberg found himself trying to sell off a now defunct cafe-dreyfus. What's a cafe-dreyfus? The fuck. So the cafe-dreyfus was a club. It was like a place where you could gather in 1924. Okay. It was actually kind of like a speedy-ish kind of thing because we're loved by that. In the 20s. And it had closed amidst kind of scandal. And some legal issues. I don't love legal issues.

Enough going on. So after finding trouble getting anyone to bite at the building,

a man named Timothy Barry expressed interest. He said, "I want to rent the first floor."

Who's place? And Barry told Bloomberg, he and several of his investors, were interested in opening a new social club. Show sure it's a social club. A club where you chat, where you become social, and have a little drink. And they were only waiting on the city to approve their charter. Okay. So they wanted the building. And desperate for a tenant, Bloomberg wasn't in the position to turn anyone away. So he was like, "Hall, yeah, you can take

that space." Okay. Now the pick-wicked club, social club, opened in April, and occupied the first floor. Again, what did one spin, cafe-dreyfus? It's unknown whether highman Bloomberg knew anything about

have been so eager, perhaps. In 1924, Timothy Barry was, according to author John Keith,

known as, quote, "a man who had many friends in Boston, political, legal, and newspaper circles." Okay. And other words, he was a man of power, strongly suspected of having ties to organized crime. Oh. Now opening the business at the height of the prohibition era, the pick-wicked was officially a social club quote-unquote, because those were like official things. Okay. But in truth, it was really a speed-easy. Okay. Like it was a speed-easy. Yeah. In fact, as a social club,

the pick-wicked, like, by definition, as a social club, was supposed to have strict rules for

“membership. That's what a social club had. I'm obsessed. But in reality, anyone could get in.”

I love that. As long as they knew what to say to the man at the door, top it. Which is speed-easy. I'm so obsessed with that. Now, ever been to a speed-easy? Yes, I'm so much fun. It's just, it's got such a vibe. That's the thing. Like, if it's dangerous, we're like, not great for women. Like, not great for like many people. Mm-hmm. Not great. Uh, the vibe, though? The aesthetic? Yeah. That's all I say when I say I love the 20s. Yeah. I don't want to be there.

No. I want to visit. I want us to put like, I want us to like dress like we're in the 20s again. And for places to look like we're in the 20s. That's what I want. But to have modern day respect and understanding of community culture. I want. That's exactly what I want. I want what we thought that the 2020s was going to be. Remember when we all entered 2020, and we said, it's the raw and 20s. Yeah. You said to shiver down my sponge. And we also said,

I'm so excited. It's the raw and 20s back again. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, COVID was like, fuck y'all. Literally. I want to do that. I want to do the original things that we want. Because that's sucked. Yeah. Uh, but yeah. The 1920s, the aesthetic is just barnishing. Chefs can be the best. Like, the dress and the hairstyle. The way men dressed. Oh my god. I know. I can't. I love it. I don't love the makeup. I will say. Um, it depends. I don't hate it. I don't like the eyebrows.

The eyebrows leave something to be designed. I really don't like the eyebrows. But for someone with

“really light eyebrows, like that are like sparse. Yeah. I think I would do okay. All right.”

Because I really have to follow my name. You have that eyebrows. So I feel like, I think you, I feel the men, but they look good. I wouldn't have to do in the 20s. That's true. It's raw lines. It's literally just online. Which, so it expands a lot of your forehead. Hell yeah.

Now at first, the pic-wicked garnered little attention from anyone outside of the neighborhood,

then in January of 1925, the club appeared in the headlines for the first time. When a police raid turned up dozens of cases of rum, whiskey, engine, hidden in the basement. Yikes. They arrested the bartender, Max Malmatt, and shut the police down for a few days. But by early February, Max got off with a small fine, and the pic-wicked opened its doors for business again. Now the pic-wicked, and I feel like that probably gave it like a little bit of like a, like, yeah,

“dust off your shoulder, exactly. It was like, oh, okay. The pic-wicked club wasn't that different”

from the countless other species in Boston at the time, but after having been raided and found to be serving alcohol, all of a sudden they jumped very quickly to the top of the Boston police and licensing commissions list of establishments to keep a nice lie on for that year. But doesn't like I have a little connection? He does. All right, sure does. Now in fact, just hours after Max paid his fine at the courthouse, the Boston police arrived at the pic-wicked to undertake another raid.

Oh, that's not cool. That is a cool game. He just paid.

Do you know the second round? I want to live. This time, though, things would not go as smoothly

as they had on the previous occasion when they entered the club and announced themselves the entire rum erupted into chaos. Oh my god. By the time the whole thing came to an end, nine men were arrested on charges of public drunkenness, and one man, 29-year-old William Fitzenry, was arrested for assaulting an officer. Damn. Of course, William Fitzenry was arrested for assaulting William Fitzenry in Boston. He's assaulting a police officer, too, this day.

His phone pops. Fitzenry is the most fucking Irish name with Boston name I could ever hear. Now, according to the Boston Globe, can one of the police, quote, "dropped in unexpectedly at the club, there was considerable excitement, and that while the excitement was at a tight Fitzenry struck the officer, knocking him down in almost rendering him uncomfortable. If there's one thing, Fitzenry is going to do, it's not your ass. That's one thing. Now, less than a month later,

the pick-wake was back on the front pages. When a group of drunken men led police on a two-mile

to force the car off the road and take them into custody. They had all been drinking at the

pick-wake, the prior to getting in the car. And a few days after that, police were called to the club, to the club, to the club. And then fight broke out. They said, "Everybody in the club is fighting." They all. Now, the police had been called to buy a nurse from the hay market relief station after she treated a man who told her he'd been stabbed in the leg during a brawl at the pick-wake. Tim, the pick-wake is not the pick-wake. The pick-wake goes crazy. The pick-wake is not found around.

When the officers arrived at the pick-wake, they entered to find a room full of drunk and very bulleture. I don't know why this is. It's just so fucking Boston. It's just so Boston. Like, this part is funny. Yeah. Because it's just chaos. It's just everybody's drinking.

Yeah, it's just pure, just chicaneery. I love it. No, so they come in. They find a bunch of

drug belligerent men who are no mood to see much less talk to the police. According to the police report, one of the officers told the men to beat it. But no one made an attempt to leave. No, no, no. I don't think they were like, fuck, I said you beat it, bitch. You beat it, fly you in here, you beat it, castrated. One of the officers attempted to arrest one of the drunk men, which is when the scene just exploded into what the press described as, quote, "a small riot

in the pick-wake club." Oh, no. As one of the officers grappled with the drunk men, the other ran down the street to the nearest precinct for reinforcements, and the scene was brought into order a short time later. But with so many incidents, in less than a year. Yeah. This is all less than a year. That's the craziest thing. The pick-wake had started to gain a reputation with the public as so. Maybe a little CD. Yeah. Maybe a little tough spot. It'll repute, you know?

Maybe. I don't remember. What have you? One reporter wrote, "Many people have regarded it as sort of an underworld social center." Obsessed. A place where bandits and their girlfriends, my gather after the evening's work was over. Sign me the fuck up. I said, "Are you trying to

“keep people away?" Sign me up. Oh, my band, it's in their girlfriends. Here's the thing. When I was”

like 12 years old, I literally wanted to be a mobwife. I used to watch mob lives, and I said, "Sobday, I will grow up and be treated a van." Oh, yeah. So back then. Oh, yeah. Like, on my front door was developed. For the front door was developed and you realized what that melted. Back then. Oh, I would have loved this. Yeah. I would have been a band, it's girlfriend. Now, some of this reputation definitely came from the numerous times that the club's name had appeared

in the papers with a rest in criminal activity. But at least a small portion of it was likely the result of the rumors of Timothy and Daniel Barry's connections to organized crime figures as well. Whatever the case though, the reputation and the frequent visits from the BPD started to take a toll on the Pickwick's profits. And in March, Barry announced the club was going to be shedding its doors for good. Oh, no. Now, the Pickwick club did in fact shut down in March.

“But the entire closure kind of looks like it was like a little bit of theater. Was it a roost?”

It looks like it was a little bit of theater. Oh, it just looked like a district as well. The theater district, maybe to rehab the club's image and kind of like rebuff the attention of local law enforcement. Okay. Just a few weeks after the club supposedly closed for good. A new establishment, the Greenwich Village Club opened in its place. Okay. With a large number of invitations going out to prominent members of the community. In reality, this was just a facade to hide the fact that

the Pickwick club had simply moved to the second floor and guests who appeared to be visiting the

Greenwich Village Club. We're in fact going to the Pickwick club. I'm so obsessed with that. It's so shady. I love a roost. Now, unfortunately for the patrons of the new Pickwick club, the second floor of the building had no restrooms. So clubgoers had to either go to the first or third floor to go to the bathroom. Okay. And at some point, late March, a fire broke out at the Taylor shop. That was on the third floor. Oh, no. The fire caused a lot of damage to the upper floors

and required about 3,000 gallons of water to put out. Holy shit. Fortunately, the first and second floors of the building were relatively unharmed. So the Pickwick club was able to remain open. Okay. That said, the firefighters had to chop large holes. I almost, because we're talking about Boston. I feel like my son would. I almost just said, "lodge holes, lots of holes." But I've I've curbed it for this podcast. Like, I feel like talking. I know. I've trained myself not to be

“like full, but you can. That this one feels like I'm like chop large holes. You have to. It's”

the ambiance. It just feels right. The firefighters had to chop large holes. It just did in various paths of the floor. Just to allow the water to drain properly into the basement. Okay. A few weeks later,

we could have done better than that. Now, the Granted Village Club never reopened after the fire.

“And the tailor who shop had started the fire had moved elsewhere. Leaving the Pickwick Club,”

the only business in the building in the summer, which is like, all right, let's go. Yeah. The next time the club appeared in the press, it was to be for far more shocking reasons than a small fire or a quote unquote small riot. Oh, no. Now, in the evening of July 4th, it was like July 3rd, in July 4th, 1925. The Pickwick Club opened its doors for the before the 4th dance. Okay. Being held that evening in celebration of you guessed it in Independence Day.

America's birthday. Yeah, having hired a five-piece orchestra and freshly decorated for the occasion. That doesn't sound CD at all. No, Berry expected a large crowd that evening. And once the evening going, his expectations were exceeded. Okay. It was just to the gills. Muscleen. Now, that evening, 29-year-old May Lawson was out on a date with John Owen and things were going well. Hell yeah. What John told reporters later was Mrs. Lawson had recently separated from her husband.

They hadn't been married very long, and she was broken-hearted, and I knew she liked to dance, and I urged her to accompany me to the club. Oh, no. Now, John wasn't much of a dancer himself. So he had no objections when another man came over to the table and asked May to dance. He said, "Sure, you can dance." Oh. That's a man, right? That's nice. It was after midnight, and the band had just begun playing 12th Street Rag, a song perfectly suited for the Charleston,

which was the most popular dance I've seen. I love the Charleston. Everybody do the Charleston room. Obsessed. Now, as the band wound up, couples from every corner of the room were going to the floor, the room was shaking with the enthusiasm of so many people jumping, moving, dancing, doing that. The same moves, so the same jumps, the same stomps, all at the same time. No. Juno and recalled later, it was pretty wild in their horns and rattles and firecrackers, too.

“Firecrackers in sight, and throwing them all night. In sight? Yeah. You guys are right?”

No. The light-hearted mood in the Pickwick that night was kind of uncommon for this place, because I'm sure you can tell. Because you usually be bored when you're signing. Like, we're Gary, it's just like Johnty. It's enthusiastic, Johnty kind of mood.

Since the first raid in January, there was always the potential for the police or some other

city authority to come by any time and break up a party. So things were generally fairly chill before this, but that night, everyone was in good spirits. There was no sign of the police anywhere, and a raid was kind of like the furthest thing and from anyone's mind. They were busy, you know. They were having fun. It sounds like it was a great time. Now, the party was scheduled to shut down at four a.m. That's a party. I was going to say Boston doesn't do that anymore. They do not see

you get out of there at one. Yep. No. So around 3.30 a.m., the orchestra leader Billy Glennon,

“which of course, Billy Glennon, we all know him. Yeah, I was going to say I think I knew Billy Glennon.”

Who doesn't? He started looking through a sheet music for one last song to send everybody on their way. Nice. He later said, I was just about to pick out the last piece we were going to play. When Rocco yelled at me that the lights looked in. I said, gee, yeah, they do. Then the porter said to me, look at the sand coming down from the ceiling. What? Glennon's brother Jimmy was the manager, the club. Of course, Jimmy Glennon was the manager. Yeah, duh. So Billy knew about the fire and how

the firefighters had hacked holes into the floors to allow for drainage. And that's since then, the holes had been covered over with cheap trap doors to allow for drainage of heavy rain. It had rained heavily in recent days. So Billy figured the dust and plaster drifting down from the ceiling must have been caused by the recent rains and the building was just resettling. You know, yeah, how great. Billy Glennon went back to sifting through a sheet music. Then just a

few seconds later, he heard an alarming sound shoot through the room. He later said in a couple of seconds, there was a ripping, tearing noise. And I saw the ceiling start to fall in. And the wall on the left of the front of the room seemed to move. What? Then the lights went out. And there was a terrible crash. Oh my god. Now Cambridge cab driver Tom Garvey had arrived just before the collapse. And was standing at the far side of the room waiting on a fair, who had gone to get their

coat from the coat check. He said, I looked over at the corner and I saw everyone jump up.

I thought it was a fight at first. And all of a sudden, there was a big noise in the lights when

out. The next thing I knew I was lying down with things pressing onto my back inside. Oh, god.

into the floor, and he's like choking on dust in debris. What the fuck? He said a lot of things went

“through my head. I could hear people fighting to get out when someone grabbed hold of me.”

Tom Garvey was close to the door, so it was easy for whoever grabbed him to pull him to safety, which like thank anything. But those stuck inside were in a much more dire situation.

John Owen, who we talked about before, said a second after the collapse the room was filled with

streaks. And the floor on one side started to give way. And the dancing couples were thrown into a gaping wound in the floor. What the fuck? I turned around just in time to see Mrs. Lawson and her partner disappear through the floor. Oh my god. He made his way to where his date was or had just been. But when he looked into the hole in the floor, he said all he saw was blackness. Just a black hole. He said he turned to crawl back to where he had just been. And he found there was nothing for him to

hold on to as the floor beneath him started to crumble. Second slater, he too was swallowed up by the cavernous hole. What the hell is going on? Having been in the pic with countless times before this, Billy Glennon knew the layout and was able to get himself and several others to the office near

“the back of the club. He said, I don't remember just how I got out through the office window or who went”

before me. Johnny Donovan, our drummer, got out all right and so did Frank Mulvey, the piano player. Outside, he looked around for his brother Jimmy in the rest of the band, but he couldn't see any of them anywhere. Then to his absolute horror, he said he looked back at the disaster where he just escaped from and the entire building collapsed on itself. Oh my god. He said after the thing went down, there was absolute silence. That was one of the darnedest things about it. No yelling

or anything after the play settled. We knew there must be a lot of people in there, but none of them let out a yep. It was just as still as if the place was shut up. That's a nightmare. Isn't that bone chill? That's a nightmare. At a certain point, the stories of the survivors all kind of sound similar, like one part person watches in horror as their date, their friend or stranger who had just been sitting next to them, loses their balance and disappears into the dark cavernous hole in

“the floor. Eddie Whalen watched helplessly as his friend John McLaughlin slid into the hole in the floor.”

The same was true for Frank and Virginia Vera. The couple had just been in the hall when this floor started to give way. Virginia managed to make it to the front door unharmed, but when she turned back to grab her husband, Frank was gone. Virginia Vera was very likely the last person to make it out through the front door when the building came down. Wow. Now in the darkness of the wreckage on the

first floor, it took some time, but eventually John Owen regained his senses and came out of the days

that followed the fall. He said five minutes went by, which seemed like hours to me. When finally the police rescued me and I was taken to safety with the cries of injured and screams for help coming from all corners. Now being in the heart of the city, it didn't take long for emergency responders to arrive at the scene. That's good. Seconds after the collapse began, the dormant Rocco scar parto ran out into the street and started shouting for help. Before running back

inside to help get others out, Rocco was in the building when the floor gave way and suffered a minor injury to his knee. But his yelling in the street prompted a local beat officer to trigger the alarm box on Mason Street, which drew the men from the local firehouse to come. That was good. When the building came down, there was roughly a hundred or so people in the pick wick. Oh my god. By the time rescue crews came, about half of those inside had made it out, but many, many more

remained trapped in the rubble. With four stories of building on top of them now. That is unthinkable. The men were quickly to reach the injured, who they located now from the screams that were finally happening beneath the debris. The sound of those trapped beneath the rubbles was among the most troubling aspects of the scene. According to everybody who talked about it later, I'm sure. Survival Ethel Conlon said, "I couldn't get them out of my mind for days."

They were just awful. The PTSD that you would suffer after something like that. I can't even imagine. No. It took nearly 100 men hours of digging in their pitch dark conditions, but finally the first bodies. Four men and two women were found in a pocket in the corner of the building. A short time later, Boston Mayor James Curley arrived at the scene and seeing the catastrophe sent a request for 100 more firefighters. Now at the time of the collapse, rescue workers

were limited in terms of the equipment available to really help recover survivors. Although

motorized vehicles did exist, few if any were strong enough to handle the incredible weight of

four stories of trapped debris and 50 people underneath it. Instead, workers had to move slowly and methodically through the wreckage looking for survivors. And when they found one, they had to

eight had been working for about half an hour when he came upon a rusty chieva. He was alive,

“but pinned beneath two giant timbers that left no room for Doyle to get a hold of him. Instead,”

Doyle tied a rope around his waist and attempted to pull him out. But immediately after he started pulling, uh, chieva cried out, "Stop your tearing me apart. You're going to kill me." Oh my god. He stopped and he tried to kind of like use your asian a little bit. And with no other ways of

getting him out of here, he waited a few seconds and then he gave the rope one more yank and ultimately

he did free him. Okay good. But then the timbers did allow for him to like scoose him out kind of thing like this. Like he didn't get torn in half. Now he probably had so many broken bones. That's probably why he felt like that. Exactly. And it was probably like actually pulling him apart at that point. So after he had saved chieva, he Doyle climbed back into the debris and began feeling his way through looking for survivors. And after a few minutes his hand fell upon what felt like a woman's

“leg and he called out to her, but he got no response. A few minutes later, he'd removed enough to”

breathe to get up aside her, which is who when he realized the woman was dead. And he said this woman's spine was snapped backwards at a 90 degree angle. Oh my god. Which I can't imagine. I can't even picture that after more than an hour digging around an hour, digging around looking like through

the rumble for survivors. Yeah. Larry Doyle had breathed in an incredible amount of dust into

debris. And he was having trouble breathing. But he insisted there were more people trapped inside and he was ready to go back in. It was only after he collapsed from exhaustion and respiratory trouble that he finally agreed to be seen by a doctor at the nearest hospital. And even then it took four other firefighters to keep him from going back into the wreck after they let him out. I want to hear a Larry Doyle for real. Now, given the size and scope of the disaster, the rescue operation

“quickly turned into what the press called, a quote, "all helpers volunteer event," meaning anyone”

with expertise was encouraged to come out and lend a hand. While most who pitched in word emergency responders, city workers, construction crews, there was also a lot of doctors, nurses, and paramedics that came to the site as first responders. In one case, Dr. Michael Garity, a Boston city hospital, crawled down to a man who was trapped under the rubble as a result of his finger being hopelessly stuck between two pieces of concrete. Oh my god, this is insane. After applying a local anesthetic,

Dr. Garity was able to amputate his finger and the man was pulled to safely and taken to the hospital. You gotta be kidding me. Dr. Garity crawled into the rubble and safely performed an amputation. That's next level. In 1925. In total darkness. That's next fucking level. That's a fucking doctor. Other doctors from the city hospital were at the scene performing similar rescues in near darkness. All while several hundred or even thousands of pounds, a precarious

rubble ominously cracked and groaned around them. And they're performing amputations to save

people. That's incredible. Now eventually the cries and pleas from the injured started to quiet

until finally they couldn't be heard at all. By the time the sun came up, there were still at least 50 people reported missing that the consensus belief was that if they were still in the rubble, they probably wouldn't be found alive. That morning the first report of the collapse went out on the front page of the Boston Daily Globe announcing 12 confirmed dead. But by the time the rescue operation was complete, the death toll rose to 44. The countless others injured. Now when news of

the accident started spreading around the city, some people showed up to volunteer or offer support, like Reverend Lawrence Morris from St. James Church, arrived at the site to provide last rights to the victims. While others brought food and other essentials to help volunteers, there were many others, however, who simply showed up to the scene to take a look. That's so gross. The work of digging out the ruins went on for several days and by the second day, thousands had

come to see the scene. Some in hopes of finding a missing relative, of course. But most just to see the wreckage. Lucky loose. Yeah. Now according to the press, quote, "There was no disorder, no wild attempts to break the police line, no noise." Let's go. Somehow the crowds even forebore to push an elbow each other to get a better point of advantage. So they were at least like chill. Yeah. Now they were just there to take in the tragedy of an unimaginable thing that had happened.

I don't know why you would want to see that. When asked for comment about the crowds, one officer tasked with guarding the site said, "If they had to do this for pay, they'd wish they were somewhere else. They can't see anything." And they fought too far away to even hear what's

serious questions of accountability were being raised by those imposition of power.

“Yeah. Building Commissioner John Mahoney had long lamented the crumbling buildings in Boston,”

and suspected that might be the cause. I would think that would be a peace part of it. Mayor James Curley, on the other hand, blamed the collapse on overcrowding. In a public and a statement of the public, he said, "Considering the fact that no official with authority to prevent overcrowding was present in the building, it is most probable that the club management taking advantage of the night before crowds, seeking unrestrained freedom in their pursuit

of pleasure, readily accepted all who came to the club after the closing of the property licensed amusement places in Boston." Now at the time, it would have been impossible for the mayor or anyone else to make such a definitive statement on the cause of the accident since an investigation into the cause had not even begun. Yes, everybody was just kind of guessing. But his statements,

“James Curley statements reflect the widespread, convey conservative perspective in Boston that”

you'd nightclubs, dance halls, and other similar spaces as contributing to immorality. Now the following day, the globe offered a different perspective, and potential cause of the collapse. This time, from someone who is inside the building in the UK, according to Frank Decker, one of the singers performing in the club that night. It was, quote, "the steady swaying of the dancers and their stamping of feet," as they all performed the Charleston that could have caused

the collapse. He said, "Imagine the force of 50 couples leaping up and down in unison, the heavy trampling set the floor swaying than it cracked. I paid no attention to this shark crack at the moment, as I thought someone had set off a firecracker, but the real meaning of it came to me a moment later." Now in retrospect, Frank Decker's theory that dancing had caused the

“collapse might seem like kind of silly. Since most buildings are designed to withstand a far greater”

shock than horse, a few dozen people dancing, but what we know now that there was like trap doors in that kind of thing, that's the thing. At the time, it seemed intuitive to Bostonians following the story in the press and remained a popular urban legend long after the real cause had been revealed that it was dancing the Charleston. That caused the collapse. No, no, another Charleston was cursed. Yeah, that was cursed. Now, during one of the trials that followed the incident,

one of the structural engineers tasked with evaluating the building testified and said, "As the steady pounding of feet continued, the wooden jouse under the linoleum floor began to vibrate. Structural engineers used the term mechanical resonance to describe what was happening." Under certain conditions, a suspended beam or cross-member will vibrate violently when when subjected to steady rhythmic oscillations. Those vibrations have been known to cause

catastrophic failures in bridges, buildings, and even airplanes. The Pickwick Club dancers knew nothing about resonance. They had no idea what was going on under their feet. Of course, before anyone could arrive at the accurate explanation for why the building collapsed, city workers needed clear away the rubble, which proved more challenging than expected. In addition to the expected difficulties of moving, you know, several tons of debris, the large crowds surrounding the area

was like a big challenge. Yeah. And while most of them were orderly and complied with police

directions, others were less respectful. People are always going to people. This is going to

rate you. On July 6th, just days after the collapse, police arrested one of the workers Angelo Cook. After he was seen stealing cash from the pockets of the few remaining dead bodies in the ruins, you got to be fucking kidding me. He was going to be dead people's wallets and stealing their money. That's a piece of shit. There's a special place in the lowest type of low. Yeah. That's the perfect retribution on that. It will reverberate

through generations of his family. Like fuck that. Wow. On July 7th, the majority of the ruins had been cleared from the scene. And the last of the bodies had been removed to go to the morgue for identification. Meanwhile, across the city, a grand jury was being convened to hear testimony and evaluate the evidence. That afternoon, after hearing some survivor testimony, district attorney Thomas O'Brien led the guard that was going to be in O'Brien.

There's got to be. He led the grand jury to the site so they could see the space from selves and view the foundation of the building. By that time, structural engineers had begun evaluating the building and suspected the collapse had not been caused by dancers. But by a

structural issue with the party wall, and I'll tell you what a party wall is. It's basically

Now, in the era when the drape-fest was built, buildings were often built to lean against one another

“as a source of stability. They were very close to each other. And that shared wall was the”

party wall between them. So it's almost like a condo. It was just like, they were just almost like a condo except it's not all the same building. Those buildings that are so close to each other based lean on each other for support. That's wild. Yeah. Now, in this case, the building next to the pic-wick had recently been torn down, thus removing a potentially significant source of support in the party wall. Based on their initial observations, the engineers suspected that that could

have been the reason for the collapse. Testifying before the grand jury, Harry Haven, one of the engineers in charge of the project, to be built next to the pic-wick, said there were concerns about

the structural integrity of the pic-wick building itself, and that those concerns had been shared

with the proper owners, but nothing had been done about it. Now, after several days of testimony in evidence, the grand jury indicted six individuals in the pic-wick case. The following were indicted on charges of manslaughter. Timothy Barry, the owner of the club. George Funk, the architect in charge of the buildings were pair-project, following the fire. And Simon Bloomberg, the owner of the building. Three others associated with the pic-wick club were indicted on

like lesser charges. Fair enough to me. Now a few days later, the grand jury reconvened and returned six more indictments for manslaughter against the architects involved in the restoration and construction projects, including Fritz Nathan, John Polts, John Tobin, Edward Romer, James Hendrick, and Lawrence Perkins. All nine men pleaded not guilty and their trials were scheduled for the following months. Now, given the high profile nature of the pic-wick case, everyone from the district attorney

to the mayor urged a speedy trial for those accused of manslaughter. If for no other reason, then to demonstrate that the city took the matter of unstable infrastructure very serious. Yeah. Now, just one week after the grand jury returned indictments for the accused, the trial against all 12 of the men began at Suffolk County Superior Court.

The first to testify was Chief of Police Daniel Sennett, who among several other individuals

who testified, they were testifying to the level of destruction caused by the fire that occurred on the third floor several months earlier. Okay. The consensus among those who spoke on the effect of the fire was that while the third floor had been, quote, very badly burned, the building itself remained structurally sound. Okay. Now, it's quite hard to, it is like to, I don't know, to feel comfortable. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Thank you. Now, according to Guy Emerson,

the expert for the prosecution, he said the collapse of the pic-wick club was due to the a failure of the concrete peers on the foundation due to a lack of lateral bracing on the east early side. Now, after the building beside the pic-wick was torn down, effectively making the party wall useless, Bloomberg hired a construction firm to add to the concrete peers to provide structural support. Okay. The party wall was going to be weak, but also you probably

should have closed on the club before, like, while that was going to happen. Well, also, the peers were very poorly built and weren't capable of supporting the 100,000 pounds that they were required to support. So that was useless. According to one of the evaluating engineers, one of the peers was, quote, "the rottenest piece of concrete I ever saw." There were pockets of gravel in the mixture. The cement was of poor quality, and there wasn't enough of it. The shotty craftsmanship of

the peers creating the perfect conditions for a kind of, quote, "domino-like collapse" under the

“right circumstances. Now, that's what's crazy about this. It's like this somewhat strange twist”

where it turned out that it wasn't one single theory. That was correct. A lot of them. Several were kind of working in combination with each other. The concrete peers had been poorly made and unprofessional installed. So when the music and the dancing reached its peak, it caused the pockets into which the peers had been placed to crumble and the peers to fall without the support from the concrete peers. The building simply collapsed into itself, unable to withstand the way.

Just picturing that is like, so this is the scariest thing, just like a building swallowing itself truly. It's like, when you see videos of like sinkholes, it's scary to me. I hate it. Now given the number of things that had to go wrong in order for the Pickwick Club to collapse, the jury was unable to agree that any of the men on trial were directly responsible for the tragedy,

“and all were found no guilty. It's because there was so many things that contributed to this. I think”

they didn't know who actually was up here. Maybe we could just say that everybody was then.

the jury, I would have joined in your verdict. There never was sufficient evidence that these

defendants had been willfully recklessly or want-only negligent. Okay. Now the acquittal of all 12 men was definitely a disappointment to the victim's family. Just hope to see someone responsible for the loss of the lives at the club. That night. In the years that followed a number of civil suits were filed in total $6.1 million, which is roughly $90 million in 2026. Wow. But the plaintiffs eventually settled for around $40,000 or $1,000 per life loss at the Pickwick Club.

I feel like that happens to you. It does. Now in the years that followed, the building was eventually repaired and reopened. From the 1960s and to the late 1980s, the building was home to the famous

naked eye cabaret until it was torn down and a parking garage was built on the site. It still remains.

Oh, a parking garage. As of now, there is no plaque or memorial to indicate the 44 people whose

“lives were lost that night. That's the bullshit. And again, few people remember or are aware”

that this actually happened. Well, the fact that it just became a parking garage? Yeah. I just feel like more should have been done to protect the site. Yeah. You know, in let me just now that we're at the end of this, I'm going to read the 44 people's names. Benjamin Alexander Ella Callie, Bert Chapman, William Cochran, Ralph Conggan, Michael Chifalo, Charles DeCostis, Francis Driscoll, Pauline Deluca, Jolato Lombardi, Wayne Mar, Mary McEaker,

Lillian McEisix, John McLaughlin, Francis McLean, Thomas McManus, Mary Moore, Max Melmett,

John Duffy, Mabel Dixon, Edward Flanagan, Clara Frederick, Patrick Galvin, James Glennon, Al Arthur Graham, William Grossman, Paul Halleron, Stewart Henderson, Edith Jordan, Loretta Keegan, Peggy Lawson, Margaret Murphy, John Murphy, William Murray, James Murray, Bart O'Donnell, Carl Pustlin, Jr., Joseph Fanniff, John Scales, Doris Stern, Frank Tilo, Frank Vera, Charles Whalen, and Esther Wilson. So sad that that many people lost their lives,

not like, yeah, it's really getting to me that there's no memorial that's nuts. And these, these are all like ranging from age 20 to, we have a 43 year old, we have a 42 year old, every thing in between. Yeah, it's like 20 to age is 20 to 43, everything in between. That's crazy. Yeah, a lot of 30 year olds, a lot of, you know, like people just haven't gone yet as young people, like it sucks. They weren't doing anything wrong. They were just

celebrating a holiday. Yeah, it's really sad. And I really hate that it doesn't have a plaque. I

“think that that that that that that parking garage needs to have a plaque. I think we should write”

to Mara Haley. I was like, I was looking up at a petition to do this and I think we are going to try to petition to do this. I just think it's right. I do too. And I don't like that. I didn't know that this was a thing. Yeah, we should be about this in school. Because you, I mean, you do learn about the coconut growth and like the molasses flood, you know, like I should all learn about the history. Like people lost their lives and the stuff we should know about it. Absolutely.

Especially Parking in Garage. You don't know that like underneath was the side of a, I really do really encourage it to be something else. We're going to see what we can do to petition. Yeah, we're going to try to talk tomorrow. We mean, we get some, we get some signatures. Yeah, let's go. We can start something up. We'll get some information gone in and hopefully update you next episode. Yeah, we'll let you guys know how it's going. That's like, that's our new, that's our right now.

We're going to do this. Yeah, we're planning a live show. We're planning a memorial. Exactly. Selling it. Fun fact. Played out was originally used as wallpaper cleaner. Huh. Yeah. He just rub it all over your world. I guess so. Does it still work? I don't know. I wonder. Let's look a little more into this. It's interesting. One wallpaper cleaner was originally invented as wallpaper cleaner. In the 1930s, Kutal products in Cincinnati, Ohio created a

pliable, non-toxic putty used to lift coal, set off of wallpaper. When home switched to cleaner heating after World War II, the company repurposed the cleaner as a toy, which became Played out. Wow, is that fun? Damn. That's cool. So it was like an accidental toy. Look at Played out. I love accidental invention. I do too. I remember eating Played out when you were a little eating Played out. It was so salty. Oh, yeah. I did, I remember eating Played out. Yeah, and I just remember the smell really.

“Oh, I can smell it right now because like the kids have Played out. Yeah. So I can still smell it. Played out?”

That's crazy because I mean it was after World War II that switched to made it a toy and our kids are still playing with Played out. Yeah. That's nuts. And it's so simple. Yeah. See? It's a simple

you can like make it like noodles. Yeah, it's like spaghetti. I love smashing it through something.

“But let's go play a Played out right now. Let's do that. All right. Well, um, we hope you”

keep listening and we hope you keep it weird. I don't know where that you don't go buy some Played

out right now and smash it. Yeah, just don't eat it anymore because you like I don't think that's

“supposed to. I'm sure it's not. It's probably fine, but like I don't know.”

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