Community hub
Recent from talks
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Beverly Hills Supper Club fire
On the evening of May 28, 1977, a fire occurred at the Beverly Hills Supper Club in Southgate, Kentucky. With a total of 165 deaths and over 200 injuries, it is history's seventh deadliest nightclub fire.
The Beverly Hills Supper Club was a major attraction, less than 2.5 miles (4 km) outside Cincinnati, just across the Ohio River in Southgate, Kentucky, on US 27, near what would later become its interchange with Interstate 471. The club booked its entertainers from Las Vegas, Nashville, Hollywood, New York, and other show-business hubs. The site had been a popular nightspot and illegal gambling house as early as 1926. Ohio native Dean Martin had been a blackjack dealer there.
In 1967, organized crime figures Moe Dalitz, Morris Kleinman and Samuel A. Tucker sold The Beverly Hills Country Club to Joseph E. Cole, Sam W. Klein, Carl Glickman and two other men (one of whom has been linked to New Jersey mob boss Gerardo Catena), who, in 1974, sold to the Richard Schilling family.
In 1971, the club reopened under the then-current owners and management and was considered an elegant venue that attracted top-notch talent and affluent clientele.
Several additions had been built onto the original structure between 1970 and 1976, creating a sprawling, non-linear complex of function rooms and service areas. The resulting complex was roughly square, and though it was not situated in a north–south direction, reports of the fire have tended to use these as reference points when describing the complex. Assuming this system, the front entrance of the complex lay at the southern point of the compass. Along the central portion of the southern wall, to the east of the building entrance, was a small event room called the Zebra Room. A narrow corridor to the Zebra Room's east separated it from the Viennese Room and a series of service spaces, which ran northward along the building's eastern wall. This interior corridor terminated between the Garden Room, occupying the central portion of the north wall of the building, and the Cabaret Room, which jutted out from the northeastern corner of the building.
A smaller, branching corridor led from the internal corridor to an exit door that sat between the Garden Room and the Cabaret Room; to exit the building from the Cabaret Room using that corridor, a person would need to pass through a set of double doors into the main interior corridor, pass through a single door between the main interior corridor and the branching interior corridor, turn a sharp corner into the branching corridor, and proceed approximately one-quarter of the length of the Cabaret Room to the single door that connected the branching corridor to the exterior of the building. This complex navigation was not atypical for the building; a number of other event and services spaces were scattered throughout the rest of the building, with some rooms leading into each other, some leading into interior hallways, and some leading to the outside of the building. A partial second story covered approximately the southern third of the building, sitting above the main entrance, Zebra Room, and main dining room; it held two more small event rooms made of six smaller rooms conjoined, collectively labeled the Crystal Rooms.
Though the building's frame and ceiling tiling was classified as non-combustible, the Beverly Hills Supper Club made substantial use of wooden building materials, including floor joists for the two-story portion of the complex and framing on interior hallways. It was decorated throughout with highly flammable carpeting and wood wall paneling; event rooms also used wooden tables and supports, as well as tablecloths, curtains, and a variety of other small combustible materials. The building did not have a fire-suppression sprinkler system installed—at the time, these were not required in venues such as the Supper Club—nor did it have an alarm system or smoke detectors. In addition, the majority of the paths of egress in each event room led not to the outside of the building but to a variety of narrow interior corridors and service spaces.
On Saturday, May 28, 1977, the Beverly Hills Supper Club was operating beyond capacity, largely due to the popularity of that evening's Cabaret Room show featuring Hollywood singer and actor John Davidson. Based on its number of exits, the Cabaret Room could safely accommodate about 600 people, according to the calculations of the Fire Marshal. On that night it exceeded capacity, with people seated on ramps and in aisles. According to later estimates based on seating charts and memories of those present, the number of patrons in the Cabaret Room at 9:00 p.m. was between 900 and 1,300. Regardless of the exact number, sources agree that the room was beyond its safety capacity.
Hub AI
Beverly Hills Supper Club fire AI simulator
(@Beverly Hills Supper Club fire_simulator)
Beverly Hills Supper Club fire
On the evening of May 28, 1977, a fire occurred at the Beverly Hills Supper Club in Southgate, Kentucky. With a total of 165 deaths and over 200 injuries, it is history's seventh deadliest nightclub fire.
The Beverly Hills Supper Club was a major attraction, less than 2.5 miles (4 km) outside Cincinnati, just across the Ohio River in Southgate, Kentucky, on US 27, near what would later become its interchange with Interstate 471. The club booked its entertainers from Las Vegas, Nashville, Hollywood, New York, and other show-business hubs. The site had been a popular nightspot and illegal gambling house as early as 1926. Ohio native Dean Martin had been a blackjack dealer there.
In 1967, organized crime figures Moe Dalitz, Morris Kleinman and Samuel A. Tucker sold The Beverly Hills Country Club to Joseph E. Cole, Sam W. Klein, Carl Glickman and two other men (one of whom has been linked to New Jersey mob boss Gerardo Catena), who, in 1974, sold to the Richard Schilling family.
In 1971, the club reopened under the then-current owners and management and was considered an elegant venue that attracted top-notch talent and affluent clientele.
Several additions had been built onto the original structure between 1970 and 1976, creating a sprawling, non-linear complex of function rooms and service areas. The resulting complex was roughly square, and though it was not situated in a north–south direction, reports of the fire have tended to use these as reference points when describing the complex. Assuming this system, the front entrance of the complex lay at the southern point of the compass. Along the central portion of the southern wall, to the east of the building entrance, was a small event room called the Zebra Room. A narrow corridor to the Zebra Room's east separated it from the Viennese Room and a series of service spaces, which ran northward along the building's eastern wall. This interior corridor terminated between the Garden Room, occupying the central portion of the north wall of the building, and the Cabaret Room, which jutted out from the northeastern corner of the building.
A smaller, branching corridor led from the internal corridor to an exit door that sat between the Garden Room and the Cabaret Room; to exit the building from the Cabaret Room using that corridor, a person would need to pass through a set of double doors into the main interior corridor, pass through a single door between the main interior corridor and the branching interior corridor, turn a sharp corner into the branching corridor, and proceed approximately one-quarter of the length of the Cabaret Room to the single door that connected the branching corridor to the exterior of the building. This complex navigation was not atypical for the building; a number of other event and services spaces were scattered throughout the rest of the building, with some rooms leading into each other, some leading into interior hallways, and some leading to the outside of the building. A partial second story covered approximately the southern third of the building, sitting above the main entrance, Zebra Room, and main dining room; it held two more small event rooms made of six smaller rooms conjoined, collectively labeled the Crystal Rooms.
Though the building's frame and ceiling tiling was classified as non-combustible, the Beverly Hills Supper Club made substantial use of wooden building materials, including floor joists for the two-story portion of the complex and framing on interior hallways. It was decorated throughout with highly flammable carpeting and wood wall paneling; event rooms also used wooden tables and supports, as well as tablecloths, curtains, and a variety of other small combustible materials. The building did not have a fire-suppression sprinkler system installed—at the time, these were not required in venues such as the Supper Club—nor did it have an alarm system or smoke detectors. In addition, the majority of the paths of egress in each event room led not to the outside of the building but to a variety of narrow interior corridors and service spaces.
On Saturday, May 28, 1977, the Beverly Hills Supper Club was operating beyond capacity, largely due to the popularity of that evening's Cabaret Room show featuring Hollywood singer and actor John Davidson. Based on its number of exits, the Cabaret Room could safely accommodate about 600 people, according to the calculations of the Fire Marshal. On that night it exceeded capacity, with people seated on ramps and in aisles. According to later estimates based on seating charts and memories of those present, the number of patrons in the Cabaret Room at 9:00 p.m. was between 900 and 1,300. Regardless of the exact number, sources agree that the room was beyond its safety capacity.