The Winecoff Hotel is a former
hotel located in
downtown Atlanta. It is most known for the deadly
fire that occurred there on
December 7,
1946, in which 119 people died. It remains the deadliest hotel fire in
U.S. history, and prompted many changes in
building codes. The building reopened after extensive remodeling (including modern fire precautions) in the early 1950s as the Peachtree on Peachtree Hotel. The hotel was later turned into a home for the elderly, and it was shuttered in 1982. After over two decades of vacancy, ground broke on a $23 million renovation project in April 2006. The project will restore the building into a boutique luxury hotel, to be called the
Ellis Hotel after the street that runs along the north side of the building. It was reopened on October 1, 2007. Arnold Hardy, a 26-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.
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