Pictured here are some of the many crosses at the temporary memorial to the victims of The Station Nightclub Fire which took the lives of 100 young, outgoing people on February 20th, 2003.

The day after the fire, when word spread around about how deadly it was, my parents were flooded with calls from relatives and friends asking if my brother was there. Great White was one of his favorite bands and he enjoys quite a nightlife. Fortunately, he was not fond of The Station and didn’t go there as often as I did. Unfortunately, one of his best friends did and lost his life there. It’s a very uncomfortable discussion for the two of us to have. I’m sure he feels guilty that he was not there with his friend.

Since this bar was a place that I went often, for weeks after the fire I would run scenarios in my head on what I would have done if I was there. There are many stories of heroic efforts by some of the patrons to help others out of the building. Would I have the courage to be one of those heroes?

There were 462 people in the club that night, which is way over any reasonable capacity limit for this place. Crammed in there, the best chance of escape was leaving immediately after the fireworks were ignited. Would I have left immediately?

Most of the loss of life occurred in the crowded entrance hall. This narrow hall made it easy for the bouncer to line up the incoming people on the way in, but it provided for a deadly stampede when everyone tried to rush back out the front door. I remember this entrance well, would I have chose to try to go back out the same way I came in?

My friend Scott and I discussed this at length and we can’t recall there being other exits and we had been there dozens of times. But there were other exits. Many people survived by going out the other exits of the club and avoiding the front door. I implore everyone to be aware of your surroundings in crowded places. Identify a few alternate exits when you first arrive anywhere.

This is the last photograph from the three rolls of film from my visit to The Station Fire Memorial site, but the first that I scanned. I was using the panoramic film mask in my Diana+, but I only had one exposure left on the roll. The photo went all the way to the very end of the roll since I was using that wide mask. This caused the photo lab to pierce this frame when they “dipped & dunked” during the developing. I considered trying to clean it up in Photoshop, but I found this accident to be symbolic of the tear this event has left in me.


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Created using my Diana+ using the pinhole feature and panoramic film mask with expired AGFA RSX-II slide film. Positive scanned with my Epson v700 Perfection scanner. No digital manipulation used!