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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 the early 1980s. 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 is slated to be complete in August of 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.^[1]

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References

1. Pulitzer Photo: Georgia Tech student was the first photographer at the scene of Atlanta's worst hotel fire

External links

★ Then/now photograph of the Winecoff Hotel

★ Another then/now photograph of the Winecoff Hotel

★ Tribute site with historical and current information about the fire and the hotel