The Gulliver's nightclub fire occurred in the early hours of June 30, 1974, on the border of Port Chester, New York and Greenwich, Connecticut. The fire killed 24 patrons and injured 19 patrons and 13 firemen. The fire was caused by arson in an adjacent bowling alley that had been set to cover up a minor burglary there.
The venue
The restaurant was formally known as Gulliver's Restaurant Inc. and opened in 1971. It attracted crowds of young people, particularly Connecticut residents, since while both states had a drinking age of 18, NY had last call much later. "For decades, youths from southern Connecticut, where the drinking age was 18 since 1972, had flocked to this part-leafy, part-scruffy miniature city so they could take advantage of New York's later last call hour." The restaurant was originally the Old Post Grill, but that burned in 1962; then it was Lucy's, which had a fire in 1968. The building was owned by the Port Chester Electrical Construction Corporation.
The building housing Gulliver's was on the border of Port Chester and Greenwich and so spanned the county and state line between Westchester County, New York and Fairfield County, Connecticut. Gulliver's was a restaurant and bar with its entrance on the Greenwich side. Most of Gulliver's was considered on the New York side, and had been inspected by Port Chester fire authorities two months before the fire. The other businesses in the building were considered to be in Greenwich and had not been inspected since 1964 when the last equipment was installed.
On the main floor of Gulliver's was a dining room, main bar and the kitchen. Down a short but fairly narrow flight of stairs was the lower level where the lounge was. In this area was a sunken dance floor. It was in this lower level where the late night discotheque took place. On the ground floor there was also a small barber shop and a retail store for clothing. More importantly, there was a bowling alley that took up almost half the building.
Fire
There were about 200 young people in the lower level lounge at the time of the fire, just before 1 a.m. The band was the Creation, and included Paul Caravello (who would later be part of Kiss under the name Eric Carr, a.k.a. The Fox). They stopped playing the song "I Wanna Know Your Name" after a waitress told them she smelled smoke. They calmly announced "There's a fire. Please walk out quietly." The thick smoke spread so quickly that it appeared the lights had gone out. At this point, there was a panic; because of the heat, patrons on the dance floor were unable to climb the only stairs to the main floor. Paul Caravello went back into the melee to help three of his bandmates who had become trapped: Sarita Henderson, Damon DeFreis, and George D. Chase. Though he was able to locate and rescue Sarita, the two of them having to climb over quite a few bodies in order for them to escape (because if they had tried to make for the exit in the dressing room, like Sarita had wanted, neither of them would have gotten out of there), nothing could be done for Damon or George in time. Both Creation's keyboard player (Damon) and lead singer (George) perished along with 22 other patrons, crew, friends and fans.
Nineteen fire companies responded to the incident, mainly from the Port Chester and Greenwich Fire Departments, but from other Westchester and Connecticut municipalities as well. Initial attempts to enter the building were hampered by intense heat and smoke. Various reports claim it took about 90 minutes to four hours to get the fire under control.
Victims
Most of the 24 victims were found at the foot of the stairs, with some others on the sunken dance floor.
Due to most victims not being local, there is little commemoration of the tragedy.
Investigation
The county medical examiner reported that many of the bodies were so charred that dental work was the only way of identifying the victims.
Autopsies revealed that all the victims died from asphyxiation. This quashed rumors that victims had been trampled to death. Also, some electric clocks were found in the rubble stopped at 1:50 showing that power had been on during the fire and that a total blackout had not occurred.
The source of the fire initially appeared to be the nursery of the bowling alley, which was located in the basement under the clothing store. The exact location of the start of the fire proved to be very important, since it determined whether New York or Connecticut authorities had responsibility for the final investigation.