Ellis Hotel

The Ellis Hotel, formerly known as the Winecoff Hotel, is located at 176 Peachtree Street NW, in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, USA.[1][2] Designed by William Lee Stoddart, the 15-story building opened in 1913.[3] It is located next to 200 Peachtree, which was built as the flagship Davison's. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on March 31, 2009. The Ellis Hotel is best known for a fire that occurred there on December 7, 1946, in which 119 people died.

The Ellis Hotel
Ellis Hotel in 2020
General information
Location176 Peachtree Street NW,
Atlanta
Opening1913
ManagementColwen Hotels
Technical details
Floor count15
Design and construction
Architect(s)William Lee Stoddart
Other information
Number of rooms127
Website
Ellis Hotel
The Ellis Hotel
Ellis Hotel is located in Atlanta
Ellis Hotel
Coordinates 33.7583°N 84.3878°W / 33.7583; -84.3878
NRHP reference No.09000185
Added to NRHPMarch 31, 2009

Fire
Main article: Winecoff Hotel fire

The Ellis Hotel (previously the Winecoff Hotel) is best known for a fire that occurred there on December 7, 1946, in which 119 people died. It remains the deadliest hotel fire in U.S. history,[4] and prompted many changes in building codes. Guests at the hotel that night included teenagers attending a Hi-Y and Tri-Hi-Y Youth-in-Government conference (Youth Assembly) sponsored by the State YMCA of Georgia, Christmas shoppers, and people in town to see Song of the South. Arnold Hardy, a 24-year-old graduate student at Georgia Tech, became the first amateur to win a Pulitzer Prize in photography for his snapshot of a woman in mid-air after jumping from the 11th floor of the hotel during the fire.[5] The jumper was Daisy McCumber, 41. She sustained multiple broken bones and eventually had a leg amputated.[6][7] Under these circumstances, she still worked until her retirement.[8] She died in 1992.[6][7]

Reopenings
Ellis Hotel

In April 1951, the hotel reopened as the Peachtree Hotel on Peachtree, and was now equipped with both fire alarms and automated sprinkler systems. In 1967, it was donated to the Georgia Baptist Convention for housing the elderly, and then repeatedly sold to a series of potential developers.

The gutted lobby served as a souvenir shop during the 1996 Summer Olympics.

After over two decades of vacancy, a $23 million renovation project began in April 2006. The project restored the building into a boutique luxury hotel, called the Ellis Hotel after the street that runs along the north side of the building. It was reopened on October 1, 2007.

See also

References
  1. Darwin Porter; Danforth Prince (March 11, 2009). Frommer's The Carolinas and Georgia. John Wiley & Sons. p. 366. ISBN 978-0-470-47782-3.
  2. Hilary Howard (March 2, 2009). "Hotel Review: The Ellis in Atlanta". The New York Times. Retrieved March 20, 2015.
  3. Peachtree Burning
  4. "Historic Fires". University of Texas at Austin. Archived from the original on October 9, 2011. Retrieved December 4, 2010.
  5. "1947 Pulitzer Prize for Photography"
  6. "Amateur photographer won Pulitzer Prize for hotel fire photo". Los Angeles Times. The Associated Press. December 8, 2007. Archived from the original on April 10, 2021.
  7. "Arnold Hardy, an amateur photographer who won a Pulitzer Prize for his gripping 1946 photo of a woman falling from a burning hotel, has died. He was 85". SouthCoastToday.com. The Associated Press. December 9, 2007. Archived from the original on April 10, 2021. Retrieved April 10, 2021.
  8. ""Death Leap From Blazing Hotel" – The Story Behind the Photo Taken by an Amateur Photographer That Won the 1947 Pulitzer Prize". Vintage News Daily. May 21, 2018. Retrieved November 9, 2021. The 'jumping lady' was Daisy McCumber, a 41-year-old Atlanta secretary who, contrary to countless captions, survived the 11-story jump. She broke both legs, her back, and her pelvis. She underwent seven operations in 10 years and lost a leg, but then worked until retirement. She died in 1992 aged 87, having never revealed even to family that she was the woman in Hardy's photo.
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