the ellis hotel

on 7 december 1946, the reportedly fire-proof winecoff hotel (it had no sprinklers or fire escapes) caught fire and before it was over 119 people were dead, mostly from smoke or jumping from the buidling, in what remains the country's worst hotel disaster---more would have been saved but that the atlanta fire department's equipment could only reach eight stories and the winecoff had fifteen----it had been built in 1913 by william h. winecoff, who moved into the hotel after his own house in ansley park was destroyed by fire---he and his wife were casualties of the 1946 fire---in 1951 the hotel reopened as the peachtree on peachtree hotel, but it was never entirely succefful---after a stint as a retirement home, it closed in the early 80s---it is now being reborn as the ellis hotel, and they are doing an outstanding job with the exterior at least---i can't wait to see what the lower two floors look like, since the original facade there was lost in the 1951 rehab--