Douglas “Buddy” Rasmussen, bartender in the downstairs Jimani Lounge, heard the screams and hurried upstairs through a back door to find his partner Adam Fontenot. Some hid beneath the white grand piano while others rushed to the windows.
Panic swept through the Upstairs Lounge as men and women scrambled to find an exit. The tragic blaze at the Upstairs Lounge destroyed everything in its wake. Within seconds, a fireball engulfed the entire bar. As Luther opened the stairwell door, the influx of air fanned the flames. He asked Luther Boggs to let the cabbie know that there was no one needing a ride. Herbert thought it was peculiar, since no one there had called for a taxi. The flames quietly smoldered between the two closed doors. Before fleeing the scene, he padlocked the door. He opened the heavy steel entrance door and tossed a Molotov cocktail. Shortly after 7:00 PM, a man approached the front of the Upstairs. In a rage, David stormed out of the bar, shouting from the stairwell, “I’ll burn them all out!”Ī can of lighter fluid was purchased by an unidentified man at a nearby drugstore minutes later. A heated argument broke out that afternoon between a few patrons, and Herbert ordered two men to leave-one of whom was a well-known hustler and troublemaker named David Dubose. Regular customers both young and old lingered at the bar and chatted with friends among the scattered tables around the room. Larson, which considered the Upstairs their “spiritual home.” As the voices singing United We Stand wafted from the assembly, bartender Herbert Cooley continued pouring drinks for the dwindling early crowd. Gathered together that day was the small LGBTQ congregation of the Vieux Carre Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) holding its Sunday service in the Theater Room, having just recently relocated to the home of Reverend William R. Among these was an all-you-can-drink beer bust held at a small gay bar, hidden away on the second floor of a nondescript brick building on Chartres Street, called The Upstairs Lounge.Ī cheerful crowd gathered at the Upstairs Lounge. Sunday, June 24, marked the end of the few small-scale celebrations the city witnessed. In the summer of 1973, while gays and lesbians across the United States were celebrating the fourth anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in New York City with parades in several major cities, the disorganized LGBTQ community in New Orleans made little effort to hold any official gay pride events.