Sunday, January 9, 1927: there was a crowd at Laurier Palace, a neighborhood cinema located at 1683, rue Sainte-Catherine Est (now 3215, rue Sainte-Catherine Est), in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. More than 800 people pass the counter which opens at noon. Five hundred of them settle on the ground floor while more than 350 others, mostly children, go up to the balcony by the two staircases.
On the program that day: a feature film, The Devil’s Gulch (Devil’s ravine) a western, and a few short films including a comedy with an ironically fatal title: Get ‘Em Young (Take them young) with Stan Laurel.
The broadcast begins around 1 p.m. At around 1.35 p.m., a person noticed smoke coming out of a ventilation hatch in the floor, in the center, at the front of the balcony. Quickly, two ushers try unsuccessfully to extinguish the flames which are now spouting from the trap door.
CITY OF MONTREAL ARCHIVES
Laurier Palace Cinema
The evacuation of spectators on the ground floor went smoothly. It is different for the people who are on the balcony. On the east side, people descend without difficulty. But the same is not true for people trying to descend from the west side.
Indeed, an open door from the hall blocks the door at the bottom of the stairs. In addition, the stairwell is only 3 feet 9 inches in width. The staircase has three sections divided by two landings, a configuration that complicates an efficient evacuation of the premises.
To make a long story short, panic seizes the children who congregate in this staircase. In no time at all, dozens of children are piling up on top of each other, almost to the ceiling!
Arrived quickly on the scene – fire station 13 is located across the street – the firefighters must act quickly because the silence quickly replaces the cries and cries of the trapped children. We first try to pull some of the children. Failure ! We have to demolish the partition of the wall!
The situation is appalling: 77 children have died. Firefighter Elphéda Arpin finds the lifeless body of her 6-year-old son Gaston. Autopsies performed show that the vast majority of them died from chest compression or asphyxiation.
The victims are between 4 and 18 years old. Most were in a state of offense since the children were not accompanied by an adult. The law prohibits the cinema to children of 16 years and under if they are not accompanied by an adult.
A few days later, 3,000 people attended the funerals of 39 of the victims at the Church of the Nativity of the Holy Virgin in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. The Archbishop of Montreal, Mgr Georges Gauthier, affirms without qualification that these deaths are the punishment reserved for parents who sent their children to the cinema on a Sunday.
The newspapers of the time estimate at 10,000 the number of people along the route which leads the bodies to the Notre-Dame-des-Neiges cemetery.
Following a commission of inquiry, the Liberal government of Louis-Alexandre Taschereau adopted, on March 22, 1928, a law requiring theaters to have panic doors that can be opened from inside to exterior and redefines the dimensions of circulation areas. This law also prohibits children under 16 from going to the cinema even if they are accompanied by an adult, a measure that will remain in force for 40 years!
PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR
An artisanal plaque that has become illegible recalls the drama of Laurier Palace.
The Laurier Palace cinema was destroyed shortly after the fire. In 1953, the land was sold by Hochelaga Amusements to the Fabrique, which decided to build a chapel-service. The first mass was celebrated there on December 6, 1953.
The chapel closed in the early 1970s. Since 1998, the Evangelical Bethel Church has occupied the premises.
With the exception of a modest artisanal plaque that has become illegible hanging on the building, no plaque, no monument, no trophy recalls this tragedy which claimed the lives of 77 children 95 years ago.
It says a lot about our collective memory.
Who knows ? Perhaps there will be something good, meaningful, to commemorate the centenary of this tragedy in five years.