Random Acts of Kindness and a Tease for an Unsolved Murder

On the evening of March 24, 1990, nearly one hundred patrons gathered to celebrate Carnivale at the Happy Land Social Club, a small informal night club in the Bronx that catered to a mostly Honduran clientele. The evening took a deadly turn when, around 3:30 am, an explosion of fire roared up the stairway leading to the second-floor club, blocking the only exit from the building and trapping the patrons in a room rapidly filling with toxic smoke and fire. It’s unknown how many patrons managed to escape the fire, but by the time the fire department had extinguished the blaze, eighty-seven people were dead.

Thank you to the amazing Dave White of Bring Me the Axe Podcast for research!

References

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—. 1990. "Tracing the club's owners." New York Times, March 27: B2.

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Gilbert, Allison. 2020. "A faded tragedy's long shadow." New York Times, March 29.

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—. 1991. "Witness tells of visit by Happy Land fire suspect." New York Times, July 31.

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Purdy, Matthew. 1995. "More than five years after the arson fire at the Happy Land Social Club..." New York Times, July 7.

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