“In the context of the Pulse nightclub shooting they thought that telling their story and bearing witness might do a greater good.”Ī recurring topic in the book is the connection between the Metropolitan Community Church and the lounge. “Their reticence was replaced with urgency,” he said.
But there were also raids on gay bars, harassment, and discrimination: “An individual who was quiet and who was closeted gay, could find companionship, could find love and joy, could have a job, could have a house, so long as this individual never spoke the dreaded H. In some ways, the city was a haven for the gay community where people could be themselves. New Orleans was a conflicted place for the gay community at the time of the fire, Fieseler says. It wasn’t until 2003 that a plaque commemorating the fire’s victims was laid. No one was ever arrested for the blaze, although Fieseler writes about how investigators keyed into one main suspect in the fire - a disgruntled bar patron who’d been kicked out earlier in the day and had been heard threatening to burn the place down. In the aftermath, survivors and friends of those who perished worried they might be accidentally revealed as being gay. There was no public outpouring of grief and no rushing of top political figures to the scene. The fire was front-page news but only briefly. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Fieseler writes the Lounge became “an oasis where regular customers felt safe, less a hook-up space than a hangout where friends and lovers could exhale and be themselves.” The bar’s customers often put on theatrical performances, sometimes written by the wife of a customs agent who frequented the bar. Attending his funeral was “life-changing” for Fieseler as he went from feeling that he was entirely alone to understanding that there were other gay men like him.įieseler describes in the book how the Up Stairs Lounge had a family-like atmosphere in some ways where manager Buddy Rasmussen ran a tight ship: no hustling of patrons, no sloppy drunks and no drug use. On a personal level, writing the book was also a way to reconnect with a relative whose death had been an important turning point in Fieseler’s life, a gay man who had died of AIDS when Fieseler was 13. I thought that this was this inherently important history.”
Fieseler has come out with a new book “Tinderbox: The Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberation,” that details the fire and its aftermath:Īs a gay man, Fieseler said he thought he knew a lot about the gay liberation movement but then in 2013, his journalism professor - who was from the New Orleans area - told him about the fire: “I was fascinated and compelled. Within minutes, the flames engulfed the bar, killing 32 patrons. NEW ORLEANS - On Sunday June 24, 1973, dozens of patrons had gathered at the Up Stairs Lounge, a gay bar in New Orleans when an arsonist set fire to the building.
Robert Fieseler's book is called "Tinderbox: The Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberation." Photo by G.E. A new book details the 1973 deadly fire at the gay bar that killed 32 patrons. Several persons leaped to safety before the entire bar was engulfed in flames. Join the conversation File - In this Jfile photo, firemen give first aid to survivors of a French Quarter fire that swept through a second story bar leaving 29 dead and 15 injured in New Orleans.