1973 — June 24, Arson Fire, gay UpStairs Cocktail Lounge, New Orleans, LA — 32

lornajarrettblanchard June 24, 1973

-32 Cornell, James. The Great International Disaster Book (Third Edition). 1982, p
–32 National Fire Protection Associat“The emergency exit was not marked, and the windows were boarded up or covered with iron bars. A few survivors managed to make it through, and jumped to the sidewalks, some in flames. Rev. Bill Larson, the local MCC pastor, got stuck halfway and burned to death wedged in a window, his corpse visible throughout the next day to witnesses below.

“Bartender Buddy Rasmussen led a group of fifteen to safety through the unmarked back door. One of them was MCC assistant pastor George “Mitch” Mitchell. Then Mitch ran back into the burning building trying to save his partner, Louis Broussard. Their bodies were discovered lying together.

“29 lives were lost that night, and another three victims later died of injuries from the fire. The death toll was the worst in New Orleans history up to that time, including when the French Quarter burned to the ground in 1788. It was almost assuredly the largest mass murder of gays and lesbians to ever occur in the United States….

“Initial news coverage omitted mention that the fire had anything to do with gays, despite the fact that a gay church in a gay bar had been torched. What stories did appear used dehumanizing language to paint the scene, with stories in the States-Item, New Orleans’ afternoon paper, describing “bodies stacked up like pancakes,” and that “in one corner, workers stood knee deep in bodies…the heat had been so intense, many were cooked together.” Other reports spoke of “mass charred flesh” and victims who were “literally cooked.”

“The press ran quotes from one cab driver who said, “I hope the fire burned their dress off,” and a local woman who claimed “the Lord had something to do with this.” The fire disappeared from headlines after the second day.

“A joke made the rounds and was repeated by talk radio hosts asking, “What will they bury the ashes of queers in? Fruit jars.” Official statements by police were similarly offensive. Major Henry Morris, chief detective of the New Orleans Police Department, dismissed the importance of the investigation in an interview with the States-Item. Asked about identifying the victims, he said, “We don’t even know these papers belonged to the people we found them on. Some thieves hung out there, and you know thion. Key Dates in Fire History. 1996.
–32 National Fire Protection Association. The 1984 Fire Almanac. 1983, p. 137.
–32 National Fire Sprinkler Association. F.Y.I. 1999, p. 7.
–32 Ose. “Gay Weddings and 32 Funerals: Remembering…UpStairs Lounge Fire.” 7-3-2008.
–32 Self. “Arson Kills 32 LGBT People, No One Notices…” Huffpost Gay Voices, 1-30-2013.
–32 Willey. “The Upstairs Lounge Fire, New Orleans, Louisiana.” Fire Journal, Jan 1974, p.16.

Narrative Information

NFPA: “Upstairs lounge, New Orleans, Louisiana. A deliberately set fire in the normal exit route from a second-floor cocktail lounge killed 32 people and injured another 12. The fire occurred on June 24 in the French Quarter of New Orleans. A poorly marked alternative exit along with blocked and barred windows contributed to the large loss of life.” (National Fire Protection Association. “Multiple-Death Death Fires, 1973.” Fire Journal, Vol. 68, No. 3, May 1974, pp. 70-76.)

Ose: “On the last Sunday in June, 1973, a gay bar in New Orleans called the UpStairs Lounge was firebombed. The resulting blaze killed 32 people. At the time, the bar had recently served as the temporary home for the fledgling New Orleans congregation of the Metropolitan Community Church. Founded in Los Angeles in 1968, the MCC was the nation’s first gay church….

“That Sunday was the final day of Pride Weekend, the fourth anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising of 1969. Yet there was still no Gay Pride Parade in New Orleans. Almost two dozen gay bars dotted the French Quarter, but gay life in the city remained largely underground.

“Located on the second floor of a three-story building at the corner of Chartres and Iberville Streets, the UpStairs Lounge had only one entrance, up a wooden flight of stairs. Nearly 125 regulars had jammed the bar earlier that afternoon for a free beer and all you could eat special. After the free beer ran out, about 60 stayed, mostly members of the MCC congregation.

“Before moving worship services to their pastor’s home earlier in June, congregation members had been holding services at the UpStairs on Sundays. But the bar was still a spiritual gathering place. There was a piano in one of the bar’s three rooms, and a cabaret stage. Members would pray and sing in this room, and every Sunday night, they gathered around the piano for a song they had adopted as their anthem, United We Stand, by The Brotherhood of Man.

“They sang the song that evening, with David Gary on the piano, a pianist who played regularly in the lounge of the Marriott Hotel across the street. The congregation members repeated the verses again and again, swaying back and forth, arm in arm, happy to be together at their former place of worship on Pride Sunday, still feeling the effects of the free beer special.

“At 7:56 pm a buzzer from downstairs sounded, the one that signaled a cab had arrived. No one had called a cab, but when someone opened the second floor steel door to the stairwell, flames rushed in. An arsonist had deliberately set the wooden stairs ablaze, and the oxygen starved fire exploded. The still-crowded bar became an inferno within seconds.

“The emergency exit was not marked, and the windows were boarded up or covered with iron bars. A few survivors managed to make it through, and jumped to the sidewalks, some in flames. Rev. Bill Larson, the local MCC pastor, got stuck halfway and burned to death wedged in a window, his corpse visible throughout the next day to witnesses below.

“In the days that followed, other churches refused to allow survivors to hold a memorial service for the victims on their premises. Catholics, Lutherans, and Baptists all said no.

“William “Father Bill” Richardson, the closeted rector of St. George’s Episcopal Church, agreed to allow a small prayer service to be held on Monday evening. It was advertised only by word of mouth and drew about 80 mourners. The next day, Richardson was rebuked by Iveson Noland, the Episcopalian bishop of New Orleans, who forbade him to let the church be used again. Bishop Nolan said he had received over 100 angry phone calls from local parishioners, and Richardson’s mailbox would later fill with hate letters.

“Eventually, two ministers offered their sanctuaries – a Unitarian church, and St. Mark’s United Methodist Church in the French Quarter. It was here that a July 1 memorial service was held attended by 250 people, including the state’s Methodist bishop, Finis Crutchfield, who would die of AIDS fourteen years later at age 70.

“Although called on to do so, no elected officials in all of Louisiana issued statements of sympathy or mourning. Even more stunning, some families refused to claim the bodies of their dead sons, too ashamed to admit they might be gay. The city would not release the remains of four unidentified persons for burial by the surviving MCC congregation members. They were dumped in mass graves at Potter’s Field, New Orleans’ pauper cemetery. No one was ever charged with the crime, and it remains unsolved….” (Ose, Erik. “Gay Weddings and 32 Funerals: Remembering the UpStairs Lounge Fire.” Huffington Post, 7-3-2008.)

Self: “In June 1973 an arson attack destroyed the UpStairs Lounge in New Orleans, killing 32 of its predominately gay male patrons. Despite its grim status as the most fatal crime against LGBT people in U.S. history, the event remains obscure, its victims largely unknown and unremembered. Their stories were forgotten years ago by an uncaring media, an uncomfortable church parish, a city whose economic imperative is to protect its reputation and a cowed gay community that wants to avoid a fight. No one was ever convicted of the crime.

“As we close in on the 40th anniversary of the fire, two new works appearing this year will endeavor to break the decades-long silence surrounding this act of unspeakable violence, bringing new light to the tragedy and a new voice to its victims: my own new musical play Upstairs, and Clayton Delery’s forthcoming book Nineteen Minutes of Hell, a history of the fire and its aftermath, on which much of my play is based….

“Wayne Self: Most of the relatively short histories one reads about the fire today focus on the aftermath, and the silence, indifference and even ridicule that followed the tragedy. Why do you think that is?

“Clayton Delery: There were no proclamations of outrage or sadness from politicians at any level. There were no arrests. There’d have been no memorial service if the Metropolitan Community Church, a primarily LGBT Christian denomination whose New Orleans church counted many of its members among the dead, hadn’t sent their founder, Troy Perry, into town to organize one. Troy Perry and the other clergy and activists had a difficult time even finding a location for a service. When they asked for cooperation, they were turned down by clergy and leadership from the Catholic, Episcopal, Baptist and Lutheran churches. Only one Unitarian congregation and one unusually liberal Methodist congregation were willing to cooperate. In the end, they went with the Methodist church, because it was in the French Quarter and close to the scene of the fire….

“Delery: In a way, the whole city was staying in the closet about the fire. This arrangement protected tourism for the city, protected religious leaders from having to choose between compassion or condemnation and protected New Orleans’ gay community from “coming out” of the quiet arrangement they had with the NOPD and entering a political and legal fight for equality that they didn’t think they could win. Many people were comfortable with homosexuality being thought of as simply another vice in a city known for profiting from vice in myriad ways….

“Delery: No arrest was ever made, but there was a suspect who died before he was arrested. If he was indeed the arsonist, and if the suppositions we can make about his motives are correct, then a straight line can be drawn from his act of violence to the mass gun violence we see today: angry young men with severe depression who, for some reason, come to feel terribly slighted by life, or by their communities, or both. In this case it may have been homophobia, but homophobia turned on oneself.” (Self, Wayne. “Arson Kills 32 LGBT People, No One Notices: Why the 1973 UpStairs Lounge Fire Should Matter.” Huffpost Gay Voices, 1-30-2013.)

Willey: “On June 24, 1973, a fire in a second-floor cocktail lounge in the French Quarter of New Orleans killed 32 patrons and injured 12 others. The fire was de¬liberately set on the stairway of the main entrance, blocking the normal exit route from the lounge. Com¬bustible wood paneling and carpet in the stairway pro¬vided fuel for the fire. In the confusion that followed, 20 people escaped through a rear door, 15 others es¬caped through windows, and 28 bodies were recovered from the lounge after the fire. Of those who escaped, one died before reaching the hospital, three died later of burn injuries, and seven others were critically burned.

“The Upstairs Lounge was located at the intersection of Iberville and Chartres Streets in the French Quarter. On the second floor of a three-story, brick, wood¬-joisted building, it had been operated as a cocktail lounge since the early 1960’s. Two other bars were on the first floor of the building, and there were apart¬ments on the third floor. The second floor was divided into three areas: the bar, a lounge, and a small theater used for plays… The lounge and theater areas measured approximately 20 feet by 46 feet; the bar was 20 feet by 58 feet. The building was separated from a three-story building on the west and from a one- story building on the north by 12-inch-thick brick walls….

“There were two ways out of the second story: the main entrance stairway, which opened to the outside at Iberville Street; and a rear door behind the stage in the theater, which discharged to the roof of the one- story building to the north. Illuminated exit signs were installed in the second story over the main entrance, above the doorway leading to the theater from the lounge, and above the rear door behind the stage. The word “EXIT’ had been removed from the frame of the exit sign over the rear door. The path to this door was not obvious, and was obstructed by the stage and scenery. To open it, one had to remove a wire from a hasp. The operating condition of the other exit signs could not be determined. An exterior metal fire escape was located on the east side of the building and ran from the second to the third floor. Access to the second-floor fire escape balcony was through a window at the north end of the bar.

“Exterior windows in the bar and lounge areas were 42 inches wide and over nine feet high. Since the win¬dow sills were only a few inches above the floor, three horizontal metal rods had been installed across each window to prevent people from falling through the openings. The rods were installed ten inches apart, with maximum clearance of 14 inches between the sill and the first rod. A pair of wooden shutters was also in¬stalled in the lower section of each window, and the windows in the lounge were sealed over with plywood.

“Total seating capacity in the bar, lounge, and theater was 110 people; at the time of the fire, approximately 65 persons were present. No one was in the third- story apartments.

“On Sunday evening, June 24, one of the Upstairs Lounge patrons was annoyed by the constant ringing of the door bell. He went to the entrance door at the head of the stairs and opened it. Fire immediately came into the lounge from the stairway and exposed those sitting at the bar. A group of patrons standing around the piano near the south end of the bar turned, when they heard a noise, and saw flames coming into the bar from the entrance doorway. People ran around in confusion. Those who were near the windows unfas¬tened the wooden shutters, opened the windows and squeezed out between the metal bars. Some of those who reached the windows first were able to crawl out and slide down drain pipes to the sidewalk below. As more people became aware of the fire, many of them rushed to the windows, but only a few were able to escape.

“Meanwhile, the bartender left the bar when he first saw the fire, and shouted for everyone to stay calm and follow him to the rear door. He led several people through the fire door at the entrance to the theater and directed them through the rear door behind the stage scenery. It is estimated that about 20 people were able to escape through this theater exit. The bartender then went hack through the theater to the fire door, opened it and called out again for people to follow him. There was no response, since by that time the fire was spreading through the bar area. He went back into the theater, closed the fire door, latched it and left the theater area through the rear door.

“Shortly before 8:00 pm, a woman who was walking past the entrance and stairway to the Upstairs Lounge saw a fire burning on the second and third steps. She went into an adjacent bar and shouted for someone to call the Fire Department. A barmaid telephoned the alarm. Four men left the bar and went to the Lounge entrance to see what was causing all the excitement. The woman then went back to the Lounge entrance. By that time, the fire had progressed to the top of the stairs. The alarm was received by the Fire Department, and two engine companies and a ladder company were dispatched at 7:56 pm. Four additional alarms brought a total of 13 engine companies and 4 ladder companies to the scene. At 7:58 pm, first-arriving fire fighters found the entrance stairway and the bar fully involved. Several occupants who had jumped from windows were lying injured in the street, and one woman was waiting for rescue on the exterior fire escape which led from the second to the third floor of the building. Other Lounge patrons were trapped in the second-story bar; since the fire had spread through that area, they were at that time beyond the reach of help.

“Fire fighters gave immediate assistance to the in¬jured lying in the street and rescued the woman from the fire escape. They used three 2½-inch hand lines and a 500 gpm ladder pipe for a short time to knock down the fire in the second story, while a special fire-fighting unit known as the Flying Squad advanced up the stairs and into the bar with a 1½-inch line. The fire was brought under control within 15 minutes of the initial alarm. After the fire was knocked down, fire fighters found 28 bodies in the bar section… One pile of bodies was located at the southeast corner of the bar. In all, 23 bodies were located at that end of the bar, next to exterior windows. One of those who had escaped through a window was pronounced dead on arrival at a hospital. Fifteen others who had jumped or fallen from windows were also transported to hos-pitals. Five were treated and released and three died, having suffered massive burns over 50 percent of their bodies.

“Principal fire damage was limited to the entrance stairway, the bar, and the lounge. The theater received moderate smoke damage. In the stairway, the carpet had been consumed except for carpet on the treads near the top of the stairs. The stair treads and risers were heavily charred. The wood paneling on the north wall had been consumed, and plaster was spalled on the walls and ceiling near the top of the stairs. In the bar area. carpeting was charred. the flocked wallpaper was consumed, and the ceiling tile system had dropped to the floor, The wood cocktail bar, window frames and other combustible furnishings were heavily charred. Fire damage in the lounge was nearly as se¬vere. The char line on the flocked wallpaper on the west ( theater ) wall stopped two feet from the floor. Some carpet was intact, where it had been protected by furniture, and a portion of the ceiling tile system remained in place at the south end of the room. The wood paneling on the storage room partition was charred down to approximately one foot from the floor. The plywood that covered the windows was charred from the top down to approximately the midpoint, The theater suffered only moderate smoke damage, since the fire door staved closed during the most severe fire exposure.

“The speed of the initial fire development is of interest. The woman who had seen the fire burning in the stair¬way discovered it at approximately 7:53 pm. The alarm was received at 7:55 and the fire apparatus dispatched at 7:56. When the first units arrived at 7:58 the bar was fully involved, and those who survived had already es¬caped the inferno. The exposure to the bar and lounge patrons was immediate when the entrance door was opened. It is believed that the door remained open or at least partially open after the patron opened it and discovered the fire. Nearly all of the heat, fire, and combustion gases from the stairway vented into the second story, since the only other opening from the stairway was a small window near the top measuring approximately 18 inches by 36 inches.

“The time that the occupants had to react to the fire threat was very brief, and the bartender’s immediate and positive action in directing patrons through the rear door is credited with saving approximately 20 lives. Five people who initially escaped through win¬dows and slid to the ground over drain pipes and sign appurtenances received relatively minor cuts and bruises. Nine others who squeezed between the win¬dow bars and either jumped or fell to the ground re-ceived massive burns and other injuries. One of them died before reaching the hospital and three others died several days later. The woman who climbed out onto the fire escape also received severe burns.

“Survivors described the frustration of trying to per¬suade more people to move toward the rear door, in¬stead of sitting or standing where they were. Whether this lack of action was because initial shock created an inability to react to the threat is not known. Panic re¬sulted when those who had stayed behind ran for the windows. Their bodies were found stacked in front of the only visible means of escape.

“Investigations conducted by the Louisiana State Fire Marshal’s Office and the New Orleans Fire Department indicate that the fire was intentionally set on the first few steps of the entrance stairway. However, details as to how the fire was set were not available. When dis¬covered, the fire was burning on the carpet on the first two wood steps. Flames spread up the stairs on the car¬pet and then involved the wood paneling….” (Willey, A Elwood. “The Upstairs Lounge Fire, New Orleans, Louisiana.” NFPA Fire Journal, Vol. 68, No. 1, Jan 1974, pp. 16-20.)

Sources

Cornell, James. The Great International Disaster Book (Third Edition). New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1982.

National Fire Protection Association. Key Dates in Fire History. 1996. Accessed 2010 at: http://www.nfpa.org/itemDetail.asp?categoryID=1352&itemID=30955&URL=Research%20&%20Reports/Fire%20statistics/Key%20dates%20in%20fire%20history&cookie%5Ftest=1

National Fire Protection Association. “Multiple-Death Death Fires, 1973.” Fire Journal, Vol. 68, No. 3, May 1974, pp. 70-76.

National Fire Protection Association. The 1984 Fire Almanac. Quincy, MA: NFPA, 1983.

National Fire Sprinkler Association, Inc. F.Y.I. – Fire Sprinkler Facts. Patterson, NY: NFSA, November 1999, 8 pages. Accessed at: http://www.firemarshals.org/data/File/docs/College%20Dorm/Administrators/F1%20-%20FIRE%20SPRINKLER%20FACTS.pdf

Ose, Erik. “Gay Weddings and 32 Funerals: Remembering the UpStairs Lounge Fire.” Huffington Post, 7-3-2008. Accessed 3-4-2013 at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/erik-ose/gay-weddings-and-32-funer_b_110084.html

Self, Wayne. “Arson Kills 32 LGBT People, No One Notices: Why the 1973 UpStairs Lounge Fire Should Matter.” Huffpost Gay Voices, 1-30-2013. Accessed 3-4-2013 at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wayne-self/upstairs-lounge-fire_b_2567541.html

Willey, A. Elwood. “The Upstairs Lounge Fire, New Orleans, Louisiana.” NFPA Fire Journal, Vol. 68, No. 1, Jan 1974, pp. 16-20.