25.Ellis, Madame Vieux Carré, 80; “John Lafitte: History and Mystery,” National Park Service, www.nps.gov/jela/upload/Jean%20Lafitte%20pirate%20site%20bulletin.pdf; “Spring Fiesta Magic,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, April 9, 1972, 199; “Clay Shaw Final Rites to Be Today,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, August 16, 1974, 1.
26.“General Case Report,” NOPD, 11.
27.Map of Vieux Carré Boundaries, Vieux Carré Commission, www.nola.gov/vcc/map/.
28.“Deaths of Seven Are Probed,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, January 16, 1972, 1; interview with John Meyers, January 28, 2016; Frank Perez and Jeffrey Palmquist, In Exile: The History and Lore Surrounding New Orleans Gay Culture and Its Oldest Gay Bar (Hurlford, Scotland: LL-Publications, 2012), 110–11.
29.Kevin Fox Gotham, “Tourism Gentrification: The Case of New Orleans’ Vieux Carré (French Quarter),” Urban Studies 42, no. 7 (June 2005): 1099–1121; Ken Weiss, “Disaster Waiting to Happen: Quarter Firetrap Crackdown,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 28, 1973, 7; Moon Landrieu, oral history interview with Mark Cave, May 12, 2009, New Orleans Life Story Project, Historic New Orleans Collection.
30.A. Elwood Willey, “The Upstairs Lounge Fire,” NFPA Journal 68, no. 1 (1974): 16–20; Vieux Carré Commission Evaluation, April 1876, 141 Chartres Street (604 Iberville), https://stevenwarran.blogspot.com/2014_08_01_archive.html; Sanborn’s Insurance Maps, April 1976. Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries, New Orleans.
31.Willey, “The Upstairs Lounge Fire,” 17; “General Case Report,” NOPD, 10.
32.“General Case Report,” NOPD, 16; Kubicki, “Henry Kubicki Account”; Fosberg, “It’s a Faggot Bar,” 7; Wood Dunham, “French Quarter Bar Guide, Part III,” Vieux Carré Courier, March 3, 1972, 5; Townsend, Let the Faggots Burn, 44; interview with Stewart Butler, August 4, 2015.
33.Dunham, “French Quarter Bar Guide”; Howard Jacobs, “Blight in 600 Block of Iberville Lifting,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, October 19, 1970, 11; Butler interview, July 20, 2014.
34.Townsend, Let the Faggots Burn, 47.
35.Willey, “The Upstairs Lounge Fire,” 16; “General Case Report,” NOPD, 10.
36.Duplantis interview; “General Case Report,” NOPD, 10.
37.Clayton Delery-Edwards, The Up Stairs Lounge Arson: Thirty-Two Deaths in a New Orleans Gay Bar, June 24, 1973 (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2014), 43, 17; Fosberg, “It’s a Faggot Bar,” 7.
38.Bill Rushton, “Window in the Orange Glow,” Vieux Carré Courier, June 29, 1973, 4; Delery-Edwards, The Up Stairs Lounge Arson, 17; Becky Bruns, “Guys and Dolls … A Play on Roles,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, January 16, 1977, 82–83; “Damage Estimated at $75,000,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, January 6, 1972, 22; “General Case Report,” NOPD, 12; Kubicki, “Henry Kubicki Account”; “Lovers of the Old-Time Mellerdrammers … ,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, May 15, 1971, 9.
39.“General Case Report,” NOPD, 29; “Field Inspection Report,” New Orleans Department of Safety and Permits, October 19, 1970, Johnny Townsend Collection, ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives at the USC Libraries, Los Angeles; Townsend, Let the Faggots Burn, 47.
40.Everett interview, August 25, 2015; Townsend, Let the Faggots Burn, 245.
41.Everett interviews, August 25 and July 27, 2015; “General Case Report,” NOPD, 60.
42.Butler interview, July 20, 2014. David Cuthbert, “Where There Was Smoke,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 20, 1998; Everett interview, August 25, 2015; Bill Rushton, “Society Real Culprit in New Orleans Tragedy?,” The Advocate, August 1, 1973.
43.“General Case Report,” NOPD, 30; Perry and Swicegood, Don’t Be Afraid Anymore, 80; Butler interview, July 20, 2014.
44.Robert McAnear, Facebook message to author, January 6, 2017.
45.Ibid.
46.Robert McAnear, Facebook message to author, January 9, 2017; McAnear to author, January 6, 2017.
47.Nick Lemann, “ ‘Racial Purity’ and the State: How They Can Change Your Color,” Vieux Carré Courier, August 24, 1973, 1; A. J. Liebling, The Earl of Louisiana (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1970).
48.McAnear to author, January 6, 2017; Fosberg, “It’s a Faggot Bar,” 7; “Survivor Discovers Her True Friends,” The Advocate, July 31, 1974, 8.
49.Interview with anonymous friend of sister of Clayton Delery, September 2015; Eric Newhouse, “Smokie,” Associated Press, June 1973; Paul Breton, “United We Stand” (unpublished manuscript, August 1973), National New Orleans Memorial Fund Collection, ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives; Delery-Edwards, The Up Stairs Lounge Arson, 32.
50.Interview with Richard Everett, August 10, 2015; Bill Rushton, “New Orleans Toll Thirty-Two; Arson Evidence Cited,” The Advocate, August 1, 1973, 6; Delery-Edwards, The Up Stairs Lounge Arson, 17.
51.Townsend, Let the Faggots Burn, 241; Rushton, “New Orleans Toll.”
52.Gertrude’s Notes (Gertrude Stein Society newsletter), January 1977 (read at Rebels, Rubyfruit and Rhinestones Research Files, James T. Sears Papers, Duke University Libraries, Durham, N.C.); “Come Join,” Sunflower (New Orleans Gay Liberation Front newspaper) 1, no. 1 (January 1971) (read at Rebels, Rubyfruit and Rhinestones Research Files); Bob Damron, Bob Damron’s Address Book, 8th ed. (San Francisco: Bob Damron, 1972), 76–78.
53.Newhouse, “Smokie”; interview with Paul Killgore, January 17, 2016; interview with John Meyers, February 1, 2016.
54.“Blackmail Lawmaker in Homosexual Ring,” Chicago Tribune, May 17, 1967, 11.
55.Newhouse, “Smokie”; Meyers interview, January 28, 2016.
56.Everett interview, August 25, 2015; Fosberg, “It’s a Faggot Bar,” 7; Townsend, Let the Faggots Burn, 278.
57.Townsend, Let the Faggots Burn, 278; photograph of Buddy Rasmussen, Johnny Townsend personal archive; Killgore interview, January 17, 2016; Fosberg, “It’s a Faggot Bar,” 7.
58.Dunham, “French Quarter Bar Guide”; Killgore interview, January 17, 2016.
59.Associated Press photograph by Jack Thornell, June 25, 1973.
60.Bill Rushton, “After the Fire Upstairs,” Vieux Carré Courier, June 29, 1973, 4; Cuthbert, “Where There Was Smoke”; “General Case Report,” NOPD, 29.
2: Sunday Service
1.Henry Kubicki, “Henry Kubicki Account” (unpublished manuscript, November 14, 2013), LGBT Religious Archives Network (http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/upstairs-lounge-fire), Berkeley, Calif.; Clayton Delery-Edwards, The Up Stairs Lounge Arson: Thirty-Two Deaths in a New Orleans Gay Bar, June 24, 1973 (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2014), 23.
2.Kubicki, “Henry Kubicki Account”; interview with Stewart Butler, July 20, 2014.
3.Delery-Edwards, The Up Stairs Lounge Arson, 35; floor plan of MCC of New Orleans, drawn by Henry Kubicki and given to author December 11, 2016; Kubicki, “Henry Kubicki Account.”
4.Delery-Edwards, The Up Stairs Lounge Arson, 38; MCC of New Orleans floor plan; Everett interview, August 10, 2015; interview with Henry Kubicki, January 21, 2016.
5.William Lairson, Kentucky Birth Index, Ancestry.com. While Bill Larson’s birth certificate reads “Lairson,” all of the government records from his time at the Butler County Children’s Home use the spelling “Larison.”
6.“Summary,” Ohio Bureau of Social Work, 1929, Children’s Home Association of Butler County Records, Ohio History Connection, Columbus, Ohio; Issackar Larison, Kentucky Death Records, Ancestry.com.
7.Roscoe Larison, Butler County Children’s Home, 1930 United States Federal Census, Ancestry.com; “Children’s Home Kiddies Delighted At Egg Hunt,” Hamilton [Ohio] Evening Journal, March 28, 1932, 16; “970,” Roscoe Larison, Butler County Children’s Home, 1926, Children’s Home Association of Butler County Records; “Larison, Summary,” Butler County Children’s Home, February 1932, Children’s Home Association of Butler County Records; “Summary,” Ohio Bureau of Social Work, 1929; “Accept Settlement for Child’s Death,” Hamilton [Ohio] Evening Journal, March 15, 1929, 24.
8.“A
rrest Mother of Five at Shack on Dump,” Hamilton [Ohio] Daily News, July 16, 1930, 3; “Troy Howell 51422,” U.S. National Homes for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, 1926, Ancestry.com; “Licensed to Wed,” Hamilton [Ohio] Evening Journal, July 17, 1930, 15; “Summary,” Ohio Bureau of Social Work, 1929; “Record of Child’s Own Family,” Butler County Children’s Home, 2, Children’s Home Association of Butler County Records; “966,” Larison, Butler County Children’s Home, Children’s Home Association of Butler County Records.
9.Roscoe Larison, Butler County Children’s Home, 1940 United States Federal Census, Ancestry.com; letter to Butler County Juvenile Court, July 1, 1941, Children’s Home Association of Butler County Records.
10.William Lairson, World War II Army Enlistment Records, April 10, 1944, Ancestry.com; “Honorable Discharges Presented to Other Servicemen from Butler County,” Hamilton [Ohio] Journal and Daily News, April 26, 1946, 13; “Nellie K. Cloyd and William Lairson Marry,” Hamilton Journal and Daily News, September 1, 1945, 3; “Review Campaign at Grace Church,” Hamilton Journal and Daily News, February 18, 1947, 14.
11.“Grace Fellowship,” Hamilton Journal and Daily News, March 29, 1947, 9; “Nellie Lairson Files Petition for Decree,” Hamilton Journal and Daily News, July 12, 1947, 13; “Larson” (paid death notice), New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 30, 1973, 19.
12.Johnny Townsend, Let the Faggots Burn: The Up Stairs Lounge Fire (self-published through BookLocker.com, 2011), 128; William Richardson, letter to the editor, The Voice of Integrity 1, no. 2 (Summer 1991), LGBT Religious Archives Network (http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/upstairs-lounge-fire); David Solomon, “New Congregation Will Be Organized,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, April 17, 1971.
13.David Solomon, “Song of Solomon,” Sunflower 1, no. 3 (April 1971), 9 (read at Rebels, Rubyfruit and Rhinestones Research Files, James T. Sears Papers, Duke University Libraries, Durham, N.C.); “ ‘Gay’ Group Pickets Police HQ in Orleans,” Baton Rouge Advocate, January 24, 1971.
14.“Gay Liberation Front Bars an Attempt to Seize County,” The New York Times, November 5, 1970, 58; Steven Roberts, “Homosexuals in Revolt,” The New York Times, August 24, 1970, 28; C. Fraser, “ ‘Gay Ghettos’ Seen as Police Targets,” The New York Times, August 31, 1970, 28.
15.“ ‘Gay’ Group Pickets Police HQ.”
16.Townsend, Let the Faggots Burn, 14; “Come Join,” Sunflower 1, no. 1 (January 1971), 4 (read at Rebels, Rubyfruit and Rhinestones Research Files, Sears Papers); “Gay Liberation Group Marches,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, January 24, 1971, 16.
17.Roger Nelson to James Sears, n.d. (c. 2001), Rebels, Rubyfruit and Rhinestones Research Files; “Gay Liberation Group Marches,” 16; Waddell Summers, “Bowling Summer-ies,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, October 29, 1968, 27.
18.Moon Landrieu, oral history interview with Mark Cave, May 12, 2009, New Orleans Life Story Project, Historic New Orleans Collection; “Gay Front Fails to Meet Mayor,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, January 21, 1971.
19.“ ‘Gay’ Group Pickets Police HQ”; “Gay Front Fails to Meet Mayor.”
20.Winston Lill, press release, February 11, 1971, Rebels, Rubyfruit and Rhinestones Research Files, Sears Papers.
21.“ ‘Chaplain’ Calls for Panel Talk with Homosexuals,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, January 29, 1971; Kubicki, “Henry Kubicki Account”; Mary Gehman, “N.O. Women’s Movement: A Comprehensive History,” Distaff, October 1973, 8 (read at Louisiana Research Collection, Howard-Tilton Memorial Library, Tulane University, New Orleans).
22.Solomon, “New Congregation Will Be Organized.”
23.Referring to homosexuality in print, of course, ran counter to the mores of the time. It would have been viewed as equally unorthodox for the word “Gay” to appear in the newspaper because it was then regarded as slang. Spelled with a capital “G” initially to distinguish it from the common usage of the word as a synonym for “happy” (the theme song of the 1960s animated TV series The Flintstones spoke of the titular family’s having “a gay old time”), “Gay” was in common usage among homosexuals, but this definition was not found in any dictionary. Style guides for major publications, such as The New York Times, banned the word, and copy editors replaced it with the more clinical “homosexual” whenever the topic was unavoidable. No leading paper in the country would use “Gay” without enclosing it in quotation marks. The New York Times would not change its style to allow the word “Gay” in the sense of “homosexual” until 1987.
24.Dotson Rader, “The Gay Militants,” The New York Times, October 3, 1971, 133.
25.Interview with Henry Kubicki, April 5, 2016.
26.Interview with Joseph Bermuda, March 31, 2015.
27.Kubicki, “Henry Kubicki Account”; interview with Henry Kubicki, September 4, 2015.
28.Kubicki, “Henry Kubicki Account.”
29.“The Cover,” In Unity, March 1972, 2, https://issuu.com/mccchurches/doc; Troy Perry and Thomas Swicegood, Don’t Be Afraid Anymore (New York: St. Martin’s, 1990), 78; Edward B. Fiske, “Homosexuals in Los Angeles, Like Many Elsewhere, Want Religion and Establish Their Own Church,” The New York Times, February 15, 1970, 58.
30.Fiske, “Homosexuals in Los Angeles,” 58; interview with Troy Perry, December 2, 2014; Perry and Swicegood, Don’t Be Afraid Anymore, 25; Troy Perry, “Hear Rev. Troy D. Perry,” The Advocate, October 2, 1968.
31.“Directory,” In Unity, April 1972, 30–32, https://issuu.com/mccchurches/doc; James Birkitt, “Rev. Troy Perry: The Father of Marriage Equality” (self-published, 2013), http://ourhopemcc.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/MCCSame-SexMarriageDates-Part.pdf.
32.Paul Houston, “Homosexuals Get ACLU Aid in Fight for Parade Permit,” Los Angeles Times, June 13, 1970, A1; Paul Houston, “Homosexuals Stage Hollywood Parade,” Los Angeles Times, June 29, 1970, 3.
33.Joan Treadway, “Fifties Climate of Hostility to Gays Gone—What Now?,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, September 16, 1973, 21.
34.John Reed, Dixie Bohemia: A French Quarter Circle in the 1920s (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2012).
35.Interview with Nicholas Lemann, April 15, 2015.
36.“Justice, at Long Last,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, March 2, 1969, 1.
37.Interview with John Meyers, January 26, 2016; “A Dandy Mayor,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, March 11, 1886, 4; “Mahoney Estate Disposal Puzzle,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, February 23, 1949, 14; “John McDonogh,” New Orleans Daily Picayune, December 30, 1898, 4.
38.Clayton Delery, Out for Queer Blood: The Murder of Fernando Rios and the Failure of New Orleans Justice (Jefferson, N.C.: Exposit/McFarland, 2017), 48.
39.Scott Ellis, Madame Vieux Carré: The French Quarter in the Twentieth Century (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2010), 66; “Action Set to Curb Deviates,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, July 23, 1958, 10.
40.Frank Perez and Jeffrey Palmquist, In Exile: The History and Lore Surrounding New Orleans Gay Culture and Its Oldest Gay Bar (Hurlford, Scotland: LL-Publications, 2012), 40, 39.
41.“Ousted Patron Reenters Tavern in Pickup Truck,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, May 4, 1969, 158; “Man Arrested, Booked on Morals Offense,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, October 17, 1964, 54; “1958 Brent Award,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, October 10, 1958, 10.
42.Perez and Palmquist, In Exile, 38; John Lahr, Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh (New York: W. W. Norton, 2015).
43.Louis Kronenberger, “The Theater: New Play, Old Play,” Time, April 1, 1957; Louis Kronenberger, “The Theater: New Play in Manhattan,” Time, April 4, 1955; Tennessee Williams to Frank Merlo, 1957, Tennessee Williams Manuscripts, Correspondence, and Related Materials, Historic New Orleans Collection.
44.Ellis, Madame Vieux, 68; interview with Frank Perez, July 15, 2015.
45.Interview with Jane Place, May 12, 2016; Perez and Palmquist, In Exile, 190.
46.Bill Rushton, “Society Real Culprit in New Orleans Tragedy?,” The Advocate, August 1, 1973.
48.Delery-Edwards, The Up Stairs Lounge Arson, 19; Eric Newhouse, “Smokie,” Associated Press, June 1973; Townsend, Let the Faggots Burn, 248.
49.Townsend, Let the Faggots Burn, 204, 248; Bob Damron, Bob Damron’s Address Book, 9th ed. (San Francisco: Bob Damron, 1973), 101.
50.Interview with Henry Kubicki, September 3, 2015; interview with John Meyers, February 1, 2016; Kubicki, “Henry Kubicki Account.”
51.Becky Bruns, “Guys and Dolls … A Play on Roles,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, January 16, 1977, 82; Kubicki, “Henry Kubicki Account”; Robert McAnear, Facebook message to author, January 6, 2017; interview with Richard Everett, August 25, 2015.
52.Everett interview, August 25, 2015.
53.Bill Rushton, “How the Media Saw It,” Vieux Carré Courier, June 29, 1973, 5; program for Egad, What a Cad, Theatre of the Upstairs, June 12, 1971. Henry Kubicki personal archive; Everett interview, August 10, 2015; Kubicki, “Henry Kubicki Account.”
54.Richardson, The Voice of Integrity; Townsend, Let the Faggots Burn, 35; “Directory,” In Unity, August–September 1972, 27, https://issuu.com/mccchurches/doc.
55.“Convention Aspirants Announce Views,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, August 15, 1972, 64; Kubicki, “Henry Kubicki Account.”
56.Kubicki, “Henry Kubicki Account”; Valerie Haynes, “Memorial Rites Honor Lounge Blaze Victims,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 23, 1975.
57.Kubicki interview, September 5, 2015; Everett interview, August 25, 2015; Eric Newhouse, “Church Slates Mourning for Victims of N.O. Fire,” Baton Rouge Morning Advocate, June 26, 1973; “Roscoe Larison,” Butler County Children’s Home, 1936, Children’s Home Association of Butler County Records, Ohio History Connection.
58.Kubicki, “Henry Kubicki Account”; Perry and Swicegood, Don’t Be Afraid Anymore, 79; Roberts Batson, “Remembering the Up Stairs Lounge,” Impact 23, no. 13 (June 19, 1998): 16 (read at Skylar Fein Upstairs Lounge Fire Collection, Historic New Orleans Collection); Kubicki interview, September 4, 2015; “Ax Falls on Socially Conscious Boston Minister,” The Advocate, July 18, 1973, 17.
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