June 14, 2024 • 81 mins
On this week's episode, I am telling you about the horrific attack on the Upstairs Lounge in New Orleans. A gay bar where 29 people burned to death and three later died from their injuries, making it the worst loss of homosexual life in the country until the Pulse nightclub attack. This one is rough, graphic, terrifying, and heartbreaking, but it is so important to remember these people who were lost to history because of who they loved and the bigots that were against them.
Join me as I delve into the history, the tragic events of that night, the community's response, and the hauntings that followed. We will also discuss the importance of remembering these stories and the significance of Pride Month. Grab yourself a dollar for beer bust, make sure the doors are locked and a loved one is close by. I have a story to tell you.
For more pictures and sources from this week's episode go to https://patreon.com/MyHauntedLifePodcast and while you are there please consider supporting the podcast. You can do so for as little as $2 a month.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello, goblins and ghouls, and welcome to my Haunted Life podcast.
I'm your host, Angela Hurchor, and today I'm telling you about one of the most
horrific crimes I have ever heard of, where the screams of the victims are still heard today,
(00:20):
and just another reason why we have Pride Month.
So yeah trigger warning
this one is incredibly rough that's probably why i'm reading things so weird
at the moment like that this might be the worst one i've ever done so heads
(00:43):
up if you're gonna do it prepare yourself yeah there you go.
Music.
Hello my darklings how
is everyone doing today i hope
(01:05):
it's amazing because you're amazing i'm trying to think of any housekeeping
things for today i'm going to be in the providence road Rhode Island area for
the Oddities and Curiosities Expo on June 22nd and 23rd.
(01:26):
And then we're going to be wandering around the area and eventually going to Salem.
So definitely come by the Heart and Horn booth and say hi.
Happy Pride Month! We just had Pike's Peak Pride and it was lovely.
It was my first Pride Parade parade
(01:48):
technically since Tanya and I missed the New Orleans one last year and me and
the hubs are always working fair in the summer so we've always missed it and
so we got to actually go to one and it was lovely.
Honestly I was really overcome with the whole thing.
(02:10):
I didn't know what to expect honestly
but I was expecting a short little
parade but man Colorado Springs did me proud I never would have thought my little
hometown so close to Focus on the Family and New Life Church that we would have
anything that big and beautiful for pride it was absolutely amazing amazing. The whole day was great.
(02:36):
And especially after researching this podcast episode in particular.
Oh, so.
Yeah. On this week's episode, I am telling you about the horrific attack on
(02:58):
the upstairs lounge in New Orleans.
A gay bar where 29 people burned to death and three later died from their injuries,
making it the worst loss of homosexual life in the country until the Pulse nightclub attack.
Tack. Ever heard of it?
(03:20):
Neither had I until, of all things, an episode of Ghost Hunters.
Because now the bar is haunted.
This one is rough. It's graphic. It's terrifying. It's absolutely freaking heartbreaking.
But it is so important to remember these people who were lost to history because
(03:46):
of who they loved and the bigots that were against that I'm,
probably gonna cry just just ignore me when I do just you know like any other
time so let's get into it shall we grab yourself a dollar for beer bust make
sure the doors are locked and the loved one is close by I have a story to tell you.
(04:13):
Music.
As all of you should, well, most of you should know by now, I have an obsession with New Orleans.
So I was absolutely shocked that there was this massive, horrifying event that I had never heard of.
(04:40):
And then to find out that it was an attack on a gay bar.
I know quite a bit of queer history, and this was not something I had ever freaking
heard of. It was really weird.
Now, I assume there are a lot of stories like this lost to history.
And I hope these stories also get remembered soon.
(05:06):
But then, the response from the community.
You guys, it's downright despicable.
I know New Orleans to be a
very open and accepting place Like where all kinds of freak flags fly kind of
situation And no one cares about who you love kind of thing I've visited numerous
(05:33):
queer clubs and bars there And it's always the most accepting and loving places is.
And, you know, they were also not hidden and tucked away in a corner.
They were pretty freaking obvious what you were walking into, just like any other bar.
But that wasn't always the case.
(05:57):
The upstairs did have to hide.
It was called the upstairs lounge because it was on the second story of the
building above the Gemini Lounge.
Gemini Lounge? I've heard both.
Pronunciations of that. That bar is actually still there.
(06:18):
And it turns out the third floor was basically a flophouse for seamen coming in from the ships.
So the bar was hidden from From Street View, it was positioned almost like a
castle keep, I read it described,
where people who passed by it every day didn't even know there was a massive gay bar up there.
(06:44):
There was a very unassuming awning out front that just read, upstairs.
That was all that was printed on it.
That's it. Just simple. Upstairs. One could only access the bar via a single winding staircase.
(07:06):
You couldn't see where you were going as you were heading up the staircase. case.
Like, if you were down on the street and someone happened to open the door and
you looked in, you would only be able to see a little bit of hallway until it turned.
This added more privacy.
This was also the lone entrance and exit.
(07:29):
There was a door buzzer system where you would buzz to get let in,
and a bartender would send someone down to let you in.
And for the regulars, depending on the bartender, they would grandly announce
your entrance, and apparently your friends would all, like, cheer for you.
(07:53):
In one of the documentaries I watched, they described it as gay cheers.
How fucking precious. Like, seriously.
Also, the buzzer was used when the taxis were there to pick someone up.
So you really had to know the system and where the upstairs was to even know it existed.
(08:17):
So, yeah, this is the time when being homosexual, being out, all of it was not OK.
It was OK for to openly discriminate against. You could lose your job.
You could get evicted. If you were in the military, you could be dishonorably discharged.
(08:41):
Basically, your life would be completely ruined legally. Legally.
Like, it was way okay to do that.
If it turned out you were with a same-sex partner.
Some were even put into mental institutions just for being gay,
let alone being attacked or murdered, because it was basically your fault for
(09:03):
existing and most criminal charges were dropped or swept under the rug.
This is also the time of police raids. Police would storm establishments and
arrest people for just being there.
And they could then be held and sometimes roughed up trying to get more names,
(09:28):
trying to out your fellow friends.
According to Stephen Duplattis, very few people would carry IDs on them,
so cops couldn't identify them in these raids.
There were even stories of men being arrested in public for just holding hands.
(09:51):
Ugh. These individuals were seen as less than human. Ugh.
And it's one of those, I would like to think, like, oh my god,
we're so far behind, away from that.
But I just want to throw this out there.
Matthew Shepard was in 98, not that long ago. Pulse Nightclub was in 2016.
(10:16):
And Club Q was only a year and a half ago. So, and then, of course,
there's still numerous attacks and murders of those that don't even make the national news.
Long story short, the upstairs lounge story takes place back when there were
absolutely no protections whatsoever to speak of.
(10:40):
This is why places like gay bars became so important.
Places like The Upstairs,
like Pulse and Club Q, because people were able to truly be who they were and
why The Upstairs was so careful with the privacy.
(11:00):
The Upstairs was frequented by gay men and lesbians in the French Quarter.
It was located in an area referred to as the Gay Triangle, a region of the quarter
known for hosting the less affluent gay crowd.
While homosexuals who were more cosmopolitan partied on Bourbon Street,
(11:26):
the lower class, quote-unquote, drag queens and hustlers could be found in the
seedier seclusion of Iberville and Canal Streets.
Now, that part I took from an article. I have heard it described as seedier a lot.
(11:46):
That is just like the way people describe it.
And then when I found out about the flop house on the third floor,
like, oh, okay, maybe it was a little bit more seedier than I thought.
So that's why I chose to include it here.
So definitely the area around the upstairs was pretty freaking sketch.
(12:07):
The pictures I saw, though, of the inside of the patrons made it just look like any hometown bar.
Maybe a little divy, but those are the best.
And, oh, the pictures. Oh, I will be posting all the pictures.
(12:27):
Don't worry, they're all on the Patreon page.
But, oh, you guys need to see these pictures. They're amazing.
Anyways, it just seemed so loving and awesome.
Though it had been a cocktail bar since the early 1960s, the upstairs lounge
(12:47):
officially opened on Halloween night of 1970.
1870, only a little more than a year after the Stonewall Riots.
A frequent patron of the Upstairs Lounge, Stuart Butler, remembers,
the Upstairs Lounge was more of, I thought, a social club than it was a bar.
(13:12):
All sorts of different activities took place there.
They had occasion to sing We Shall Overcome with gay and straight together verse
in it, and it was sort of a rouser, if you will.
Patrons often used a piano in a cabaret stage for entertainment,
(13:34):
including shows and parties.
It was very popular for someone to play Broadway tunes on the piano and for the whole bar to sing.
Apparently, especially songs from Oklahoma, that was very popular at the time.
There is this absolutely wonderful picture, captioned, The Regular Crowd,
(13:59):
that shows a group of people having a grand old time.
And I thought this was really cool that this is the 70s in New Orleans and bars
were segregated not only by race but apparently orientation.
In the regular crowd picture you can clearly see a black man and a woman just
(14:21):
intermingling with the other regulars and to me that honestly makes Makes it
an even more special place.
And of course. I will post the picture.
On the Patreon. And I also saw it in part of a documentary.
Who they like name. Who some of the people are. So I also have that tagged.
(14:45):
Its reputation as a social club led the Upstairs Lounge to become the welcome
home for the Metropolitan Community Church,
or MCC, which I will say a lot, which established itself in the early 1970s.
The MCC was the first openly gay church in the United States,
(15:10):
and members often met discrimination. MCC Pastor Rev.
William R. Larson and Assistant Pastor Dwayne George Mitch Mitchell would regularly
host social events for church members and members of the gay community.
(15:31):
In the theater room, the small congregation of the Metropolitan Community Church held their services.
The contemporary gay and lesbian congregation recently relocated to the home of Reverend William R.
Larson, yet the bar held significance as their spiritual home, quote unquote.
(15:58):
That's freaking awesome. So, you know, young, old, everybody just kind of hung out.
Sunday nights were the biggest night of the week at the Upstairs Lounge.
Probably after church, you go get a drink. But there was a drink special called Beer Bust.
(16:20):
It was a dollar for two hours of unlimited draft beer. It was the Sunday night of June 24, 1973.
One of the articles I found described the community atmosphere like this.
In June of 1973, most of the nation was celebrating the fourth anniversary of
(16:45):
the Stonewall Riots in New York City.
Gay Pride festivals occurred throughout major cities across the United States.
Meanwhile, in New Orleans, the disorganized GLBT community made little effort
to hold official activities.
(17:08):
Sunday, June 24th, was the end of what little celebration the city saw.
An old you-can-drink beer bus was held upstairs, marking the close to Pride Weekend.
This is important because it kind of shows...
The, what's the good word for it? Like the last lackluster feeling toward these
(17:33):
things in the community.
Apparently an argument broke out between a few patrons in the afternoon.
Someone entered the bar that everybody knew, but who was apparently not very popular.
He got drunk and obnoxious. One story I read said he supposedly got caught stealing
tips off the bar and he got kicked out.
(17:58):
While he was being escorted out, people heard him say that he was going to burn the place.
The Metropolitan Community Church had just finished a worship service and was
hosting a social event for about 125 people.
(18:18):
After the drink special for the night ended, the number dwindled to about 60.
People, all remaining, were apparently members of the church, it's believed.
They listened to pianist George Stephen Budd Maddy perform and discussed an
(18:39):
upcoming MCC fundraiser for the local crippled children's hospital.
Okay, so So, around 8 p.m., the buzzer rang at the entrance of the upstairs lounge.
When the door was buzzed open from the upstairs bar,
(19:04):
someone doused the wooden staircase with lighter fluid and then threw a lighted
torch into the stairwell.
In other places, I read Molotov Cocktail.
I don't think anyone really knows for sure.
(19:24):
Yeah. So...
Before fleeing the scene, whoever did this slammed and supposedly also padlocked
the exit, and the fire smoldered between the two closed doors.
Bartender Buddy Rasmussen, an Air Force veteran, thought this was a little strange.
(19:47):
You know, the buzzer went off and no one's come up, so it must be a taxi,
but no taxi has been called, so that's a little weird.
He asked Luther Boggs, a regular patron, to shut down to the cabbie that there
was no need for him to wait.
As Luther opened the door, the influx of oxygen ignited the flames basically into a fireball.
(20:13):
In seconds, flames engulfed the bar.
Panic swept through the upstairs lounge as men and women scrambled to find exits.
Some hid beneath the white grand piano while others scrambled for the windows.
Buddy hurried to find his partner, Adam Funnot.
(20:36):
Buddy rounded up as many people as he could find in the dense smoke and violent flames.
According to Stuart Butler, because of the materials that covered the walls
of the stairway and the upstairs, it went up like a fireball very quickly.
Buddy, who was the bartender that night, knew that there was a fire escape in
(21:01):
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.
So apparently he did get out approximately about 20 individuals through this
(21:28):
unmarked rear emergency exit and out onto the street.
And apparently he went back in to try to keep helping.
From the windows, the trapped crowd screamed and fought their way through the
solid iron bars covering the openings.
Able-bodied men squeezed through the openings and leapt to the street,
(21:51):
landing atop one another.
Luther Boggs was one of who came through the window in flames after pushing
his female friend through the gap.
The flames on Boggs were extinguished by the owner of the neighboring bar,
but he passed away on the 10th of July, 16 days later, from third-degree burns to 50% of his body.
(22:23):
The crowd below watched in horror as the customers, unable to squeeze through
the narrow slots, tried in vain to escape.
This might be one of the hardest parts. So if you're not triggered yet,
this is like the big warning.
Reverend Larson struggled on the side of a window.
(22:47):
Like he apparently took the air conditioning unit out of this window and was
trying to fit between the bars.
So he's reaching out with his arm in his head and that is where he died.
He is described like this by a witness. his lifeless body burned in effigy,
stood poised in his final moments of escape to the horror of the gathered crowds.
(23:14):
Butler, who I've quoted multiple times, remembers,
I walked around and was just horrified, mortified, in total shock of what was
going on, because some of the patrons were trying to get out the windows,
notwithstanding the bars.
Actually, I understood one person did manage to squeeze out between the bars
(23:36):
and get out that way, but the others were totally burned to death against the bars trying to get out.
Okay, MCC assistant pastor George Mitch Mitchell,
which there's this lovely picture of him in the group of pictures I'm pretty
(23:57):
sure he's supposed to be dressed as Queen Victoria and it's.
It's just so sweet. He managed to escape, but returned in an attempt to rescue his partner.
They considered themselves married based off of a civil ceremony they had two years prior.
Lewis Horse Broussard both died in the fire, their remains found clinging to each other.
(24:28):
Mitchell's children were visiting from out of town and watched the same movie
seven times as they waited for their father's return.
Eventually, a friend took them to the airport and sent them home to their mother
without telling them what had happened to his father and his partner.
(24:50):
Sixteen minutes after the initial blaze tore through the establishment,
establishment the new orleans
fire department extinguished the flames the
heat was so intense that it left the bar stools twisted like pretzels it was
described victims were burned beyond recognition and like i said toward the
(25:14):
beginning the inferno left a death toll of 29 souls that That night,
three more died of their injuries sustained during the disaster later.
Music.
(25:37):
One of the most tragic aspects of this whole thing is that the upstairs lounge
fire is still officially an unsolved crime.
Jimmy Massini, owner of the building, and his father, also a previous owner,
(25:57):
both witnessed the fire.
He was 12 years old.
He believes the arsonist had to have been 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,
(26:18):
whoever did it had to have been a regular and had to know the routine.
There are a couple of suspects.
The main suspect is Roger Dale Nunes.
He was an internally conflicted gay-for-pay sex worker.
(26:41):
Which is how he is described in an article on the National Park Service website.
He is believed to have been the one ejected from the upstairs lounge fire minutes before the fire,
or hours, I should say, before the fire broke out, screaming the word burn or
(27:06):
something along those lines. There's a couple.
They're all going to burn. I'm going to burn it.
There's a few, but burn. According to Wikipedia,
police attempted to question Nunez shortly after the fire, but he was hospitalized
with a broken jaw and could not respond.
(27:28):
In another place, I read that later when he was questioned, he supposedly suffered
a seizure while being questioned?
When questioned later, however, police records show that he did not appear nervous.
(27:51):
Nunez had a witness who claimed that he had been in and out of the bar during
the 10-20 minutes before the fire,
and that he had seen nobody enter or leave the building.
Because police observed that the witness was stressed,
(28:14):
someone who had probably been there and had their friends die,
or, you know, we already talked about the police raids, afraid that the police
are going to ruin his life.
Uh, he seemed stressed, of course.
They dismissed the witness as a liar because he seemed stressed.
(28:41):
Nunez was diagnosed with conversion hysteria in 1970 and visited numerous psychiatric clinics.
He was released from a treatment facility about a year before the fire.
After his arrest, Nunes escaped from psychiatric custody and was never picked
(29:07):
up again by police, despite frequent appearances in the French Quarter.
A friend later told investigators that Nunes confessed on at least four occasions to starting the fire.
He told the friend he squirted the bottom steps with Ron Sol lighter fluid bought
(29:35):
at a local Walgreens and tossed a match.
Did not realize he claimed that the whole place would go up in flames.
Nunez died by suicide in November 1974.
In the book Queer Hauntings, author Ken Summers believes that the other suspect
(29:59):
or the suspect he named is David Dubose.
This is the only time I saw this name, But according to that book,
an argument broke out between a few patrons in the afternoon.
Herbert Cooley, the bartender, ordered two men to leave, one of whom was a well-known
(30:22):
hustler and troublemaker named David Dubose.
I feel like I should be saying that with a French accent because it's New Orleans.
In a rage, he stormed out of the bar shouting, I'll burn them all out.
A can of lighter fluid was purchased by a man in a nearby drugstore minutes later.
(30:44):
Though DeVos later bragged about committing the crime, he passed a lie detector
test and was never charged with arson.
One year later, he committed suicide.
So it's basically the same story. Almost exactly.
So I can't help but think that maybe the writer got the name wrong.
There's a lot of names in this. or whoever he interviewed for the story thought
(31:09):
it was a different person because it's like right on.
Either way, in 1980, the state fire marshal, lacking leads, closed the case.
Music.
(31:32):
In total 32 people
died the victims were
joseph henry adams reginald adams
jr which he
has an amazing story that's on the patreon picture oh
(31:53):
sorry uh george
d anderson joe william
bailey luther boggs lewis
horace broussard herbert dean
cooley Donald Walter Dunbar Adam Roland Fanot David Stuart Gary Horace Skip Gretchel.
(32:27):
Ron Thomas Golding Sr. Gerald Hoyt Gordon Glen Richard Dick Green James Walls Hambrick,
Kenneth Paul Harrington Rev.
William R. Larson, MCC Pastor
(32:49):
Farris LeBlanc Robert Bob Lumpkin
Leon Richard Maples George Stephen Motti Clarence Joseph Miklowski Jr.
(33:10):
Dwayne George Mitch Mitchell MCC Assistant Pastor Larry Stratton Mrs.
Willie Ines Warren, Eddie Hosa Warren, James Curtis Warren, Dr.
(33:32):
Perry Lane Waters Jr., Douglas Maxwell Williams.
Three unknown white males were buried in a New Orleans potter's field and they remain unidentified.
13 bodies had been identified by the following day. Dental records were used
(33:58):
to identify other victims.
After all the horrible death, no one was brought to justice.
The community response was even
more horrible and there's gonna be things that I'm gonna like read to you guys
(34:19):
I think it's important to remember this shit happened I obviously do not condone it,
again. This is why we have pride. Okay. Okay.
Many members of the New Orleans community, even those who were assigned to investigate
(34:43):
the fire, either largely disregarded the fire or refused to take it seriously in any way.
Many people with strong religious convictions, convictions—remember, this is New Orleans.
Catholicism is everything down there—believed the fire was some form of divine
retribution, punishing those for being gay.
(35:07):
Four of the bodies, like I said earlier, were unclaimed. Well, three.
Three of the bodies were unidentified. Four were unclaimed.
Those who weren't identified, it sounds like, weren't carrying IDs on them.
Probably because of what we talked about earlier.
Family members refused to identify them as well out of fear that others would
(35:33):
find out that their loved ones were gay.
The other was Ferris LeBlanc. His body was identified after an anonymous caller
told the coroner's office that LeBlanc wore an antique ring made out of a silver spoon.
Boone, but the police never contacted his family.
(35:57):
He was a World War II veteran who fought at the Battle of the Bulge.
He was been in a very open relationship with a man. His family knew and supported him.
His nephew has these stories of going and being able to ride around in their
(36:18):
fancy car, and just the family didn't care.
Two had broken up and he had been couch surfing for a bit until he decided to
go to New Orleans and then just disappeared.
Just gone. Remember, this is, you know, the 70s. We don't have cell phones.
You know, if somebody wanted to disappear, they could.
(36:42):
His younger sister would have dreams of him coming home frequently, but no word ever came.
She just never knew what happened to her big brother.
It wasn't until 42 years later did she find out what happened to him.
(37:02):
And I couldn't exactly find how she found out.
I don't know if somebody contacted her or if.
I kind of got the vibe that her son kind of got into genealogy and trying to
figure out what happened to him and found him.
But there is a documentary. It's on YouTube. You can watch it. It's from ABC News.
(37:26):
It has the worst title, but it's Prejudice and Pride.
It's a little... It's not the best edited, but it's this family's story.
So I do recommend it. Instead of releasing the unidentified,
unclaimed bodies to the Metropolitan Community Church for proper burials,
(37:52):
the three unidentified victims and the unclaimed body of Ferris LeBlanc were
all buried together in Holt Cemetery,
a potter's field for paupers and undesirables.
Or maybe I.
(38:14):
More on that later. All this hurts.
No elected official responded publicly to the fire.
Archbishop Philip Hannon denied the victims' Catholic funerals.
Churches throughout the city refused to allow services to be performed for the dead.
(38:37):
Remember that the upstairs was home to the Metropolitan Community Church.
It's a freaking church! And still, no church would allow a service to help.
Finally, the pastor of St. George Episcopal Church, Father Bill Richardson,
held a small prayer service for the fire victims on June 25, 1973.
(39:05):
So technically, it's really the day after for about 100 people,
and he was severely criticized for it throughout the city.
St. Mark's Community Center finally allowed a quiet prayer service and memorial
to almost 300 100 mourners on Sunday, July 1st.
(39:29):
Reverend Torrey Perry, head of the MCC, like not just the New Orleans one,
but the head of all of it, who in interviews is an amazing human,
flew to New Orleans from Los Angeles to give the sermon.
(39:50):
His closing words spurred on the GLBT community.
As long as one brother or sister in this world is oppressed, it is our problem.
Names such as.
Maggot, queer, fruit, and fairy are language of the bully and the bigot,
(40:14):
insensitive, stupid labels that will never put us down.
Those human beings, our friends, who died so horribly, have dignity now.
It does not matter what unacknowledgeable person has stooped to say,
(40:35):
our friends will always have respect because they are forever in our hearts.
The memory of our loved ones is so viable that I can almost feel their presence.
If they could speak, they would tell us to hold our heads up high.
(40:59):
Okay, sorry, need a little bit of a break there. This memorial was more public than the one at St.
George is, and many journalists and photographers waited outside the church
to expose members of the closeted gay community in New Orleans.
They're literally at a funeral for their dead friends, you guys.
(41:22):
Stuart Butler attended the July 1st services,
and he remembers that everyone was offered the option of exiting through a back
door of the church in order to avoid the potential stigma and harassment from going to the memorial.
(41:44):
No one chose that option. instead
everyone decided to face the media and
present a unified front to
honor those who had died in the fire oh i did read or no i think it's in one
of the documentaries that there was a i think she was a lesbian bar owner when
(42:10):
they were given this option stood out stood up and was like Like, no,
those people were my friends,
and I'm not ashamed of that.
A lot of this next section comes from the National Park Service website,
from a transcript from a podcast interviewing Bobby Fessler,
(42:34):
a queer historian and journalist.
And I use his writings in a lot of this because this he has a book out on this.
His he has done so much for this story.
And I don't know if it could get worse, but it does after this.
(42:54):
Okay. The LA Times makes it, the fire, a front page story.
The Chicago Tribune makes it a front page story.
The national TV news covers the upstairs lounge fire.
Then it became understood the type of bar that had burned and the character
(43:17):
of the individuals, the quality of the individuals who had died within.
The national media suddenly understood that this wasn't a typical true crime
story where the victims would be allotted all the ordinary sympathies.
Within two days, the deadliest fire to hit New Orleans in nearly two centuries
(43:42):
disappeared from the headlines. Officials and police seemed disinterested in solving the crime.
Coverage in New Orleans was insensitive and callous.
Newspaper reporters described bodies stacked up like pancakes and groups of mashed, charred flesh.
(44:07):
The New Orleans State's item detailed the investigation of the fire,
mentioning that in one corner, workers stood knee-deep in bodies,
and the heat was so intense,
many were cooked together.
(44:28):
In its front-page article about the fire,
the Times' Picayune featured a photograph of the body of MCC pastor Reverend William R.
Larson stuck in between the burglar bars, blocking a window on Charter Street. Eyewitnesses.
(44:54):
Buster. I'm going to warn you right now, if you look up these stories,
you will see this picture.
And it is so horrific. And there's so many of these pictures,
so many photographers were out there just taking pictures of his body hanging from the window.
(45:15):
And it's a rough image. Those Those images will not be on the Patreon.
I can't do the aftermath pictures.
Okay. Eyewitness Stuart Butler remembers, the press and news sources treated this horribly.
(45:35):
The Times-Picayune printed the names of all those 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
(45:55):
WVUE Channel
8 reported on air
live an anonymous phone call saying that the bar was firebombed by a vigilante
group that has declared a war on homosexuals in New Orleans.
(46:19):
The caller, a woman, said the group calls itself Black Mama, White Mama.
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
(46:46):
more attacks and has maps outlining their future targets.
And from what I can find, absolute total bullshit.
Only the alternative paper, the View Care Courier, editorialized against the
(47:07):
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.
Investigation our buddy Stuart Butler
recalls the silence that he didn't he
(47:29):
had to endure the day after the fire the next
morning I still so many people especially those who witnessed any of it were
almost immobile I had to go to
work and I was in the closet at work so I couldn't say one word about it.
(47:53):
An ultimate act of disrespect. Workers who were shifting the remnants,
shifting through the charred remnants of the upstairs lounge,
left the body of the pastor in the window for several hours. worse.
(48:15):
So, anyways, again, heads up, if you look this up, you're gonna see that picture.
News reports undermined the importance of the incident at a quote-unquote gay
bar, while radio commentators joked about the victims being buried in fruit jars.
(48:41):
At the time, local police did not consider the tragedy a top priority.
One officer told a reporter this was, after all, a queer bar.
There were other jokes going around town that you get the idea from the ones I've already told.
I don't need to keep stating them.
(49:04):
The arson at the upstairs lounge, like I said earlier, remains officially unsolved.
Despite being the deadliest crime against LGBT plus people in all of U.S.
History until the 2016 Pulse nightclub massacre in Orlando.
(49:28):
Even though the national media scattered, there was a persistent group of local
and national queer journalists that tried to continue the story for about a week.
They kept at it. They were activists.
They kept at it, and then those activists formed what was called the National
(49:50):
New Orleans Emergency Task Force.
They created an emergency fund for all sorts of things.
They, you know, one thing I read, they helped with funeral costs,
it seemed like, the most.
People who were now out of the job because they were hurt.
Hospital costs that sort of
(50:13):
thing they kept at it for a few months and
then it that all faltered then there
was just local silence that
being said not every member of the community was apathetic james massini massadi
massini the owner of the gemini bar at the time in the whole building actually
(50:37):
put up his own money as a reward for the capture of the arsonists.
According to his son, Jimmy, no one else put up any kind of reward.
Jimmy recounts that his father was a very tolerant man.
Unlike many other citizens, he saw gay people as just regular people and treated
(50:59):
them the same way he would anyone else.
It upset him that the public and the government officials just let this story
of the tragedy fade away.
Five years after the horrific event, the city of New Orleans began to attempt
to make peace with those affected by the fire.
(51:22):
A memorial bronze plaque set in brickwork adorned the sidewalk of Charter Street near Iberville.
Police, fire department, local churches, they've all put in apologies.
At this point for their part in it.
(51:45):
I did read one thing that the police were actually stuck behind other cars and
people wouldn't move and that's why it took them so long to get to the fire,
from everything else that seems not like a thing.
So Jimmy Messini Jr.
Now operates the Gemini bar on the first floor of the building still.
(52:08):
So he took over after his dad.
The former site of the upstairs lounge is now used as storage space.
I did want to read you a couple more segments from Bobby Feisler from the National Parks article.
There had been an older institution that had regulated queer life called effumastic
(52:39):
living or the closet or the gay underworld or open secret, the social compact,
however you want to reference it.
And that clamped back and the upstairs lounge was then foisted locally as this
example of what happens when you out yourself.
(53:02):
What are the dangers of outness? It's violence.
Are being subjected to dangerous living and a miserable death, that sort of thing.
The upstairs lounge was then utilized as a cautionary tale by semi-closeted
(53:22):
New Orleans linens, people from Louisiana,
that would say, this is an example of why we shouldn't be out open,
using our real names, showing our faces, fighting for our rights,
and we certainly shouldn't be involved in politics saying that we're homosexuals.
(53:44):
This was the majority voice, but then there was a minority voice locally of
activists that were activated.
They were like the slow-burning embers stoked by the Upstairs Lounge tragedy
who kept chatting about it, and they would do so for years.
(54:09):
They became some of the most important gay New Orleans and lesbian New Orleans activists.
Then they, in turn, became some of the most important gay activists in Louisiana.
A classic example of someone who was inspired to activism by the upstairs lounge
(54:30):
tragedy was a lesbian bar owner in New Orleans,
Charlene Snyder, who operated the lesbian bar Charlene's.
In her outrage over the way that the upstairs lounge victims were treated in
death, She became convinced the myth of live and let live in New Orleans,
(54:55):
the idea that I can do my dirty thing in my corner and you can do your dirty
thing in your corner and we're not going to get punished for it.
That this was a ruse because gays were consistently still being targeted within that atmosphere.
(55:16):
Incensed Charlene and motivated her to open up. It was a radical act.
She, in 1977, opened up a bar for gay women and used her real name,
and that was directly connected to her experience from the upstairs lounge tragedy.
(55:37):
Then that continues into the 21st century, where there was a tremendous explosion
of scholarship and interest and discussion,
first locally, then nationally, then internationally,
of the upstairs lounge fire, where now it's not just debated whether we should
(56:01):
talk about this event or connect it to the legacy of queer rights or queer well-being, etc.
But it's the subject of musicals that are touring internationally.
That there was an upstairs lounge musical called The View Upstairs that recently
(56:22):
played in Tokyo, translated into Japanese,
These are folks in Tokyo, in Japanese, singing about something that happened
to closeted gay folk in the 1970s French Quarter.
So, really want to thank Bobby Fischler for all of the work he's done on this.
(56:48):
If you look into this, you will probably see an article, a book,
a documentary that he's in. And he's the guy that's on it.
And he's done such great work. But I wanted to include this.
And I really enjoyed his writing, so I figured I'd just go ahead and quote him. But we're not done yet.
(57:11):
Like I told you earlier, we were going to talk about Ferris LeBlanc's family more.
When they discovered what happened to him, they wanted to, at the very least,
find him and give him a marker.
When they started looking into it, they were first told that he was buried in
(57:33):
Holt Cemetery with the other unidentified individuals.
Come to find out, he was not buried there.
And it's interesting because most of the books who were written a little bit
later all say Holt, because that's what everybody knew. It was supposed to be Holt Cemetery.
(57:54):
Started doing the research and found that they are buried in Rest Haven Cemetery.
And they were able to find a document that said he was buried in Panel Q, Lot 32.
The problem is there doesn't appear to be a map or anyone that knows exactly where that is.
(58:19):
For those that don't know, Now, New Orleans is famous for its inefficient bureaucracy.
It's painful. According to the cemetery, which is apparently a private cemetery,
they let the city use that section of the cemetery as a pauper's field.
(58:43):
So it is not up to them to maintain a map.
It's up to the city. According to the city, it is the job of the cemetery to
keep those records because they're buried in that cemetery.
And then apparently all those records were lost during Hurricane Katrina.
(59:05):
So, this whole thing just kept hurting my brain, let me tell you guys.
But, yeah, they're still searching. It, it's amazing.
Music.
(59:30):
Probably at this point, you're like, Angela, thanks for depressing the hell
out of us. But this is a haunted podcast.
We haven't talked about anything haunted really yet.
Well, honestly, we're getting to that right now. This is that section.
I hesitated to do this episode for multiple reasons.
(59:56):
And one of the reasons is because of the hauntings in particular.
Yes, we are a podcast about hauntings, so here you go.
And the Gemini Lounge is
considered one of the most haunted bars in all of
(01:00:17):
New Orleans because of the upstairs tragedy and it's so weird but one of the
things that kept the story out there and like teaching people about this tragedy
were the freaking ghost tour groups groups.
(01:00:40):
The problem is most of the time they went into, like, made it as gory as possible
and as exploitive as possible.
There was this one article that was like, this story's been kept alive by the
ghost tours because no one in the government wants to pay attention to it and acknowledge it.
(01:01:07):
And that hurts my brain, you guys.
I believe this excerpt comes from the Queer Haunting book.
Several staff members from the
sports bar refused to set foot in the upstairs the
steel door leading to what once was
(01:01:29):
the upstairs lounge still bears
scorch marks from the 1973 flames its darkened paint bears an uncanny resemblance
to a human figure beyond it lays a forgotten gotten relic-turned-storage space.
(01:01:51):
Even the bravest men sense trepidation on the wooden stairs.
While the fire may be a distant memory, the agony, pain, and fear of the victims
is still crisp within the walls.
Visitors still catch pungent wafts of smoke at the spot the blaze began. Anne.
(01:02:15):
Blood-curdling screams and terrifying moans echo on the second floor.
Intense heat from unseen flames drifts along the steps.
Explorers report feelings of panic and the empty area holds the spirits of the
(01:02:36):
many fatalities nearly three decades ago.
Long after the unfortunate fire of the upstairs lounge.
The site is still haunted by the ghosts of the victims caught in an internal
struggle for their lives.
Music.
(01:03:12):
Read that and think, hope, that it's just a residual haunting situation.
You do not want to think these guys are stuck here. So, patrons of the Gemini
Bar often tell of whispers from nobody,
(01:03:34):
inexplicable icy chills, and faint smells of burning hair and charred flesh.
There are also reports of a full-bodied apparition on the second floor.
Psychics and paranormal investigators who have visited the bar feel that one
of the more predominant haunts is the spirit of George Bud Mady,
(01:04:00):
who was the regular piano player at the upstairs lounge and was loved by many who knew him.
Even in his final moments on Earth, Bud continued to be a caring individual.
After assisting several people out of the building, he returned to collect others.
(01:04:22):
The blaze proved to be too much for him, and he would perish in the building.
Once the fire was extinguished, reports say that his body was found under his
piano, laying on top of two bodies
as if he was trying to offer protection even during his last breath.
(01:04:42):
I think one of the things, little sidebar, one of the things that I think is
so beautiful about this story is how many heroes stepped up to try to save their
friends and how many of them got out,
and so many of them went back in and tried again to get more and that's when it...
(01:05:06):
Them. Sorry. Okay. Go shit. That's what we're here for. Okay.
Owner Jimmy Massini Jr.
Has a story about when he and a friend stopped by the bar.
They both heard a sound despite the bar being closed.
They investigated the sound and found that they had heard chains rattling in an old elevator shaft.
(01:05:33):
No, heavy elevator chains don't just swing and rattle by themselves.
I think this comes from the queer history book. Jimmy then felt what he described
as ice cold air prompting both of them to exit as swiftly as possible.
Like I said earlier, I learned about this event on an episode of Ghost Hunters.
(01:06:00):
And I believe the episode came out in 2014.
Before Pulse in 2016. That's when this story became a little bit more told, was after Pulse.
Because like, oh, here's this other historical one that happened that nobody
talks about anymore either.
(01:06:22):
So I thought that was interesting that they were able to find this before that.
I'm not sure of the episode number. I know it's season eight,
because Netflix didn't have the numbers, which I thought was weird.
And they only have season eight and nine.
But the episode is entitled French Quarter Massacre.
(01:06:42):
I think this is toward the end of the original run. I was a big ghost hunters girl growing up.
But when I went off to college, I stopped following as much.
And then the weird blow up amongst the crew happened.
I mean, honestly, I would love a Ghost Hunters documentary.
I would love to hear all the tea among them because it has to be good.
(01:07:05):
I would like to think so. I mean, this is after Grant Wilson left and Adam Barry
and Amy Bruni start coming in more.
And I love Adam. I'm not a big fan of Amy.
They interviewed Jimmy Jr. on the episode. He claimed the cold spots around
the elevator shaft on an 85 degree day.
(01:07:27):
And for those that aren't familiar with New Orleans.
Feel cold on an 85 degree day. It is miserable and sticky and hot and humid.
One interview claimed that a woman passing by saw a shadowy figure in one of
the second floor windows.
(01:07:49):
When she looked closer, it looked like it was pushing against the glass.
White orbs and flashes of light in the stairwell are reported.
Feeling of someone standing over you and overall creeping feelings.
Overall, not a bad start to the episode. A bit of playing up the spooky, but not the worse.
(01:08:16):
One of the things I will say that completely puck him through me is, so like I said, Jimmy Jr.
Is in this. They interview him. He's the one taking them around, giving them the tour.
He looks so freaking young.
And, like, it kind of took me aback.
(01:08:41):
Because this is 2014.
This was 41 years ago at that point. And then he was 12.
Supposedly, he's like 53 in the show.
And he does not look 53. either way he
just looks so young and then you remember this tragedy really was
(01:09:02):
not that long ago anyways that it was a weird it was a weird thing for me i
thought it was interesting that adam an openly gay man basically offered himself
up as a trigger object and can like attempted to
connect with the spirits one-on-one as, like, one of them.
(01:09:27):
I don't know why, but it seemed a little cringey. But I couldn't put my finger on exactly why.
And then the episode just gets really cringey.
Steve and Tango, who are, like, my favorite, are trying to communicate with
the spirits using EMF detectors.
(01:09:48):
So they have them, like, around them. And I think there's like three on the floor around them.
And it's like, hey, if you want to come up to us, come up to us.
And, you know, or you can mess with this device that will all you have to do
is move close to it. And that's how you can communicate with us.
And they're doing this back and forth and they're not really getting a lot of responses.
(01:10:10):
And they bring up Roger Dale Nunez, the main suspect in the fire.
And get a very, very slight reaction on the devices.
So they decide that they are now talking to him.
And start... Ah, it...
(01:10:31):
And they're like bringing him up because, you know, maybe the other guys aren't
trapped there. But with what he did, he's trapped there. So we're going to talk to him now.
And it's like, I don't know. It really like bugged me. Did not sit well.
They also investigated two other locations connected to the victims.
(01:10:52):
I thought this was a little weird. the mortuary where
most of the bodies were taken which is now
a haunt like a haunted house
for halloween situation i think they said event space on ghost hunters there
they claimed to have seen burn and charred bodies smelling charred flesh and
(01:11:18):
an apparition of a man in the corner looking very confused.
And there's so many footsteps, so many footsteps.
And they react to so many noises.
And me being me, it's like, I'm just like, it literally was a mortuary.
(01:11:38):
I don't know if you can figure out which ghostly bodies are showing up, but okay, whatever.
The third location is one of
the local cemeteries where the unidentified bodies could have been buried.
It is not one of the cemeteries that we talked about previously.
(01:12:00):
So I have no idea where they got this one.
And I was digging into the cemetery stuff, so I have no idea.
It's a pretty horrible segment. segment
it's just them and it's
adam and another guy that i
don't really remember much because he came in later wandering
(01:12:23):
through the cemetery asking for the men that died in the fire because they have
absolutely no idea if they're buried there where so they're just wandering like
hey hey, if you died in the fire,
come talk to us. It's like, oh my gosh, you guys.
At one point, they decided that a very obviously weathered flat slab,
(01:12:49):
and they showed it, it was just obviously very weathered, was quote-unquote unmarked,
and decided this was the unmarked graves of the unidentified guys.
And start trying to communicate.
They didn't get anything. Honestly, I'm not sure if it was worth the rewatch.
(01:13:10):
It was a bit painful. It was a bit cringy.
They seemed to have some personal experiences, heard what sounded like footsteps, captured a few EVPs.
But that didn't sound like anything to me. Yeah.
No, it wasn't there. One of the more depressing things on this whole thing,
(01:13:37):
and this is more based on the circumstances of the whole thing than the investigation,
is they're sitting down with Jimmy Jr.
For the evidence review that they always do.
And even Jason Hawes who I adore
said they didn't really find much
(01:13:59):
he was hoping to find more but didn't didn't really find much and Amy Bruni
is saying you know they really wanted to bring the story to light and to you
know teach people about this story that you know a lot of people don't know.
And Jimmy Jr., straight up, looking at her, says that they have done more than most.
(01:14:26):
That to me is just so freaking heartbreaking. Because I can't help but think
he's thinking of, you know, the officials, the police, the churches, the freaking media.
He literally has had to grow up with this story and for him to say that to this
(01:14:50):
tv ghost hunting group just broke my heart all over again.
Music.
In. When I was in New Orleans in the summer of 2023, I went by the Gemini bar to see the plaque.
(01:15:16):
And honestly, I just could not bring myself to go in.
It had at that point been only six, seven months since Club Q.
I was not at Club Q, but I had friends that were.
We were actually supposed to be there for this friend's birthday party and our
(01:15:38):
friend's giving ran late.
And the entire way home, I tried to convince Jordan to swing by,
but he kept telling me no, it was too late, and he was tired.
We didn't find out what happened until the next morning when my mom called freaking
out wanting me to check on a couple of friends of mine.
(01:16:09):
I worked with one of the survivors for a bit, and I watched him become an amazing activist,
and also struggle with the survivor's guilt and losing the love of his life.
And I was able to meet a lot of the other survivors through him.
(01:16:32):
One day at work a bunch of
them came in to see him and started
showing me their bullet scars and sharing their stories and it was rough but
i think it takes a lot of courage to survive something like that and so much strength to carry on.
(01:16:59):
And I think it's our duty to listen to these people's stories and learn something from them.
The worse the story, the more important it is.
I don't care how uncomfortable or anything like that, these stories need to still be.
(01:17:25):
Music.
It is our job to carry on those stories, to do something to help,
and to take steps to help ensure something like this doesn't happen again.
(01:17:45):
So this, this stuff, this is why we have Pride Month.
This is why we have parades. It's to celebrate being able to love who we want
and remembering those who died because of it.
But if you get a chance and you're in the Colorado Springs area,
(01:18:07):
please go by Kronk Art and Curiosities.
I know I, you know, I love them. You know that by now.
But the reason I tell you this is they set up a friend for pride for the Club Q victims.
Victims and it just never came down
(01:18:28):
because they just have
to keep adding to it and this
isn't exactly what I wanted to end on but only a month ago the plaque with all
the names the remembrance for the upstairs lounge outside the Gemini lounge was stolen.
(01:18:54):
They have surveillance video of the guy with a cigarette in his mouth the entire
time, pulling up the plaque and carrying it away.
It's really clear, up-close video.
And the last I saw, there were no updates or arrests yet.
Music.
(01:19:25):
Thank you to everyone out there listening today. I know this one sucked.
It hurt. But I think the remembrance is so important.
So if you got this far, thank you. you
my haunted life podcast is written
(01:19:45):
researched produced edited and hosted by me angela hartjorn all of my sources
are gonna be on the patreon page so make sure you subscribe to that subscribe
to your favorite podcast app so you never miss an episode.
(01:20:08):
Good at the Patreon page, I like to think. So, you know, go check it out.
That's where I'll be posting all of the pictures.
And if you want to support the show, you can for as little as $2 a month.
And if you have any information on today's episode that you want to share or
(01:20:30):
have your own ghost story.
I've been getting so many of these from the Facebook group. It's freaking awesome.
And ironically, they're all parent stories so far. So I'm really about that.
Email me at myhauntedlifepodcast at gmail.com. Or like I said,
you can write me on Facebook.
(01:20:51):
There's also the Instagram, there's the TikTok, there's the YouTube.
So yeah while you're there please
like and follow and comment i love
it it makes me so happy please share it i promise next week it or next episode
remember we're two weeks uh
(01:21:12):
is nowhere near as hard as this one it goes around along with pride month,
but I could not do another sad story not like this so.
Look for that one in a little bit but that's it,
(01:21:33):
that's all I got for this week I am now emotionally spent I hope you are okay
if you got this far I'm really proud of you,
and yeah so until next time everybody stay spooky Thank you.
Hello, goblins and ghouls, and welcome to my Haunted Life podcast.
I'm your host, Angela Hurchor, and today I'm telling you about one of the most
horrific crimes I have ever heard of, where the screams of the victims are still heard today,
(00:20):
and just another reason why we have Pride Month.
So yeah trigger warning
this one is incredibly rough that's probably why i'm reading things so weird
at the moment like that this might be the worst one i've ever done so heads
(00:43):
up if you're gonna do it prepare yourself yeah there you go.
Music.
Hello my darklings how
is everyone doing today i hope
(01:05):
it's amazing because you're amazing i'm trying to think of any housekeeping
things for today i'm going to be in the providence road Rhode Island area for
the Oddities and Curiosities Expo on June 22nd and 23rd.
(01:26):
And then we're going to be wandering around the area and eventually going to Salem.
So definitely come by the Heart and Horn booth and say hi.
Happy Pride Month! We just had Pike's Peak Pride and it was lovely.
It was my first Pride Parade parade
(01:48):
technically since Tanya and I missed the New Orleans one last year and me and
the hubs are always working fair in the summer so we've always missed it and
so we got to actually go to one and it was lovely.
Honestly I was really overcome with the whole thing.
(02:10):
I didn't know what to expect honestly
but I was expecting a short little
parade but man Colorado Springs did me proud I never would have thought my little
hometown so close to Focus on the Family and New Life Church that we would have
anything that big and beautiful for pride it was absolutely amazing amazing. The whole day was great.
(02:36):
And especially after researching this podcast episode in particular.
Oh, so.
Yeah. On this week's episode, I am telling you about the horrific attack on
(02:58):
the upstairs lounge in New Orleans.
A gay bar where 29 people burned to death and three later died from their injuries,
making it the worst loss of homosexual life in the country until the Pulse nightclub attack.
Tack. Ever heard of it?
(03:20):
Neither had I until, of all things, an episode of Ghost Hunters.
Because now the bar is haunted.
This one is rough. It's graphic. It's terrifying. It's absolutely freaking heartbreaking.
But it is so important to remember these people who were lost to history because
(03:46):
of who they loved and the bigots that were against that I'm,
probably gonna cry just just ignore me when I do just you know like any other
time so let's get into it shall we grab yourself a dollar for beer bust make
sure the doors are locked and the loved one is close by I have a story to tell you.
(04:13):
Music.
As all of you should, well, most of you should know by now, I have an obsession with New Orleans.
So I was absolutely shocked that there was this massive, horrifying event that I had never heard of.
(04:40):
And then to find out that it was an attack on a gay bar.
I know quite a bit of queer history, and this was not something I had ever freaking
heard of. It was really weird.
Now, I assume there are a lot of stories like this lost to history.
And I hope these stories also get remembered soon.
(05:06):
But then, the response from the community.
You guys, it's downright despicable.
I know New Orleans to be a
very open and accepting place Like where all kinds of freak flags fly kind of
situation And no one cares about who you love kind of thing I've visited numerous
(05:33):
queer clubs and bars there And it's always the most accepting and loving places is.
And, you know, they were also not hidden and tucked away in a corner.
They were pretty freaking obvious what you were walking into, just like any other bar.
But that wasn't always the case.
(05:57):
The upstairs did have to hide.
It was called the upstairs lounge because it was on the second story of the
building above the Gemini Lounge.
Gemini Lounge? I've heard both.
Pronunciations of that. That bar is actually still there.
(06:18):
And it turns out the third floor was basically a flophouse for seamen coming in from the ships.
So the bar was hidden from From Street View, it was positioned almost like a
castle keep, I read it described,
where people who passed by it every day didn't even know there was a massive gay bar up there.
(06:44):
There was a very unassuming awning out front that just read, upstairs.
That was all that was printed on it.
That's it. Just simple. Upstairs. One could only access the bar via a single winding staircase.
(07:06):
You couldn't see where you were going as you were heading up the staircase. case.
Like, if you were down on the street and someone happened to open the door and
you looked in, you would only be able to see a little bit of hallway until it turned.
This added more privacy.
This was also the lone entrance and exit.
(07:29):
There was a door buzzer system where you would buzz to get let in,
and a bartender would send someone down to let you in.
And for the regulars, depending on the bartender, they would grandly announce
your entrance, and apparently your friends would all, like, cheer for you.
(07:53):
In one of the documentaries I watched, they described it as gay cheers.
How fucking precious. Like, seriously.
Also, the buzzer was used when the taxis were there to pick someone up.
So you really had to know the system and where the upstairs was to even know it existed.
(08:17):
So, yeah, this is the time when being homosexual, being out, all of it was not OK.
It was OK for to openly discriminate against. You could lose your job.
You could get evicted. If you were in the military, you could be dishonorably discharged.
(08:41):
Basically, your life would be completely ruined legally. Legally.
Like, it was way okay to do that.
If it turned out you were with a same-sex partner.
Some were even put into mental institutions just for being gay,
let alone being attacked or murdered, because it was basically your fault for
(09:03):
existing and most criminal charges were dropped or swept under the rug.
This is also the time of police raids. Police would storm establishments and
arrest people for just being there.
And they could then be held and sometimes roughed up trying to get more names,
(09:28):
trying to out your fellow friends.
According to Stephen Duplattis, very few people would carry IDs on them,
so cops couldn't identify them in these raids.
There were even stories of men being arrested in public for just holding hands.
(09:51):
Ugh. These individuals were seen as less than human. Ugh.
And it's one of those, I would like to think, like, oh my god,
we're so far behind, away from that.
But I just want to throw this out there.
Matthew Shepard was in 98, not that long ago. Pulse Nightclub was in 2016.
(10:16):
And Club Q was only a year and a half ago. So, and then, of course,
there's still numerous attacks and murders of those that don't even make the national news.
Long story short, the upstairs lounge story takes place back when there were
absolutely no protections whatsoever to speak of.
(10:40):
This is why places like gay bars became so important.
Places like The Upstairs,
like Pulse and Club Q, because people were able to truly be who they were and
why The Upstairs was so careful with the privacy.
(11:00):
The Upstairs was frequented by gay men and lesbians in the French Quarter.
It was located in an area referred to as the Gay Triangle, a region of the quarter
known for hosting the less affluent gay crowd.
While homosexuals who were more cosmopolitan partied on Bourbon Street,
(11:26):
the lower class, quote-unquote, drag queens and hustlers could be found in the
seedier seclusion of Iberville and Canal Streets.
Now, that part I took from an article. I have heard it described as seedier a lot.
(11:46):
That is just like the way people describe it.
And then when I found out about the flop house on the third floor,
like, oh, okay, maybe it was a little bit more seedier than I thought.
So that's why I chose to include it here.
So definitely the area around the upstairs was pretty freaking sketch.
(12:07):
The pictures I saw, though, of the inside of the patrons made it just look like any hometown bar.
Maybe a little divy, but those are the best.
And, oh, the pictures. Oh, I will be posting all the pictures.
(12:27):
Don't worry, they're all on the Patreon page.
But, oh, you guys need to see these pictures. They're amazing.
Anyways, it just seemed so loving and awesome.
Though it had been a cocktail bar since the early 1960s, the upstairs lounge
(12:47):
officially opened on Halloween night of 1970.
1870, only a little more than a year after the Stonewall Riots.
A frequent patron of the Upstairs Lounge, Stuart Butler, remembers,
the Upstairs Lounge was more of, I thought, a social club than it was a bar.
(13:12):
All sorts of different activities took place there.
They had occasion to sing We Shall Overcome with gay and straight together verse
in it, and it was sort of a rouser, if you will.
Patrons often used a piano in a cabaret stage for entertainment,
(13:34):
including shows and parties.
It was very popular for someone to play Broadway tunes on the piano and for the whole bar to sing.
Apparently, especially songs from Oklahoma, that was very popular at the time.
There is this absolutely wonderful picture, captioned, The Regular Crowd,
(13:59):
that shows a group of people having a grand old time.
And I thought this was really cool that this is the 70s in New Orleans and bars
were segregated not only by race but apparently orientation.
In the regular crowd picture you can clearly see a black man and a woman just
(14:21):
intermingling with the other regulars and to me that honestly makes Makes it
an even more special place.
And of course. I will post the picture.
On the Patreon. And I also saw it in part of a documentary.
Who they like name. Who some of the people are. So I also have that tagged.
(14:45):
Its reputation as a social club led the Upstairs Lounge to become the welcome
home for the Metropolitan Community Church,
or MCC, which I will say a lot, which established itself in the early 1970s.
The MCC was the first openly gay church in the United States,
(15:10):
and members often met discrimination. MCC Pastor Rev.
William R. Larson and Assistant Pastor Dwayne George Mitch Mitchell would regularly
host social events for church members and members of the gay community.
(15:31):
In the theater room, the small congregation of the Metropolitan Community Church held their services.
The contemporary gay and lesbian congregation recently relocated to the home of Reverend William R.
Larson, yet the bar held significance as their spiritual home, quote unquote.
(15:58):
That's freaking awesome. So, you know, young, old, everybody just kind of hung out.
Sunday nights were the biggest night of the week at the Upstairs Lounge.
Probably after church, you go get a drink. But there was a drink special called Beer Bust.
(16:20):
It was a dollar for two hours of unlimited draft beer. It was the Sunday night of June 24, 1973.
One of the articles I found described the community atmosphere like this.
In June of 1973, most of the nation was celebrating the fourth anniversary of
(16:45):
the Stonewall Riots in New York City.
Gay Pride festivals occurred throughout major cities across the United States.
Meanwhile, in New Orleans, the disorganized GLBT community made little effort
to hold official activities.
(17:08):
Sunday, June 24th, was the end of what little celebration the city saw.
An old you-can-drink beer bus was held upstairs, marking the close to Pride Weekend.
This is important because it kind of shows...
The, what's the good word for it? Like the last lackluster feeling toward these
(17:33):
things in the community.
Apparently an argument broke out between a few patrons in the afternoon.
Someone entered the bar that everybody knew, but who was apparently not very popular.
He got drunk and obnoxious. One story I read said he supposedly got caught stealing
tips off the bar and he got kicked out.
(17:58):
While he was being escorted out, people heard him say that he was going to burn the place.
The Metropolitan Community Church had just finished a worship service and was
hosting a social event for about 125 people.
(18:18):
After the drink special for the night ended, the number dwindled to about 60.
People, all remaining, were apparently members of the church, it's believed.
They listened to pianist George Stephen Budd Maddy perform and discussed an
(18:39):
upcoming MCC fundraiser for the local crippled children's hospital.
Okay, so So, around 8 p.m., the buzzer rang at the entrance of the upstairs lounge.
When the door was buzzed open from the upstairs bar,
(19:04):
someone doused the wooden staircase with lighter fluid and then threw a lighted
torch into the stairwell.
In other places, I read Molotov Cocktail.
I don't think anyone really knows for sure.
(19:24):
Yeah. So...
Before fleeing the scene, whoever did this slammed and supposedly also padlocked
the exit, and the fire smoldered between the two closed doors.
Bartender Buddy Rasmussen, an Air Force veteran, thought this was a little strange.
(19:47):
You know, the buzzer went off and no one's come up, so it must be a taxi,
but no taxi has been called, so that's a little weird.
He asked Luther Boggs, a regular patron, to shut down to the cabbie that there
was no need for him to wait.
As Luther opened the door, the influx of oxygen ignited the flames basically into a fireball.
(20:13):
In seconds, flames engulfed the bar.
Panic swept through the upstairs lounge as men and women scrambled to find exits.
Some hid beneath the white grand piano while others scrambled for the windows.
Buddy hurried to find his partner, Adam Funnot.
(20:36):
Buddy rounded up as many people as he could find in the dense smoke and violent flames.
According to Stuart Butler, because of the materials that covered the walls
of the stairway and the upstairs, it went up like a fireball very quickly.
Buddy, who was the bartender that night, knew that there was a fire escape in
(21:01):
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.
So apparently he did get out approximately about 20 individuals through this
(21:28):
unmarked rear emergency exit and out onto the street.
And apparently he went back in to try to keep helping.
From the windows, the trapped crowd screamed and fought their way through the
solid iron bars covering the openings.
Able-bodied men squeezed through the openings and leapt to the street,
(21:51):
landing atop one another.
Luther Boggs was one of who came through the window in flames after pushing
his female friend through the gap.
The flames on Boggs were extinguished by the owner of the neighboring bar,
but he passed away on the 10th of July, 16 days later, from third-degree burns to 50% of his body.
(22:23):
The crowd below watched in horror as the customers, unable to squeeze through
the narrow slots, tried in vain to escape.
This might be one of the hardest parts. So if you're not triggered yet,
this is like the big warning.
Reverend Larson struggled on the side of a window.
(22:47):
Like he apparently took the air conditioning unit out of this window and was
trying to fit between the bars.
So he's reaching out with his arm in his head and that is where he died.
He is described like this by a witness. his lifeless body burned in effigy,
stood poised in his final moments of escape to the horror of the gathered crowds.
(23:14):
Butler, who I've quoted multiple times, remembers,
I walked around and was just horrified, mortified, in total shock of what was
going on, because some of the patrons were trying to get out the windows,
notwithstanding the bars.
Actually, I understood one person did manage to squeeze out between the bars
(23:36):
and get out that way, but the others were totally burned to death against the bars trying to get out.
Okay, MCC assistant pastor George Mitch Mitchell,
which there's this lovely picture of him in the group of pictures I'm pretty
(23:57):
sure he's supposed to be dressed as Queen Victoria and it's.
It's just so sweet. He managed to escape, but returned in an attempt to rescue his partner.
They considered themselves married based off of a civil ceremony they had two years prior.
Lewis Horse Broussard both died in the fire, their remains found clinging to each other.
(24:28):
Mitchell's children were visiting from out of town and watched the same movie
seven times as they waited for their father's return.
Eventually, a friend took them to the airport and sent them home to their mother
without telling them what had happened to his father and his partner.
(24:50):
Sixteen minutes after the initial blaze tore through the establishment,
establishment the new orleans
fire department extinguished the flames the
heat was so intense that it left the bar stools twisted like pretzels it was
described victims were burned beyond recognition and like i said toward the
(25:14):
beginning the inferno left a death toll of 29 souls that That night,
three more died of their injuries sustained during the disaster later.
Music.
(25:37):
One of the most tragic aspects of this whole thing is that the upstairs lounge
fire is still officially an unsolved crime.
Jimmy Massini, owner of the building, and his father, also a previous owner,
(25:57):
both witnessed the fire.
He was 12 years old.
He believes the arsonist had to have been 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,
(26:18):
whoever did it had to have been a regular and had to know the routine.
There are a couple of suspects.
The main suspect is Roger Dale Nunes.
He was an internally conflicted gay-for-pay sex worker.
(26:41):
Which is how he is described in an article on the National Park Service website.
He is believed to have been the one ejected from the upstairs lounge fire minutes before the fire,
or hours, I should say, before the fire broke out, screaming the word burn or
(27:06):
something along those lines. There's a couple.
They're all going to burn. I'm going to burn it.
There's a few, but burn. According to Wikipedia,
police attempted to question Nunez shortly after the fire, but he was hospitalized
with a broken jaw and could not respond.
(27:28):
In another place, I read that later when he was questioned, he supposedly suffered
a seizure while being questioned?
When questioned later, however, police records show that he did not appear nervous.
(27:51):
Nunez had a witness who claimed that he had been in and out of the bar during
the 10-20 minutes before the fire,
and that he had seen nobody enter or leave the building.
Because police observed that the witness was stressed,
(28:14):
someone who had probably been there and had their friends die,
or, you know, we already talked about the police raids, afraid that the police
are going to ruin his life.
Uh, he seemed stressed, of course.
They dismissed the witness as a liar because he seemed stressed.
(28:41):
Nunez was diagnosed with conversion hysteria in 1970 and visited numerous psychiatric clinics.
He was released from a treatment facility about a year before the fire.
After his arrest, Nunes escaped from psychiatric custody and was never picked
(29:07):
up again by police, despite frequent appearances in the French Quarter.
A friend later told investigators that Nunes confessed on at least four occasions to starting the fire.
He told the friend he squirted the bottom steps with Ron Sol lighter fluid bought
(29:35):
at a local Walgreens and tossed a match.
Did not realize he claimed that the whole place would go up in flames.
Nunez died by suicide in November 1974.
In the book Queer Hauntings, author Ken Summers believes that the other suspect
(29:59):
or the suspect he named is David Dubose.
This is the only time I saw this name, But according to that book,
an argument broke out between a few patrons in the afternoon.
Herbert Cooley, the bartender, ordered two men to leave, one of whom was a well-known
(30:22):
hustler and troublemaker named David Dubose.
I feel like I should be saying that with a French accent because it's New Orleans.
In a rage, he stormed out of the bar shouting, I'll burn them all out.
A can of lighter fluid was purchased by a man in a nearby drugstore minutes later.
(30:44):
Though DeVos later bragged about committing the crime, he passed a lie detector
test and was never charged with arson.
One year later, he committed suicide.
So it's basically the same story. Almost exactly.
So I can't help but think that maybe the writer got the name wrong.
There's a lot of names in this. or whoever he interviewed for the story thought
(31:09):
it was a different person because it's like right on.
Either way, in 1980, the state fire marshal, lacking leads, closed the case.
Music.
(31:32):
In total 32 people
died the victims were
joseph henry adams reginald adams
jr which he
has an amazing story that's on the patreon picture oh
(31:53):
sorry uh george
d anderson joe william
bailey luther boggs lewis
horace broussard herbert dean
cooley Donald Walter Dunbar Adam Roland Fanot David Stuart Gary Horace Skip Gretchel.
(32:27):
Ron Thomas Golding Sr. Gerald Hoyt Gordon Glen Richard Dick Green James Walls Hambrick,
Kenneth Paul Harrington Rev.
William R. Larson, MCC Pastor
(32:49):
Farris LeBlanc Robert Bob Lumpkin
Leon Richard Maples George Stephen Motti Clarence Joseph Miklowski Jr.
(33:10):
Dwayne George Mitch Mitchell MCC Assistant Pastor Larry Stratton Mrs.
Willie Ines Warren, Eddie Hosa Warren, James Curtis Warren, Dr.
(33:32):
Perry Lane Waters Jr., Douglas Maxwell Williams.
Three unknown white males were buried in a New Orleans potter's field and they remain unidentified.
13 bodies had been identified by the following day. Dental records were used
(33:58):
to identify other victims.
After all the horrible death, no one was brought to justice.
The community response was even
more horrible and there's gonna be things that I'm gonna like read to you guys
(34:19):
I think it's important to remember this shit happened I obviously do not condone it,
again. This is why we have pride. Okay. Okay.
Many members of the New Orleans community, even those who were assigned to investigate
(34:43):
the fire, either largely disregarded the fire or refused to take it seriously in any way.
Many people with strong religious convictions, convictions—remember, this is New Orleans.
Catholicism is everything down there—believed the fire was some form of divine
retribution, punishing those for being gay.
(35:07):
Four of the bodies, like I said earlier, were unclaimed. Well, three.
Three of the bodies were unidentified. Four were unclaimed.
Those who weren't identified, it sounds like, weren't carrying IDs on them.
Probably because of what we talked about earlier.
Family members refused to identify them as well out of fear that others would
(35:33):
find out that their loved ones were gay.
The other was Ferris LeBlanc. His body was identified after an anonymous caller
told the coroner's office that LeBlanc wore an antique ring made out of a silver spoon.
Boone, but the police never contacted his family.
(35:57):
He was a World War II veteran who fought at the Battle of the Bulge.
He was been in a very open relationship with a man. His family knew and supported him.
His nephew has these stories of going and being able to ride around in their
(36:18):
fancy car, and just the family didn't care.
Two had broken up and he had been couch surfing for a bit until he decided to
go to New Orleans and then just disappeared.
Just gone. Remember, this is, you know, the 70s. We don't have cell phones.
You know, if somebody wanted to disappear, they could.
(36:42):
His younger sister would have dreams of him coming home frequently, but no word ever came.
She just never knew what happened to her big brother.
It wasn't until 42 years later did she find out what happened to him.
(37:02):
And I couldn't exactly find how she found out.
I don't know if somebody contacted her or if.
I kind of got the vibe that her son kind of got into genealogy and trying to
figure out what happened to him and found him.
But there is a documentary. It's on YouTube. You can watch it. It's from ABC News.
(37:26):
It has the worst title, but it's Prejudice and Pride.
It's a little... It's not the best edited, but it's this family's story.
So I do recommend it. Instead of releasing the unidentified,
unclaimed bodies to the Metropolitan Community Church for proper burials,
(37:52):
the three unidentified victims and the unclaimed body of Ferris LeBlanc were
all buried together in Holt Cemetery,
a potter's field for paupers and undesirables.
Or maybe I.
(38:14):
More on that later. All this hurts.
No elected official responded publicly to the fire.
Archbishop Philip Hannon denied the victims' Catholic funerals.
Churches throughout the city refused to allow services to be performed for the dead.
(38:37):
Remember that the upstairs was home to the Metropolitan Community Church.
It's a freaking church! And still, no church would allow a service to help.
Finally, the pastor of St. George Episcopal Church, Father Bill Richardson,
held a small prayer service for the fire victims on June 25, 1973.
(39:05):
So technically, it's really the day after for about 100 people,
and he was severely criticized for it throughout the city.
St. Mark's Community Center finally allowed a quiet prayer service and memorial
to almost 300 100 mourners on Sunday, July 1st.
(39:29):
Reverend Torrey Perry, head of the MCC, like not just the New Orleans one,
but the head of all of it, who in interviews is an amazing human,
flew to New Orleans from Los Angeles to give the sermon.
(39:50):
His closing words spurred on the GLBT community.
As long as one brother or sister in this world is oppressed, it is our problem.
Names such as.
Maggot, queer, fruit, and fairy are language of the bully and the bigot,
(40:14):
insensitive, stupid labels that will never put us down.
Those human beings, our friends, who died so horribly, have dignity now.
It does not matter what unacknowledgeable person has stooped to say,
(40:35):
our friends will always have respect because they are forever in our hearts.
The memory of our loved ones is so viable that I can almost feel their presence.
If they could speak, they would tell us to hold our heads up high.
(40:59):
Okay, sorry, need a little bit of a break there. This memorial was more public than the one at St.
George is, and many journalists and photographers waited outside the church
to expose members of the closeted gay community in New Orleans.
They're literally at a funeral for their dead friends, you guys.
(41:22):
Stuart Butler attended the July 1st services,
and he remembers that everyone was offered the option of exiting through a back
door of the church in order to avoid the potential stigma and harassment from going to the memorial.
(41:44):
No one chose that option. instead
everyone decided to face the media and
present a unified front to
honor those who had died in the fire oh i did read or no i think it's in one
of the documentaries that there was a i think she was a lesbian bar owner when
(42:10):
they were given this option stood out stood up and was like Like, no,
those people were my friends,
and I'm not ashamed of that.
A lot of this next section comes from the National Park Service website,
from a transcript from a podcast interviewing Bobby Fessler,
(42:34):
a queer historian and journalist.
And I use his writings in a lot of this because this he has a book out on this.
His he has done so much for this story.
And I don't know if it could get worse, but it does after this.
(42:54):
Okay. The LA Times makes it, the fire, a front page story.
The Chicago Tribune makes it a front page story.
The national TV news covers the upstairs lounge fire.
Then it became understood the type of bar that had burned and the character
(43:17):
of the individuals, the quality of the individuals who had died within.
The national media suddenly understood that this wasn't a typical true crime
story where the victims would be allotted all the ordinary sympathies.
Within two days, the deadliest fire to hit New Orleans in nearly two centuries
(43:42):
disappeared from the headlines. Officials and police seemed disinterested in solving the crime.
Coverage in New Orleans was insensitive and callous.
Newspaper reporters described bodies stacked up like pancakes and groups of mashed, charred flesh.
(44:07):
The New Orleans State's item detailed the investigation of the fire,
mentioning that in one corner, workers stood knee-deep in bodies,
and the heat was so intense,
many were cooked together.
(44:28):
In its front-page article about the fire,
the Times' Picayune featured a photograph of the body of MCC pastor Reverend William R.
Larson stuck in between the burglar bars, blocking a window on Charter Street. Eyewitnesses.
(44:54):
Buster. I'm going to warn you right now, if you look up these stories,
you will see this picture.
And it is so horrific. And there's so many of these pictures,
so many photographers were out there just taking pictures of his body hanging from the window.
(45:15):
And it's a rough image. Those Those images will not be on the Patreon.
I can't do the aftermath pictures.
Okay. Eyewitness Stuart Butler remembers, the press and news sources treated this horribly.
(45:35):
The Times-Picayune printed the names of all those 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
(45:55):
WVUE Channel
8 reported on air
live an anonymous phone call saying that the bar was firebombed by a vigilante
group that has declared a war on homosexuals in New Orleans.
(46:19):
The caller, a woman, said the group calls itself Black Mama, White Mama.
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
(46:46):
more attacks and has maps outlining their future targets.
And from what I can find, absolute total bullshit.
Only the alternative paper, the View Care Courier, editorialized against the
(47:07):
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.
Investigation our buddy Stuart Butler
recalls the silence that he didn't he
(47:29):
had to endure the day after the fire the next
morning I still so many people especially those who witnessed any of it were
almost immobile I had to go to
work and I was in the closet at work so I couldn't say one word about it.
(47:53):
An ultimate act of disrespect. Workers who were shifting the remnants,
shifting through the charred remnants of the upstairs lounge,
left the body of the pastor in the window for several hours. worse.
(48:15):
So, anyways, again, heads up, if you look this up, you're gonna see that picture.
News reports undermined the importance of the incident at a quote-unquote gay
bar, while radio commentators joked about the victims being buried in fruit jars.
(48:41):
At the time, local police did not consider the tragedy a top priority.
One officer told a reporter this was, after all, a queer bar.
There were other jokes going around town that you get the idea from the ones I've already told.
I don't need to keep stating them.
(49:04):
The arson at the upstairs lounge, like I said earlier, remains officially unsolved.
Despite being the deadliest crime against LGBT plus people in all of U.S.
History until the 2016 Pulse nightclub massacre in Orlando.
(49:28):
Even though the national media scattered, there was a persistent group of local
and national queer journalists that tried to continue the story for about a week.
They kept at it. They were activists.
They kept at it, and then those activists formed what was called the National
(49:50):
New Orleans Emergency Task Force.
They created an emergency fund for all sorts of things.
They, you know, one thing I read, they helped with funeral costs,
it seemed like, the most.
People who were now out of the job because they were hurt.
Hospital costs that sort of
(50:13):
thing they kept at it for a few months and
then it that all faltered then there
was just local silence that
being said not every member of the community was apathetic james massini massadi
massini the owner of the gemini bar at the time in the whole building actually
(50:37):
put up his own money as a reward for the capture of the arsonists.
According to his son, Jimmy, no one else put up any kind of reward.
Jimmy recounts that his father was a very tolerant man.
Unlike many other citizens, he saw gay people as just regular people and treated
(50:59):
them the same way he would anyone else.
It upset him that the public and the government officials just let this story
of the tragedy fade away.
Five years after the horrific event, the city of New Orleans began to attempt
to make peace with those affected by the fire.
(51:22):
A memorial bronze plaque set in brickwork adorned the sidewalk of Charter Street near Iberville.
Police, fire department, local churches, they've all put in apologies.
At this point for their part in it.
(51:45):
I did read one thing that the police were actually stuck behind other cars and
people wouldn't move and that's why it took them so long to get to the fire,
from everything else that seems not like a thing.
So Jimmy Messini Jr.
Now operates the Gemini bar on the first floor of the building still.
(52:08):
So he took over after his dad.
The former site of the upstairs lounge is now used as storage space.
I did want to read you a couple more segments from Bobby Feisler from the National Parks article.
There had been an older institution that had regulated queer life called effumastic
(52:39):
living or the closet or the gay underworld or open secret, the social compact,
however you want to reference it.
And that clamped back and the upstairs lounge was then foisted locally as this
example of what happens when you out yourself.
(53:02):
What are the dangers of outness? It's violence.
Are being subjected to dangerous living and a miserable death, that sort of thing.
The upstairs lounge was then utilized as a cautionary tale by semi-closeted
(53:22):
New Orleans linens, people from Louisiana,
that would say, this is an example of why we shouldn't be out open,
using our real names, showing our faces, fighting for our rights,
and we certainly shouldn't be involved in politics saying that we're homosexuals.
(53:44):
This was the majority voice, but then there was a minority voice locally of
activists that were activated.
They were like the slow-burning embers stoked by the Upstairs Lounge tragedy
who kept chatting about it, and they would do so for years.
(54:09):
They became some of the most important gay New Orleans and lesbian New Orleans activists.
Then they, in turn, became some of the most important gay activists in Louisiana.
A classic example of someone who was inspired to activism by the upstairs lounge
(54:30):
tragedy was a lesbian bar owner in New Orleans,
Charlene Snyder, who operated the lesbian bar Charlene's.
In her outrage over the way that the upstairs lounge victims were treated in
death, She became convinced the myth of live and let live in New Orleans,
(54:55):
the idea that I can do my dirty thing in my corner and you can do your dirty
thing in your corner and we're not going to get punished for it.
That this was a ruse because gays were consistently still being targeted within that atmosphere.
(55:16):
Incensed Charlene and motivated her to open up. It was a radical act.
She, in 1977, opened up a bar for gay women and used her real name,
and that was directly connected to her experience from the upstairs lounge tragedy.
(55:37):
Then that continues into the 21st century, where there was a tremendous explosion
of scholarship and interest and discussion,
first locally, then nationally, then internationally,
of the upstairs lounge fire, where now it's not just debated whether we should
(56:01):
talk about this event or connect it to the legacy of queer rights or queer well-being, etc.
But it's the subject of musicals that are touring internationally.
That there was an upstairs lounge musical called The View Upstairs that recently
(56:22):
played in Tokyo, translated into Japanese,
These are folks in Tokyo, in Japanese, singing about something that happened
to closeted gay folk in the 1970s French Quarter.
So, really want to thank Bobby Fischler for all of the work he's done on this.
(56:48):
If you look into this, you will probably see an article, a book,
a documentary that he's in. And he's the guy that's on it.
And he's done such great work. But I wanted to include this.
And I really enjoyed his writing, so I figured I'd just go ahead and quote him. But we're not done yet.
(57:11):
Like I told you earlier, we were going to talk about Ferris LeBlanc's family more.
When they discovered what happened to him, they wanted to, at the very least,
find him and give him a marker.
When they started looking into it, they were first told that he was buried in
(57:33):
Holt Cemetery with the other unidentified individuals.
Come to find out, he was not buried there.
And it's interesting because most of the books who were written a little bit
later all say Holt, because that's what everybody knew. It was supposed to be Holt Cemetery.
(57:54):
Started doing the research and found that they are buried in Rest Haven Cemetery.
And they were able to find a document that said he was buried in Panel Q, Lot 32.
The problem is there doesn't appear to be a map or anyone that knows exactly where that is.
(58:19):
For those that don't know, Now, New Orleans is famous for its inefficient bureaucracy.
It's painful. According to the cemetery, which is apparently a private cemetery,
they let the city use that section of the cemetery as a pauper's field.
(58:43):
So it is not up to them to maintain a map.
It's up to the city. According to the city, it is the job of the cemetery to
keep those records because they're buried in that cemetery.
And then apparently all those records were lost during Hurricane Katrina.
(59:05):
So, this whole thing just kept hurting my brain, let me tell you guys.
But, yeah, they're still searching. It, it's amazing.
Music.
(59:30):
Probably at this point, you're like, Angela, thanks for depressing the hell
out of us. But this is a haunted podcast.
We haven't talked about anything haunted really yet.
Well, honestly, we're getting to that right now. This is that section.
I hesitated to do this episode for multiple reasons.
(59:56):
And one of the reasons is because of the hauntings in particular.
Yes, we are a podcast about hauntings, so here you go.
And the Gemini Lounge is
considered one of the most haunted bars in all of
(01:00:17):
New Orleans because of the upstairs tragedy and it's so weird but one of the
things that kept the story out there and like teaching people about this tragedy
were the freaking ghost tour groups groups.
(01:00:40):
The problem is most of the time they went into, like, made it as gory as possible
and as exploitive as possible.
There was this one article that was like, this story's been kept alive by the
ghost tours because no one in the government wants to pay attention to it and acknowledge it.
(01:01:07):
And that hurts my brain, you guys.
I believe this excerpt comes from the Queer Haunting book.
Several staff members from the
sports bar refused to set foot in the upstairs the
steel door leading to what once was
(01:01:29):
the upstairs lounge still bears
scorch marks from the 1973 flames its darkened paint bears an uncanny resemblance
to a human figure beyond it lays a forgotten gotten relic-turned-storage space.
(01:01:51):
Even the bravest men sense trepidation on the wooden stairs.
While the fire may be a distant memory, the agony, pain, and fear of the victims
is still crisp within the walls.
Visitors still catch pungent wafts of smoke at the spot the blaze began. Anne.
(01:02:15):
Blood-curdling screams and terrifying moans echo on the second floor.
Intense heat from unseen flames drifts along the steps.
Explorers report feelings of panic and the empty area holds the spirits of the
(01:02:36):
many fatalities nearly three decades ago.
Long after the unfortunate fire of the upstairs lounge.
The site is still haunted by the ghosts of the victims caught in an internal
struggle for their lives.
Music.
(01:03:12):
Read that and think, hope, that it's just a residual haunting situation.
You do not want to think these guys are stuck here. So, patrons of the Gemini
Bar often tell of whispers from nobody,
(01:03:34):
inexplicable icy chills, and faint smells of burning hair and charred flesh.
There are also reports of a full-bodied apparition on the second floor.
Psychics and paranormal investigators who have visited the bar feel that one
of the more predominant haunts is the spirit of George Bud Mady,
(01:04:00):
who was the regular piano player at the upstairs lounge and was loved by many who knew him.
Even in his final moments on Earth, Bud continued to be a caring individual.
After assisting several people out of the building, he returned to collect others.
(01:04:22):
The blaze proved to be too much for him, and he would perish in the building.
Once the fire was extinguished, reports say that his body was found under his
piano, laying on top of two bodies
as if he was trying to offer protection even during his last breath.
(01:04:42):
I think one of the things, little sidebar, one of the things that I think is
so beautiful about this story is how many heroes stepped up to try to save their
friends and how many of them got out,
and so many of them went back in and tried again to get more and that's when it...
(01:05:06):
Them. Sorry. Okay. Go shit. That's what we're here for. Okay.
Owner Jimmy Massini Jr.
Has a story about when he and a friend stopped by the bar.
They both heard a sound despite the bar being closed.
They investigated the sound and found that they had heard chains rattling in an old elevator shaft.
(01:05:33):
No, heavy elevator chains don't just swing and rattle by themselves.
I think this comes from the queer history book. Jimmy then felt what he described
as ice cold air prompting both of them to exit as swiftly as possible.
Like I said earlier, I learned about this event on an episode of Ghost Hunters.
(01:06:00):
And I believe the episode came out in 2014.
Before Pulse in 2016. That's when this story became a little bit more told, was after Pulse.
Because like, oh, here's this other historical one that happened that nobody
talks about anymore either.
(01:06:22):
So I thought that was interesting that they were able to find this before that.
I'm not sure of the episode number. I know it's season eight,
because Netflix didn't have the numbers, which I thought was weird.
And they only have season eight and nine.
But the episode is entitled French Quarter Massacre.
(01:06:42):
I think this is toward the end of the original run. I was a big ghost hunters girl growing up.
But when I went off to college, I stopped following as much.
And then the weird blow up amongst the crew happened.
I mean, honestly, I would love a Ghost Hunters documentary.
I would love to hear all the tea among them because it has to be good.
(01:07:05):
I would like to think so. I mean, this is after Grant Wilson left and Adam Barry
and Amy Bruni start coming in more.
And I love Adam. I'm not a big fan of Amy.
They interviewed Jimmy Jr. on the episode. He claimed the cold spots around
the elevator shaft on an 85 degree day.
(01:07:27):
And for those that aren't familiar with New Orleans.
Feel cold on an 85 degree day. It is miserable and sticky and hot and humid.
One interview claimed that a woman passing by saw a shadowy figure in one of
the second floor windows.
(01:07:49):
When she looked closer, it looked like it was pushing against the glass.
White orbs and flashes of light in the stairwell are reported.
Feeling of someone standing over you and overall creeping feelings.
Overall, not a bad start to the episode. A bit of playing up the spooky, but not the worse.
(01:08:16):
One of the things I will say that completely puck him through me is, so like I said, Jimmy Jr.
Is in this. They interview him. He's the one taking them around, giving them the tour.
He looks so freaking young.
And, like, it kind of took me aback.
(01:08:41):
Because this is 2014.
This was 41 years ago at that point. And then he was 12.
Supposedly, he's like 53 in the show.
And he does not look 53. either way he
just looks so young and then you remember this tragedy really was
(01:09:02):
not that long ago anyways that it was a weird it was a weird thing for me i
thought it was interesting that adam an openly gay man basically offered himself
up as a trigger object and can like attempted to
connect with the spirits one-on-one as, like, one of them.
(01:09:27):
I don't know why, but it seemed a little cringey. But I couldn't put my finger on exactly why.
And then the episode just gets really cringey.
Steve and Tango, who are, like, my favorite, are trying to communicate with
the spirits using EMF detectors.
(01:09:48):
So they have them, like, around them. And I think there's like three on the floor around them.
And it's like, hey, if you want to come up to us, come up to us.
And, you know, or you can mess with this device that will all you have to do
is move close to it. And that's how you can communicate with us.
And they're doing this back and forth and they're not really getting a lot of responses.
(01:10:10):
And they bring up Roger Dale Nunez, the main suspect in the fire.
And get a very, very slight reaction on the devices.
So they decide that they are now talking to him.
And start... Ah, it...
(01:10:31):
And they're like bringing him up because, you know, maybe the other guys aren't
trapped there. But with what he did, he's trapped there. So we're going to talk to him now.
And it's like, I don't know. It really like bugged me. Did not sit well.
They also investigated two other locations connected to the victims.
(01:10:52):
I thought this was a little weird. the mortuary where
most of the bodies were taken which is now
a haunt like a haunted house
for halloween situation i think they said event space on ghost hunters there
they claimed to have seen burn and charred bodies smelling charred flesh and
(01:11:18):
an apparition of a man in the corner looking very confused.
And there's so many footsteps, so many footsteps.
And they react to so many noises.
And me being me, it's like, I'm just like, it literally was a mortuary.
(01:11:38):
I don't know if you can figure out which ghostly bodies are showing up, but okay, whatever.
The third location is one of
the local cemeteries where the unidentified bodies could have been buried.
It is not one of the cemeteries that we talked about previously.
(01:12:00):
So I have no idea where they got this one.
And I was digging into the cemetery stuff, so I have no idea.
It's a pretty horrible segment. segment
it's just them and it's
adam and another guy that i
don't really remember much because he came in later wandering
(01:12:23):
through the cemetery asking for the men that died in the fire because they have
absolutely no idea if they're buried there where so they're just wandering like
hey hey, if you died in the fire,
come talk to us. It's like, oh my gosh, you guys.
At one point, they decided that a very obviously weathered flat slab,
(01:12:49):
and they showed it, it was just obviously very weathered, was quote-unquote unmarked,
and decided this was the unmarked graves of the unidentified guys.
And start trying to communicate.
They didn't get anything. Honestly, I'm not sure if it was worth the rewatch.
(01:13:10):
It was a bit painful. It was a bit cringy.
They seemed to have some personal experiences, heard what sounded like footsteps, captured a few EVPs.
But that didn't sound like anything to me. Yeah.
No, it wasn't there. One of the more depressing things on this whole thing,
(01:13:37):
and this is more based on the circumstances of the whole thing than the investigation,
is they're sitting down with Jimmy Jr.
For the evidence review that they always do.
And even Jason Hawes who I adore
said they didn't really find much
(01:13:59):
he was hoping to find more but didn't didn't really find much and Amy Bruni
is saying you know they really wanted to bring the story to light and to you
know teach people about this story that you know a lot of people don't know.
And Jimmy Jr., straight up, looking at her, says that they have done more than most.
(01:14:26):
That to me is just so freaking heartbreaking. Because I can't help but think
he's thinking of, you know, the officials, the police, the churches, the freaking media.
He literally has had to grow up with this story and for him to say that to this
(01:14:50):
tv ghost hunting group just broke my heart all over again.
Music.
In. When I was in New Orleans in the summer of 2023, I went by the Gemini bar to see the plaque.
(01:15:16):
And honestly, I just could not bring myself to go in.
It had at that point been only six, seven months since Club Q.
I was not at Club Q, but I had friends that were.
We were actually supposed to be there for this friend's birthday party and our
(01:15:38):
friend's giving ran late.
And the entire way home, I tried to convince Jordan to swing by,
but he kept telling me no, it was too late, and he was tired.
We didn't find out what happened until the next morning when my mom called freaking
out wanting me to check on a couple of friends of mine.
(01:16:09):
I worked with one of the survivors for a bit, and I watched him become an amazing activist,
and also struggle with the survivor's guilt and losing the love of his life.
And I was able to meet a lot of the other survivors through him.
(01:16:32):
One day at work a bunch of
them came in to see him and started
showing me their bullet scars and sharing their stories and it was rough but
i think it takes a lot of courage to survive something like that and so much strength to carry on.
(01:16:59):
And I think it's our duty to listen to these people's stories and learn something from them.
The worse the story, the more important it is.
I don't care how uncomfortable or anything like that, these stories need to still be.
(01:17:25):
Music.
It is our job to carry on those stories, to do something to help,
and to take steps to help ensure something like this doesn't happen again.
(01:17:45):
So this, this stuff, this is why we have Pride Month.
This is why we have parades. It's to celebrate being able to love who we want
and remembering those who died because of it.
But if you get a chance and you're in the Colorado Springs area,
(01:18:07):
please go by Kronk Art and Curiosities.
I know I, you know, I love them. You know that by now.
But the reason I tell you this is they set up a friend for pride for the Club Q victims.
Victims and it just never came down
(01:18:28):
because they just have
to keep adding to it and this
isn't exactly what I wanted to end on but only a month ago the plaque with all
the names the remembrance for the upstairs lounge outside the Gemini lounge was stolen.
(01:18:54):
They have surveillance video of the guy with a cigarette in his mouth the entire
time, pulling up the plaque and carrying it away.
It's really clear, up-close video.
And the last I saw, there were no updates or arrests yet.
Music.
(01:19:25):
Thank you to everyone out there listening today. I know this one sucked.
It hurt. But I think the remembrance is so important.
So if you got this far, thank you. you
my haunted life podcast is written
(01:19:45):
researched produced edited and hosted by me angela hartjorn all of my sources
are gonna be on the patreon page so make sure you subscribe to that subscribe
to your favorite podcast app so you never miss an episode.
(01:20:08):
Good at the Patreon page, I like to think. So, you know, go check it out.
That's where I'll be posting all of the pictures.
And if you want to support the show, you can for as little as $2 a month.
And if you have any information on today's episode that you want to share or
(01:20:30):
have your own ghost story.
I've been getting so many of these from the Facebook group. It's freaking awesome.
And ironically, they're all parent stories so far. So I'm really about that.
Email me at myhauntedlifepodcast at gmail.com. Or like I said,
you can write me on Facebook.
(01:20:51):
There's also the Instagram, there's the TikTok, there's the YouTube.
So yeah while you're there please
like and follow and comment i love
it it makes me so happy please share it i promise next week it or next episode
remember we're two weeks uh
(01:21:12):
is nowhere near as hard as this one it goes around along with pride month,
but I could not do another sad story not like this so.
Look for that one in a little bit but that's it,
(01:21:33):
that's all I got for this week I am now emotionally spent I hope you are okay
if you got this far I'm really proud of you,
and yeah so until next time everybody stay spooky Thank you.
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