We recognized the name when a customer brought us a couple of matchbooks from the Cocoanut Grove Night Club, but we couldn’t remember the significance. Boston natives wouldn’t need the internet to tell them that one of the nation’s deadliest fires happened at the Grove in November of 1942. It killed 492 patrons and injured hundreds more. The tragedy shocked the nation and briefly replaced the events of World War II in newspaper headlines.
Today, 17 Piedmont Street is a parking lot in Boston’s Bay Village neighbor-
hood. But during the post-Prohibition 1930s and 1940s, it was the address of the city’s premier nightclub.
Nine exits were available on the main floor of the Cocoanut Grove, but most customers only knew of the way that they had entered the club–through the revolving door. Also many of the other exits had doors that may have been locked. All doorways in the club opened inward, meaning that panicked patrons would press against a door holding it shut, ultimately causing a deadly and gruesome pile up of bodies.
The Melody Lounge was on the lower level of the club. It had two exits, but one of them was in the kitchen and most customers were unaware of it. A few customers did see it, and escaped the building that way. Others were able to break windows (except for the glass block windows and those with security bars on them). The main floor of the club was divided into several lounges with a maze of corridors between them. No fire doors were installed between the various lounges because the owner felt they would be an encumbrance and would cost too much. As can be seen in the picture, most of the lounges were decorated in a “Tahitian” style with paper palm trees and other very flammable materials. These included leather coverings on the walls which emitted particularly noxious fumes.
The club had a capacity of 500 people but 800-1000 people were in the club on November 28th, 1942. Smoking was allowed in the club, but the commonly accepted cause of the fire was that a waiter who had been sent to replace or repair a burnt out bulb lit a match to see the bulb. Evidently the match struck a paper palm tree and set it ablaze. At first the tree burned slowly while employees struggled to pull it away from the wall but they were ultimately unable to do so, and the faux ceiling made of paper and designed to look like a night sky caught fire. In search of a source of oxygen, the flames headed straight to the only exit patrons were aware of.
The tragedy led to a reform of safety standards and codes across the country. To this day, we can see the results everywhere we go and often take those ubiquitous lighted “EXIT” signs for granted.
Now there is a plaque embedded in the brick sidewalk next to where the fire occurred. The memorial reads: “The Cocoanut Grove. Erected by the Bay Village Neighborhood Association, 1993. In memory of the more than 490 people who died in the Cocoanut Grove fire on November 28, 1942. As a result of that terrible tragedy, major changes were made in the fire codes, and improvements in the treatment of burn victims, not only in Boston but across the nation. ‘Phoenix out of the Ashes'”
A smaller inscription in the lower left corner says, “This plaque crafted by Anthony B. Marra, youngest survivor of the Cocoanut Grove fire”.
On this Memorial Day, we’d like to express our gratitude to all of the men & women in our armed forces. It’s always a great pleasure and honor when we have the opportunity to frame military awards & mementos. Sometimes the customer is the recipient of the award and sometimes the items belong to a customer’s relative who gave their life in service of our country. These pics are just a small example of the wide
range of military subjects we’ve framed.
If you don’t already know about 3D printers, get ready to have your mind expanded. Rather than printing a 2D image with ink, these devices create physical objects, one layer at a time. Seriously, it’s like something out of Star Trek! If someone invents a machine part, imagines a movie prop for a fantasy film, or wants to create an abstract sculpture, a 3D printer will be able to make it a reality. Explaining how it works gets a bit technical for us, but this video ought to answer your questions. And even if you’ve seen 3D printers in action before, this particular project is pretty impressive because of the plane’s wings – they’re so thin you can see thru them!
Deez Maker’s blog offers more insight into how the plane idea happened –
I was curious about possibly printing a one piece toy airplane that would actually fly, especially to test very thin layers using the Bukobot. I sat down last night and in about an hour or so I created a quick draft of one on the free 3D design app OpenSCAD (openscad.org). I printed it in PLA (the eco-friendly material) because it’s actually much stiffer than ABS and I wanted it to be as stiff as possible. This is why I love 3D printing! Get an idea, draw it up and print… anytime! The coolest part of this is that I think I got it close to flying! It’s not quite balanced correctly yet, but I think with a few more little tweaks it might actually work. It needed it to be pretty light for it to fly (without needing to throw it super fast), so I made the wings pretty thin. I designed them to be about 0.6mm thick and I set the slicer app (slic3r.org) to print at 0.1mm. At that resolution, it would take about 5 very thin layers to make the main part of the wings. This may seem like a lot of layers, but this will still make them light and thin but pretty strong because of the alternating fill pattern (kind of how plywood gets it’s strength).
Our new location in Newtonville has been open for a couple of months, but there were still some finishing touches to be done. We love how it turned out and it looks like you do to! The store has been doing really well even tho’ it’s the baby in the company. Well, not quite a baby – the store was moved from a previous location in Newton Center so folks around there already know us. The move offered a chance to give the store the same facelift that’s happening company wide – new photo collage display above the corner samples, new interior paint colors, new ready-made frame displays, new display boards for the frame samples, and dig that parquet floor! There’s no doubt, she’s beaut!
Custom framing your favorite grad’s diploma may seem obvious, but seriously, is there a more perfect gift for the occasion? No. We can’t tell you how many adults bring us their own certificates from college and grad school to be framed. But by then, they’re often wrinkled, stained, ripped, or faded (the certificates, not the adults).
*sigh* If only someone had framed that document for them as soon as they got it, it would be lovely to look at and it would be protected.
“Custom framing” are two words that can be intimidating if you’ve never done it before. But “custom” doesn’t always mean fancy and it never has to be exorbitant. It just means that you’re putting the diploma in a frame that’s the proper shape as well as the proper size and it’ll be safer than an off-the-shelf frame.
Regarding the price, customers will sometimes say that they already spent so much on their son’s or daughter’s schooling that they don’t want to pour any more money into the experience. But if that diploma cost you so much time, effort, and money, why in the world would you put it into a $14.95 frame that will hasten the aging of the paper and look sub-par? We have solutions for all budgets that will help to preserve your certificate and make it look amazing. Custom framing a diploma will show others that the graduate truly earned it.
A bottle of water, $1.49. A tube of food coloring, $2.78. A one-of-a-kind, eco-friendly canopy for your car that’ll wow the neighbors, priceless.Garth Britzman is a designer who engineered this shade canopy for his car (where he got the idea, we’d love to know!) Who woulda thought that the bottom of a water bottle would be so interesting once ya add a little a color? A tip of the hat to Mr Britzman for a creative idea that appears simple, but must’ve been a real pain in the keister to actually set-up.
Most of us would have a hard time doing a drawing of someone that truly looks like that person. But Xiaonan Sun can manage to do two amazing portraits at the same time. And that isn’t half as amazing as when you get to the part where his hands cross over and switch jobs! If you’re curious to see more, Sun has a You Tube channel dedicated to other videos of his drawings and there are plenty of completed examples on his website.
EVOL is a German street artist who we’ve talked about before. His work typically involves transforming outdoor environments. But these caught our eye because he’s transformed a 2-dimensional space into the outdoors. Well, the outside of buildings, at least. The unnervingly well executed facades are done with spray paint and stencils on flattened cardboard boxes. The detail and shadows aren’t impressive simply because of the materials used, but also because the space being described isn’t terribly deep. Sometimes it’s just a dumpster in front of a building or an awning over a window. Yet if it weren’t for the cardboard box element, you might think these were photographs or painted with a brush and oil paints. We also love how the origin of the surface isn’t kept secret. The shape and edges of the cardboard, as well as the printed labels, don’t detract from the effect. On the contrary, they enhance the overall look. Any theories on why that is, dear viewer?
This picture may look pretty uneventful, and you’d probably guess that there isn’t much of a story behind it. But, consider this …Qalam Nabi is a street photographer in Kabul. Afghanistan is one of the very few parts of the world where street photographers manage to keep their profession alive, but barely – Nabi is one of only two such photographers in the entire city. The 44-year old has been doing this since he was 11. His wooden box camera, or Kamra-E-Faoree, is a wonder of old world technology. And the only thing more impressive than watching him wield his craft is the level of insight that this mini documentary offers us. The 8 minute video has more thrills than your typical Hollywood fare as you watch to see how Nabi is able to create a modern photograph out of such a basic machine. As framers, we are in awe of his deft hands and expert maneuvering. Go Nabi!
It’s not like we really keep track, but safe to say that kids art is something we frame more than almost anything else. Everyone loves kids art – it’s colorful, imaginative, and unrestrained. If the picture was made by your own child you certainly have a connection to it. As framers, we get a real kick out of making a child’s art look as important as it is by putting it in a frame.
In addition to all of the custom solutions we have for kids art, we offer a line of ready made frames that are specially geared to the task. And now they have a new look! As part of the face lift that our stores are getting, the kids frames have some new packaging that’s awfully cute. The brightly colored wood frames come in three standard sizes. We make them with shatterproof plexiglass so that any accidents won’t result in injuries. They’re available in red, green, blue, yellow, and purple. So next time you want to put the household’s newest masterpiece on your bulletin board at work, think of framing it first – it’ll last longer and it deserves the same effort that little Degas or little Frida Kahlo put into it.
Oh, yeah – they look great with big people art, too!
We recognized the name when a customer brought us a couple of matchbooks from the Cocoanut Grove Night Club, but we couldn’t remember the significance. Boston natives wouldn’t need the internet to tell them that one of the nation’s deadliest fires happened at the Grove in November of 1942. It killed 492 patrons and injured hundreds more. The tragedy shocked the nation and briefly replaced the events of World War II in newspaper headlines.
As can be seen in the picture, most of the lounges were decorated in a “Tahitian” style with paper palm trees and other very flammable materials. These included leather coverings on the walls which emitted particularly noxious fumes.
Hang with Big Picture Framing 