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He would remain there for hours, no one bothering to cover him. Bob Larson hung out the front window in his attempt to escape, his hair and clothing burning. Outside, people looked on as the flames engulfed the building. Patrons were trapped - some attempted to jump out of the windows, but they were blocked by steel bars while others were able to escape through a back door with the help of a bar employee. When a man opened the door, a wall of fire exploded into the bar. Just before 8 p.m., a buzzer at the door alerted patrons that someone’s cab had arrived. A gay bar and also the home of gay-friendly Metropolitan Community Church services, a gathering of LGBT people and their allies were laughing over drinks. The Upstairs Lounge was located on the second floor of a three-story building that still stands today. “I felt that the story needed to be told. “It is as significant as Stonewall and Harvey Milk and other benchmark moments of LGBT history, yet no one talks about it, no one knows about it,” he said. It took three years of poring over records buried in archives, interviews, and multiple trips to New Orleans to complete the documentary. As he looked into the fire, he decided to make a film and released “ Upstairs Inferno” in 2015. People recommended he speak to one person after another who was there that night, motivating him to write his book, “ Let the Faggots Burn.” It took more than two decades before he found a publisher who thought it was a story worth telling.įilmmaker Robert Camina learned about the fire after he completed his documentary on the Rainbow Room raid, an incident eerily similar to that at Stonewall. “It killed more people than any other fire, including the two that almost wiped out the city altogether,” he said. He was curious to learn more, and found that the newspapers didn’t print too much on the incident - even a lecture on New Orleans’ devastating fires left out the tragedy. Townsend didn’t know the UpStairs Lounge was a gay bar until he came out. To this day, no one has been arrested for the fire, and until recently, the tragedy disappeared into history.
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The expression on his face really struck me deeply.” “There was that picture of Rusty Quinton on the front cover looking up in horror at the bar. “I was 11 years old and I saw the front page of the newspaper,” remembers Johnny Townsend. The next day, The Times-Picayune devoted its front page to the fire, headlined “29 KILLED IN QUARTER BLAZE” and printed a photo of onlookers in front of the charred building, as well as a portrait of a man in horror as he took in the damage. By the end of the night, 29 were dead and another three would later die from their injuries. It was J- nearly four years to the day of the infamous raid at the Stonewall Inn in New York City, when a gathering of LGBT people and their allies were laughing over drinks. Beneath a neon sign reading Dixie Divas, it sits at the feet of a burgundy door that houses the story of the UpStairs Lounge. In New Orleans’ French Quarter, countless people walk the intersection of Iberville Street and Chartres Street, perhaps to grab a drink at The Jimani, a bite at the Backspace Bar & Kitchen, or breakfast at Daisy Dukes.īut look down, and a bronze plaque is embedded in the brick sidewalk, one with a flame and the names of 32 perished souls.