Tinderbox

by Robert W. Fieseler

  35.“General Case Report,” NOPD, 57, 53, 19; Howard Jacobs, “9-1-1 Phone Number for Emergency Seen,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, May 5, 1969, 15; “Police Reports,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, April 22, 1973, 26; Bill Rushton, “After the Fire Upstairs,” Vieux Carré Courier, June 29, 1973, 5; Lind, Thomas, and Philbin, “Possible Arson Probed,” 2.

  36.Anderson. The UpStairs Lounge Fire; Weather History of KMSY, June 1973, weatherun derground.com, www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KMSY/1973/6/24/MonthlyHistory.html?req_city=&req_state=&req_statename=&reqdb.zip=&reqdb.magic =&reqdb.wmo=; interview with Joseph Bermuda, March 31, 2015.

  37.Interview with Trevor Santos, November 19, 2015; Willey, “The Upstairs Lounge Fire,” 19; “General Case Report,” NOPD, 53.

  38.Everett interview, September 30, 2016; Rosenthal interview; Willey, “The Upstairs Lounge Fire,” 17; Lind, Thomas, and Philbin, “Possible Arson Probed,” 2; Townsend, Let the Faggots Burn, 286.

  39.“General Case Report,” NOPD, 41, 27, 51; Willey, “The Upstairs Lounge Fire,” 19, 17; John LaPlace and Ed Anderson, “Twenty-Nine Killed in Quarter Blaze,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 25, 1973, 1 (and accompanying photo by Ronald LeBoeuf); Townsend, Let the Faggots Burn, 288.

  40.“General Case Report,” NOPD, 51, 27, 30, 23; David Cuthbert, “Where There Was Smoke,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 20, 1998; Roberts Batson, “Holocaust,” Impact, June 5, 1998, 12 (read at Rebels, Rubyfruit and Rhinestones Research Files, James T. Sears Papers, Duke University Libraries, Durham, N.C.); Willey, “The Upstairs Lounge Fire,” 17.

  41.“General Case Report,” NOPD, 25, 27; Everett interview, September 30, 2016; Rosenthal interview; Santos interview, November 29, 2015.

  42.Everett interview, August 25, 2015; Bill Rushton, “A Window in the Orange Glow,” Vieux Carré Courier, June 29, 1973, 4; “Bar’s Funky Décor, Clutter Created Instant Firestorm,” The Advocate, August 1, 1973, 6; Willey, “The Upstairs Lounge Fire,” 19; Rushton, “After the Fire Upstairs,” 5; “General Case Report,” NOPD, 27; Delery-Edwards, The Up Stairs Lounge Arson, 46.

  43.Vanlangendonck interview; “Official Report,” Louisiana Office of State Fire Marshal, July 22, 1975, 28; Delery-Edwards, The Up Stairs Lounge Arson, 46; Anderson, The UpStairs Lounge Fire.

  44.“General Case Report,” NOPD, 33; Walt Philbin, “First the Horror—Then the Leap,” New Orleans States-Item, June 25, 1973, 6.

  45.Vanlangendonck interview; “General Case Report,” NOPD, 33.

  46.“Survivor Discovers Her True Friends,” 8; Delery-Edwards, The Up Stairs Lounge Arson, 47.

  47.Philbin, “First the Horror—Then the Leap,” 6; “New Orleans Fire Probe Launched,” Monroe [La.] News-Star, June 25, 1973, 2.

  48.Lind, Thomas, and Philbin, “Possible Arson Probed,” 2; Willey, “The Upstairs Lounge Fire,” 19; Delery-Edwards, The Up Stairs Lounge Arson, 47; Earl Thomas Grant, Records, National New Orleans Memorial Fund, c. 1974, National New Orleans Memorial Fund Collection, ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives; Fred Sharohway Grant, Records, National New Orleans Memorial Fund, c. 1974, National New Orleans Memorial Fund Collection.

  49.“General Case Report,” NOPD, 30, 27; Rosenthal interview.

  50.Willey, “The Upstairs Lounge Fire,” 17; Rosenthal interview; “General Case Report,” NOPD, 52.

  51.“General Case Report,” NOPD, 26, 11; Scarborough, Statement to State Fire Marshal, July 16, 1973, 5.

  52.“General Case Report,” NOPD, 30; Willey, “The Upstairs Lounge Fire,” 17; Rosenthal interview.

  53.Everett interview, August 25, 2015; “General Case Report,” NOPD, 31.

  54.“General Case Report,” NOPD, 30; Everett interviews, August 25, 2015, and September 30, 2016.

  55.Everett interviews, September 30, 2016, July 27, 2015, and August 10 and August 25, 2015; Rosenthal interview.

  56.“General Case Report,” NOPD, 25; Kubicki, “Henry Kubicki Account.”

  57.“General Case Report,” NOPD, 30.

  58.Ibid., 30–31; Willey, “The Upstairs Lounge Fire,” 18; Everett interview, September 30, 2016.

  59.“General Case Report,” NOPD, 31, 20; Townsend, Let the Faggots Burn, 301.

  60.“Supplemental Information,” Fire Prevention Division of the New Orleans Fire Department, fig. 1: Floor Plan of Upstairs Lounge, c. 1975, Johnny Townsend Collection, ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives; “General Case Report,” NOPD, 23; “Supplemental Information,” NOFD, 1, c. 1975, Johnny Townsend Collection.

  61.Willey, “The Upstairs Lounge Fire,” 17; “General Case Report,” NOPD, 8, 19.

  62.Willey, “The Upstairs Lounge Fire,” 17–18.

  63.Batson, “Holocaust,” 12; Susan Fosberg, “It’s a Faggot Bar,” Vieux Carré Courier, June 29, 1973, 7.

  64.Fosberg, “It’s a Faggot Bar,” 7; “General Case Report,” NOPD, 18; Willey, “The Upstairs Lounge Fire,” 18; Davis, Statement to State Fire Marshal, 4; Jacqueline Bullard, Statement to Louisiana Office of State Fire Marshal, March 17, 1975, 2, Louisiana State Archives.

  65.“General Case Report,” NOPD, 8; interview with Milton Mary, August 22, 2016, courtesy of Tracking Fire, LLC.

  66.Clayton Delery-Edwards, email to author, July 8, 2016; Downs, “The Horror Upstairs”; Lind, Thomas, and Philbin, “Possible Arson Probed,” 2; Angus Lind, “Fire Bares the Grisly Face of Death,” New Orleans States-Item, June 25, 1973, 6; Mihalyfi interview; Scarborough, Statement to State Fire Marshal.

  67.“French Quarter Fire Toll Worst for New Orleans,” Monroe News-Star, June 25, 1973, 2; interview with Trevor Santos, March 3, 2016; Vanlangendonck interview; interview with Sheri Wright, June 2016; Mary interview.

  68.Bermuda interview.

  69.“General Case Report,” NOPD, 8; LaPlace and Anderson, “Twenty-Nine Killed,” 1; “French Quarter Fire Toll Worst for New Orleans,” 2; Perry Waters, Autopsy, Orleans Parish Coroner’s Office, 1973, Upstairs Lounge Records, City Archive, New Orleans Public Library; Duane George Mitchell, Autopsy, Orleans Parish Coroner’s Office, 1973, Upstairs Lounge Records; Mary interview.

  70.Santos interview, March 3, 2016; Ed Tunstall, “ ‘Up Stairs Lounge’ Fire Is New Orleans’ Worst,” Wilmington [Del.] Index-Journal, June 25, 1973, 24; Lanny Thomas, “Fun … Drinks … Song … with Death at the Piano,” New Orleans States-Item, June 25, 1973, 6; Townsend, Let the Faggots Burn, 143; “General Case Report,” NOPD, 12; George Steven [sic] Matyi, Autopsy, Orleans Parish Coroner’s Office, 1973, Upstairs Lounge Records; Inez Warren, Autopsy, Orleans Parish Coroner’s Office, 1973, Upstairs Lounge Records; Rushton, “After the Fire Upstairs,” 4; George Schwandt, “Holocaust in New Orleans,” The Advocate, June 18, 1973, 9; Lind, “Fire Bares the Grisly Face of Death,” 6.

  71.“General Case Report,” NOPD, 31; Cuthbert, “Where There Was Smoke.”

  72.Thomas, “Fun … Drinks … Song,” 6.

  5: Mayhem

  1.Interview with Stewart Butler, July 20, 2014; Anonymous, The Cajun Queen: A Complete Guide to New Orleans Gaydom (New Orleans: Minotaur, Inc., 1974), 32; Johnny Townsend, Let the Faggots Burn: The Up Stairs Lounge Fire (self-published through BookLocker.com, 2011), 251.

  2.Royd Anderson, The UpStairs Lounge Fire (documentary film), Lake Oaks Studio, June 24, 2013; Butler interview, July 20, 2014; Eugene Davis, Statement to Louisiana Office of State Fire Marshal, October 1, 1973, 4, Skylar Fein Upstairs Lounge Fire Collection, Historic New Orleans Collection.

  3.Jacqueline Bullard, Statement to Louisiana Office of State Fire Marshal, March 17, 1975, 2, Louisiana State Archives, Baton Rouge.

  4.Butler interview, July 20, 2014; “General Case Report,” New Orleans Department of Police, August 30, 1973, 19, Upstairs Lounge Records, City Archives, New Orleans Public Library. I confirmed the number of steps from 704 Iberville Street to 604 Iberville.

  5.“New Orleans Fire Probe Launched,” Monroe [La.] News-Star, June 25, 1973, 2; Eric Newhouse, “Arson Eyed in New Orleans Fire,” Abilene [Tex.] Reporter News, June 25, 1973; Paul Atk
inson, “Obscenity Crackdown Begins,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 28, 1973, 1; “General Case Report,” NOPD, 34; Chris Segura, “Black, Empty Windows Stare,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 26, 1973, 3.

  6.Associated Press footage, “US Fire,” June 25, 1973, aparchive.com; Sharon Swindall, “Tourist Recalls Nightmare,” New Orleans Daily Record, June 27, 1973, 7; John LaPlace and Ed Anderson, “Twenty-Nine Killed in Quarter Blaze,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 25, 1973, 1 (and accompanying photo by Ronald LeBoeuf); Townsend, Let the Faggots Burn, 297; interview with Milton Mary, August 22, 2016; Angus Lind, Lanny Thomas, and Walt Philbin, “Twenty-Nine Dead in Quarter Holocaust,” New Orleans States-Item, June 25, 1973, 6.

  7.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), 49, 52; Townsend, Let the Faggots Burn, 303.

  8.Lind, “Fire Bares,” 6; “Yesterday’s Dreams, Today’s Ghosts,” The Advocate, March 13, 1974, 12; Douglas Rasmussen, Statement to Louisiana Office of State Fire Marshal, July 18, 1973, 1, Skylar Fein Upstairs Lounge Fire Collection, Historic New Orleans Collection; Townsend, Let the Faggots Burn, 301; Associated Press footage, “US Fire”; interview with Robert Vanlangendonck, August 11, 2015.

  9.Lind, “Fire Bares,” 6; “Yesterday’s Dreams, Today’s Ghosts,” The Advocate, March 13, 1974, 12; Douglas Rasmussen, Statement to Louisiana Office of State Fire Marshal, July 18, 1973, 1, Skylar Fein Upstairs Lounge Fire Collection, Historic New Orleans Collection; Townsend, Let the Faggots Burn, 301; Associated Press footage, “US Fire”; interview with Robert Vanlangendonck, August 11, 2015.

  10.Lind, “Fire Bares,” 6; Clayton Delery, email to author, July 8, 2016.

  11.Butler interview, July 20, 2014; Lind, “Fire Bares,” 6; Lanny Thomas, “Fun … Drinks … Song … with Death at the Piano,” New Orleans States-Item, June 25, 1973, 6.

  12.“French Quarter Fire Toll Worst for New Orleans,” Monroe News-Star, June 25, 1973, 2; John LaPlace, “Scene of French Quarter Fire Is Called Dante’s ‘Inferno,’ Hitler’s Incinerators,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 25, 1973, 1 (and accompanying photo by G. E. Arnold); Associated Press photograph of rescue worker leaning against charred window, June 24, 1973, aparchive.com.

  13.Ed Tunstall, “N.O. Fire Fighter Urges High-Rise Sprinkler Law,” Shreveport Times, November 25, 1973, 142; “General Case Report,” NOPD, 18.

  14.Sharon Swindall, “Rookie Fireman Describes Fire,” New Orleans Daily Record, June 28, 1973, 1. “Fatality List, 604 Iberville” New Orleans Fire Department, June 24, 1973, 1–3, Johnny Townsend Collection, ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives at the USC Libraries, Los Angeles; Tunstall, “N.O. Fire Fighter Urges,” 142.

  15.“General Case Report,” NOPD, 19; interview with Joseph Bermuda, March 31, 2015; A. Elwood Willey, “The Upstairs Lounge Fire,” NFPA Journal 68, no. 1 (1974): 18; LaPlace and Anderson, “Twenty-Nine Killed,” 3.

  16.Lind, Thomas, and Philbin, “Twenty-Nine Dead,” 1; Willey, “The Upstairs Lounge Fire,” 18–19.

  17.“General Case Report,” NOPD, 16–17; interview with Ronald LeBoeuf, April 15, 2015; photograph of fireman giving first aid by G. E. Arnold, Associated Press, June 24, 1973, aparchive.com.

  18.Interview with Henry Kubicki, September 5, 2015; 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.

  19.Kubicki interview, September 5, 2015; Kubicki, “Henry Kubicki Account.”

  20.Interview with Ronald Rosenthal, June 14, 2016; interviews with Richard Everett, January 20, 2017, and August 25, 2015.

  21.Kubicki interview, September 4, 2015; Michel Montaigne, The Essays of Montaigne, trans. George Ives (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1925), 13; Everett interview, August 25, 2015.

  22.Interview with Dexter Brecht, July 29, 2015; Kubicki, “Henry Kubicki Account”; Thomas, “Fun … Drinks … Song,” 6.

  23.LaPlace, “Scene of French Quarter Fire Is Called,” 2; report from CBS Evening News, June 26, 1973 (archived at http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/upstairs-lounge-fire); videorecorded interview with Clancy DuBos, conducted by Royd Anderson, April 22, 2008 (courtesy of Royd Anderson); Frank Hayward to Winston Lill (memorandum), September 25, 1973, Records of Mayor Moon Landrieu, City Archives, New Orleans Public Library.

  24.Lind, “Fire Bares,” 6; Lind, Thomas, and Philbin, “Twenty-Nine Dead,” 1.

  25.LeBoeuf interview; Thomas, “Fun … Drinks … Song,” 6; Newhouse, “Arson Eyed in New Orleans Fire”; report from CBS Evening News, June 26, 1973; Townsend, Let the Faggots Burn, 193.

  26.Swindall, “Tourist Recalls Nightmare,” 7; Newhouse, “Arson Eyed in New Orleans Fire.”

  27.Rasmussen, Statement to State Fire Marshal, 1; “General Case Report,” NOPD, 24. 31; Davis, Statement to State Fire Marshal, 5.

  28.Townsend, Let the Faggots Burn, 214.

  29.“General Case Report,” NOPD, 31.

  30.Townsend, Let the Faggots Burn, 214.

  31.“General Case Report,” NOPD, 31; Rasmussen, Statement to State Fire Marshal, 1; “Official Report,” Louisiana Office of State Fire Marshal, July 22, 1975, 27, Louisiana State Archives.

  32.Delery-Edwards, The Up Stairs Lounge Arson, 125; “Official Report,” State Fire Marshal, 27; Rasmussen, Statement to State Fire Marshal, 1.

  33.“Official Report,” State Fire Marshal, 27.

  34.Interview with Roy Reed, September 24, 2014; Roy Reed, “1,500 Turned Back,” The New York Times, March 10, 1965, 1.

  35.Reed interview; Roy Reed, “Flash Fire in New Orleans Kills at Least Thirty-Two in Bar,” The New York Times, June 25, 1973, 1.

  36.Reed interview; Reed, “Flash Fire in New Orleans,” 66.

  37.Clancy DuBos, “A Front-Row View of Tragedy,” Gambit, June 18, 2013, 23; Lind, Thomas, and Philbin, “Twenty-Nine Dead,” 6; Clancy DuBos, “Blood, Moans: Charity Scene,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 25, 1973, 1; DuBos interview with Anderson.

  38.DuBos, “Blood, Moans,” 1; Delery to author, July 8, 2016.

  39.DuBos, “A Front-Row View,” 23; DuBos, “Blood, Moans,” 1; Lind, Thomas, and Philbin, “Twenty-Nine Dead,” 6; Jim Downs, “The Horror Upstairs,” Time, July 1, 2013 (http://time.com/4365509/the-horror-upstairs).

  40.DuBos, “Blood, Moans,” 2; Paul Breton, “United We Stand” (unpublished manuscript, August 1973), National New Orleans Memorial Fund Collection, ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives; Bill Rushton, “New Orleans Toll Thirty-Two; Arson Evidence Cited,” The Advocate, August 1, 1973, 2; “New Burn Unit Used at Charity,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 28, 1973, sect. 7, p. 16.

  41.DuBos, “Blood, Moans,” 1; DuBos, “A Front-Row View,” 23; DuBos interview with Anderson.

  42.DuBos interview with Anderson; DuBos, “A Front-Row View,” 23.

  43.“General Case Report,” NOPD, 7–8.

  44.“General Case Report,” NOPD, 8–9, 35–36, 50–51; Nolan Lewis and Helen Yarnell, “Pathological Fire-Setting (Pyromania),” Nervous and Mental Disease Monograph 82 (1952): 8–26; W. Hurley and T. M. Monahan, “Arson: The Criminal and the Crime,” The British Journal of Criminology 9, no. 1 (January 1, 1969): 4–21; Robert McAnear, Facebook message to author, January 6, 2017; “Jeff Sheriff Affirms Firings,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, January 15, 1972, 17.

  45.Delery-Edwards, The Up Stairs Lounge Arson, 94; McAnear to author, January 6, 2017; “General Case Report,” NOPD, 9, 18–19; “Inspection and/or Investigation Report,” Fire Prevention Division of the New Orleans Fire Department, June 24–25, 1973, Johnny Townsend Collection, ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives; “Official Report,” State Fire Marshal.

  46.“General Case Report,” NOPD, 31–32, 24.

  47.Tom Frazer, “Sons of Fire Victim Sent Home—Unaware of Father’s Death,” New Orleans States-Item, June 26, 1973, A3; interview with Duane Mitchell, August 13,
2015.

  48.Interview with Duane Mitchell, August 14, 2015.

  49.Ibid.; Frazer, “Sons of Fire Victim Sent Home,” A3.

  6: Call for Aid

  1.“General Case Report,” New Orleans Department of Police, August 30, 1973, 16–17, Upstairs Lounge Records, City Archives, New Orleans Public Library; Angus Lind, “Fire Bares the Grisly Face of Death,” New Orleans States-Item, June 25, 1973, 6.

  2.“General Case Report,” NOPD, 17; John LaPlace and Ed Anderson, “Twenty-Nine Killed in Quarter Blaze,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 25, 1973, 1; A. Elwood Willey, “The Upstairs Lounge Fire,” NFPA Journal 68, no. 1 (1974): 17–18; “Supplemental Information,” Fire Prevention Division of the New Orleans Fire Department, c. 1975, 1, Johnny Townsend Collection, ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives at the USC Libraries, Los Angeles.

  3.“General Case Report,” NOPD, 49; “Report of the Crime Laboratory,” June 27, 1973, in supplemental materials to “Official Report,” Louisiana Office of State Fire Marshal, July 22, 1975, Louisiana State Archives, Baton Rouge.

  4.“General Case Report,” NOPD, 17; “Inspection and/or Investigation Report,” Fire Prevention Division of the New Orleans Fire Department, June 24–25, 1973, 3, Johnny Townsend Collection.

  5.LaPlace and Anderson, “Twenty-Nine Killed,” 2; “General Case Report,” NOPD, 11; “Fatality List, 604 Iberville,” New Orleans Fire Department, June 24, 1973, 3, Johnny Townsend Collection.

  6.“General Case Report,” NOPD, 16–17; Ed Tunstall, “ ‘Up Stairs Lounge’ Fire Is New Orleans’ Worst,” Wilmington [Del.] Index-Journal, June 25, 1973, 24; “French Quarter Fire Toll Worst for New Orleans,” Monroe [La.] News-Star, June 25, 1973, 2.

  7.Ken Weiss, “Blaze Victims’ Names Sought,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 26, 1973, 3; Lind, “Fire Bares,” 6; George Schwandt, “Holocaust in New Orleans,” The Advocate, June 18, 1973, 9.

  8.Robert McAnear, Facebook messages to author, January 6 and January 9, 2017; Townsend, Let the Faggots Burn, 305.