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Today the site is marked only by a square brass plaque on the sidewalk where the bar’s entrance used to be. And yet it is little discussed, barely acknowledged by the city or seen as a milestone in the gay-rights movement. The scale of the tragedy was immense: it remains the deadliest fire ever in New Orleans and is believed to be the largest killing of gay people in U.S. Dufrene puts it bluntly: “I guess they figured, They were gay–so what?” A two-month police investigation turned up a can of lighter fluid at the scene and a thrown-out patron overheard threatening to “burn this place down,” but no one was ever prosecuted. Neither the mayor nor the governor spoke out, local religious leaders were mostly silent, and only one congregation in the French Quarter ultimately agreed to hold a memorial service. A Times-Picayune headline called the scene “Hitler’s Incinerators.” But it made little more than a ripple in the national consciousness. Many could be identified only by dental records. Twenty-nine people burned alive that night three more died soon after. Firefighters extinguished the blaze 16 minutes after receiving the alarm. His body was left in the window for hours, with his watch, stopped at a few minutes after 8, a haunting relic.Īnd then it was over. In the street below, his friends heard him scream, “Oh, God, no!” as flames consumed him. His head, torso and one arm made it halfway out before the glass pane above collapsed, trapping his body.
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One of those trapped was the MCC’s pastor, Bill Larson, who struggled to push an air-conditioning unit through the window to escape. “The small people seemed to get through the window, but the bigger people just couldn’t get out,” a survivor told the New Orleans Times-Picayune. Dufrene was one of the few who squeezed through, body on fire.
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Many raced to jump out of the three large windows that were covered by metal bars. The bartender, Douglas “Buddy” Rasmussen, called for people to follow him and led at least 20 of them to safety through a back exit and onto adjoining rooftops–before closing the door behind them when he didn’t see anyone else coming to prevent the fire from spreading. When he opened the door, a fireball burst through as if shot from a flamethrower.Īn updraft sucked the fire in, and within seconds the walls were aflame. The bartender sent a regular to check it out. It kept ringing, even though no one had ordered a taxi. The bust prices ended at 7, but at least 65 people were still hanging around nearly an hour later when the door buzzer went off. Duane George Mitchell, an associate pastor at the MCC known for his Queen Victoria impersonation, and his partner Louis Horace Broussard stopped by after dropping Mitchell’s sons off at a movie. Warren’s brother James and mother Inez came with him. Dufrene was there, as usual, this time on a first date with Eddie Hosea Warren, a “husky country boy” he met at a hamburger joint near the Upstairs. A pianist from the nearby Marriott played Broadway and ragtime tunes as patrons sang along. The beer bust on June 24, 1973, was typically festive. At other times the space was used for the elaborately costumed drag cabaret performances that regulars called “nelly dramas.” “It was my safe haven,” says Dufrene. The Metropolitan Community Church (MCC), a national Christian denomination founded to serve gays and lesbians, often held services in the bar’s back-room theater. But up 13 steps on the second floor was a refuge: three adjoining rooms, decorated with red wallpaper and frilly curtains, where people could laugh, love, even worship without fear. From the outside, the Upstairs didn’t look much different from the other gay bars on a particularly seedy stretch of Iberville Street.