Dead, Not Forgotten

When 119 people died in Atlanta’s Winecoff Hotel when it burned early on the morning of Dec. 7, 1946, the nation was horrified by the news. But if it wasn’t for Arnold Hardy and his picture of Daisy McCumber falling in midair in front of the hotel’s facade it may not have become the turning point in modern building fire safety. After selling his image to the Associated Press for $300 (he received $200 more as a bonus) it was printed on front pages around the world and mobilized the nation to make buildings safer from fire dangers.

That morning, Hardy, a Georgia Tech graduate student, arrived home from a late date  and soon heard sirens. An avid photographer and a quick thinker, Hardy called the fire department saying, “Press photographer. Where’s the fire?” Winecoff Hotel was the answer and he was on his way with his camera and five flash bulbs.

Though the Winecoff Hotel was touted as being fireproof, the structure quickly became an inferno blocking many patrons inside. As the fire advanced people resorted to tying bedsheets into ropes to escape the flames but many slipped while others simply jumped from the building to escape an even worse death.  Arnold Hardy was the first photographer on the scene and by that time many patrons had already died. After using all but his last bulb on wider shots, Hardy decided to try to capture an image of someone falling from the building. The result won him a Pulitzer Prize and sparked a nation to action.

Though at the time it was reported that the women pictured died from the fall, she did survive.

Realizing that from then on all of his photos would be compared to that one image, Hardy decided to opt for a career in business and founded an X-ray equipment business.

Arnold Hardy died at age 85 on December 5, 2007.

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German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen died Wednsday December 5, 2007 at his home in Kuerten-Kettenberg and is to be buried in the Waldfriedhor Cemetary in Kuerten, Germany. The cause of his death has not been announced.

In the memorial booklet distributed on his website, Stockhausen said shortly before his death, ““My life is extremely one-sided: what counts are the works as scores, recordings, films, and books. That is my spirit formed into music and a sonic universe of moments of my soul.”

Always bluntly forward, when asked how he became involved in electronic music Karlheinz Stockhausen said in the Nov./Dec. 1977 issue of Synapse Magazine,”The question is wrong. I started the electronic music.” While his claim can be debated, his contribution to the world of avant garde and electronic music is weighty indeed. And although his non-electronic output was larger, it is not what he is best remembered for.

Extending his controversial nature into his greater life, Karlheinz Stockhausen found himself embattled in 2001 when he stated that the 911 attacks in New York were “the greatest work of art one can imagine.” He later apologized for his comments.

Orphaned in WWII, Stockhausen went on to study under composer Olivier Messiaen in Paris from 1952 to 1953. There he also met his French contemporary Pierre Boulez.

Read Synapse Magazine’s 1977 interview with Karlheinz Stockhausen
Visit Karlheinz Stockhausen’s website

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