Historical events
From its opening, the hotel was a center of the social life of Boston's elite. In 1913, Hamilton Fish, Jr., held a "Lenten dance" where "society leaders ... from New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Washington and Boston greeted the coming of daylight this morning at the Copley Plaza Hotel".[25]
In the 1920s, John Singer Sargent kept rooms at the hotel and painted portraits there.[26] Sargent used one of the hotel's employees, a black elevator operator named Thomas McKeller, as the model for the Greek god Apollo in his decoration of Boston's Museum of Fine Arts.[27][28]
Frederick Kerry, paternal grandfather of US Senator John Kerry, committed suicide with a gunshot to the head in the restroom of this hotel on November 23, 1921.[29]
In the 1930s, the Boston Horse Show awarded The Copley-Plaza Challenge Trophy.[30]
In February 1935, civic leaders held a dinner for Babe Ruth at The Copley Plaza to celebrate his return to Boston after 16 years with the New York Yankees.[31]
On August 3, 1940, back-up catcher for the Cincinnati Reds, Willard Hershberger, despondent over a series of losses in which he performed poorly, took his own life in the bathroom of his Hotel room at the Copley Plaza. He was discovered laying beside the tub with his throat slit. He was 30 years old. His father had also committed suicide and he told Reds Manager, Bill McKechnie that he was going to "do it, too ..."
On March 29, 1979, a disgruntled former employee set multiple fires in both The Copley Plaza and the nearby Sheraton Boston hotels. The fire at the Copley Plaza, which was occupied by 430 people at the time, injured thirty and killed one.[32] Among those injured was media mogul Sumner Redstone, who survived by hanging from a third-story window. His hand was partially paralyzed from the fire. Film director Rob Cohen was also rescued from the fire, which partly inspired his 1996 film Daylight.[33]
