Joseph Henry Adams
Reginald Adams, Jr.
Guy D. Anderson
Joe William Bailey
Luther Boggs
Louis Horace Broussard
Herbert Dean Cooley
Donald Walter Dunbar
Adam Roland Fontenot
David Stuart Gary
Horace “Skip” Getchell
John Thomas Golding, Sr.
Gerald Hoyt Gordon
Glenn Richard “Dick” Green
James Walls Hambrick
Kenneth Paul Harrington
Rev. William R. Larson (MCC Pastor)
Ferris LeBlanc
Robert “Bob” Lumpkin
Leon Richard Maples
George Steven Matyi
Clarence Josephy McCloskey, Jr.
Duane George “Mitch” Mitchell (MCC Assistant Pastor)
Larry Stratton
Mrs. Willie Inez Warren
Eddie Hosea Warren
James Curtis Warren
Dr. Perry Lane Waters, Jr.
Douglas Maxwell Williams
Three unknown white males buried in New Orleans’ Potter’s Field remain unidentified.
June 24, 1973 seemed like any other night at the Upstairs Lounge. The Metropolitan Community Church had just finished a worship service and was hosting a social event with free beer and food for about 125 people. As the night went on, this number dwindled to about 60, almost all remaining people being dedicated members of the church. Around 8:00 pm, the buzzer rang at the only entrance to the Upstairs Lounge. When the door was buzzed open from the upstairs bar, someone doused the wooden staircase with lighter fluid and then threw a lighted torch into the stairwell. The flames rushed into the Lounge very quickly, and the entire bar was on fire within minutes.
Jimmy Massacci, owner of the building, and his father, also a previous owner, both witnessed the fire. Massacci believes the arsonist was a regular at the bar, due to his familiarity with the door buzzer system used by the patrons. He stated that since the door on Iberville Street “was kept locked, whoever did it had to be a regular and had to know the routine.”
According to Stewart Butler, “Because of the materials that covered the walls of the stairwell and the upstairs, it went up like a fireball very, very quickly. Buddy Rasmussen, who was the bartender that night, knew that there was a fire escape in [a back] room [and] called for people to follow him. Undoubtedly some didn’t hear him, and by then some were already enveloped in flames. He managed to get out quite a number; I don’t know how many.”
Had the Upstairs Lounge building had been outfitted with proper fire safety measures, most of the congregation would have survived. The single emergency exit was not marked, however, and bars covered the windows.
Butler remembers, “I walked around and I was just absolutely horrified, mortified, in total shock at what was going on, because some of the patrons were trying to get out of the windows, notwithstanding the bars. Actually, I understand one person did manage to squeeze out between the bars and get out that way, but there were others who were totally burned to death up against the bars trying to get out.”
Massacci now operates the Jimani Bar on the first floor of the building. The former site of the Upstairs Lounge is used as a storage space.
National press coverage of the Upstairs Lounge fire was rather light and short-lived considering the scale of the crime. Coverage in New Orleans was insensitive and callous; newspaper reporters described “bodies stacked up like pancakes” and groups of “mass charred flesh.” The New Orleans States-Item detailed the investigation of the fire, mentioning that “in one corner, workers stood knee-deep in bodies [and] … the heat had been so intense, many were cooked together.”
In its front-page article about the fire, The Times-Picayune featured a photograph of the burned body of MCC pastor Reverend William R. Larson stuck in between the burglar bars blocking a window on Chartres Street. Eyewitness Stewart Butler remembers, “The press and news sources treated this horribly. The Times-Picayune printed the names of those who perished in that fire. If they had been in the closet, they weren’t in the closet anymore.”
The sensationalized and homophobic reporting of the local and national press reached its zenith when WVUE Channel 8 reported, on air live, an anonymous phone call saying that “the bar was fire-bombed by a vigilante group that has declared war on homosexuals in New Orleans. The caller, a woman, said the group calls itself “Black Momma, White Momma.” The news anchor went on to say that the group was made up of “several women, as well as five men, who have been sexually attacked by homosexuals.” The newscaster concluded by stating that the caller “said the group is planning more attacks and has maps outlining their future targets.”
Only the alternative newspaper the Vieux-Carre Courier editorialized against the horrible visual and written representations of the fire victims; the mainstream media quickly lost interest and little else was published about the fire and the ensuing investigation. One of the most likely suspects in the arson investigation later committed suicide. The crime has never been officially solved.
SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 