Just Steps From Lake Michigan is the Ominous and Bloody ‘Alley of Death’
Today the Alley of Death looks like almost any other urban alleyway. A narrow passage between buildings and the sometimes hidden necessities of city life like trash pick-up. But decades ago the Alley of Death earned it name for a sober reason.
The Alley of Death is just steps from Lake Michigan in Chicago. Its proper name is Couch Place. It's in the city's Loop and heart of the theater district. In 1903 it was the scene of a horrific mass fatality event - a fire at the Iroquois Theatre. The fire clamed 602 lives and was the worst mass causality event to befall an American building before the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
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Many of the dead who were pulled from the theater were piled in the Couch Place alley which earned it the Alley of Death moniker.
The Chicago Loop Alliance shares
Most of the dead were outside on Couch Place, the bodies piled 6 feet high. When emergency responders began to salvage the bodies from the fire, the burned bodies from inside the theater were stacked in the alley before they were identified. Because of the tragic deaths and stacks of corpses, the Chicago Tribune recognized it as the “Alley of the Death and Mutilation.
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Not all who died in Couch Place where those who burned inside the building. Some jumped from the upper sections of the theatre down to Couch Place seeking escape and died in the fall. Some survivors were saved only by having the bodies of those who previously jumped serve as cushions to break their falls.
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