June 25, 1973, New York Times, page 1, Flash Fire in New Orleans Kills at Least 32 in Bar, by Roy Reed.

At least 32 persons were reported killed in a flash fire in a French Quarter bar tonight. Another 15 were injured, nine of them seriously. The figure of 32 dead was not an official estimate, but was reported by an ambulance company that was helping the coroner's staff remove the bodies.

Well, at least we now know who's calling the shots--the corporate guys who were boots on the ground working undercover as ambulance company employees.

Doesn't New Orleans have enough municipal employees to handle a big job like this on its own? The unidentified "helper," used the word advisedly---the contracts were already signed and the city had the standard 90 days to settle its bill.

United Press International quoted Police Sgt. Frank Hayward as saying that 38 persons died, including nine who jumped from second-floor windows in panic.

(See: June 25, 1973, UPI - The Sun [San Bernardino, CA] page 1, New Orleans fire leaves 38 dead, by Joseph A. Reaves.)

Interesting, if wrong, numbers for Hayward to disclose, especially the nine, which were cross-threshold deaths, meant to be counted as visible on the street, but those who exited didn't expire from panic or from the one-story fall, unless they landed on their heads. But this might account for the presence of such seriously burned survivors who somehow did make it outside, through an obviously daunting, if thoroughly unknowable obstacle course that the exits and egress represented, plus the high ratio of fatalities to recovery for the ones who did make it outside.

I'm seeing it now as a reality TV show, called Ultimate Panic Attack, where a mixed group of trained ex-special-forces Green Berets is sitting around, shooting the shit with some nellies who claim to know all the words to Broadway show tunes. The sort of place where people give blow jobs in the can in exchange for a hit on the pipe, when suddenly, out of the blue---well, actually, it's the ceiling tiles, comes a rolling fog of flaming napalm! What do you do men? Remember your training! Get outside to safety. Regroup. Maintain your assets!

"Don't sit around, and putter! Life's candy, and the sun's a ball of butter! Don't bring around the clouds to rain on my....parade!"

Fire Department officials said they strongly suspected that the fire had been set by two men who had earlier been thrown out of the bar and returned and threw gasoline in a downstairs bar and in the stairway leading to the second-floor place.

Very, interesting. So they went with the gasoline first, did they? Good, because there always was something psychologically off-putting about those little eight-ounce Ronsonol cans---I wasn't going to buy it. They're about the thinnest commercial products I know. But two potential suspects linked together makes for a conspiracy, instead of a plan A and B. Well, if they were thrown out together, it's a possibility they returned together.

A witness who left seconds before the fire started said all of the customers appeared to be men.

Oh, how wicked! Homo code talk! Press fingertip against nose and pose. Just, one thing---it is in the very nature of leaving that one has left, so is unavailable to verify a timeline down into the seconds---or really, minutes even.

None of the victims were identified. Many of the bodies were charred so badly that identification of them may not be finished for two weeks, a spokesman for the coroner said.

............

Two young men from Pineville, in central Louisiana, said they had entered the bar shortly before the fire started, but had left at once because they "didn't like the looks of the place." A neighboring bartender said the place was frequented by homosexuals.

"We walked in and there were two guys arguing," William White said. He and his companion, Gary Williams, left immediately and had walked about half a block when he looked back and saw the second floor of the building in flames, Mr. White said.

This is where the Times' coverage really falls apart. By the newspaper's standards, William White and Gary Williams provide a source, and a verification. But it was hard in 1973 for anyone identifiable by name to admit they'd entered a gay bar, so by the Times' construction these men had only wandered in, unwitting to the nature of the bar. But this is unlikely. The awning that marked the entrance (and one didn't just "walk in," one had to "walk up,") said only "Up Stairs." It didn't announce the location as being a bar, or lounge, a pool hall, or an Arthur Murray Dance Studio. The entrance was sandwiched between at least three other ground-floor drinking establishments that would have caught the young men's attention long before they ventured up a blind staircase for their six free Rumba lessons.

Then, after they'd disengaged, White, "walked about half a block when he looked back and saw the second floor of the building in flames," means that someone entering after them had doused the lower stairs of the staircase with some flammable liquid, the fire had traveled up the staircase, entered the long, open room, and had burst out of the sealed windows in the front to be visible on the street. (One can walk a short New York City block in about a minute. These New Orleans' blocks seem comparable. So you're talking about somewhere in the vicinity of 30 seconds to completely torch the place.
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June 25, 1973, New York Times, page 1, Flash Fire in New Orleans Kills at Least 32 in Bar, by Roy Reed.



June 25, 1973, New York Times, page A1, Flash Fire in New Orleans Kills at Least 32 in Bar, by Roy Reed, [continued on page 66]

At least 32 persons were reported killed in a flash fire in a French Quarter bar tonight. Another 15 were injured, nine of them seriously. The figure of 32 dead was not an official estimate, but was reported by an ambulance company that was helping the coroner's staff remove the bodies.

United Press International quoted Police Sgt. Frank Hayward as saying that 38 persons died, including nine who jumped from second-floor windows in panic.

Fire Department officials said they strongly suspected that the fire had been set by two men who had earlier been thrown out of the bar and returned and threw gasoline in a downstairs bar and in the stairway leading to the second-floor place.

The bar, a second-floor place called the Upstairs, was packed with a Sunday evening crowd drawn by a weekly "beer bust" and show given by the bar. A bartender and 35 or 30 customers escaped through a back door.

A witness who had left seconds before the fire started said all the customers appeared to be men.

None of the victims were identified. Many of the bodies were charred so badly that identification of them may not be finished for two weeks, a [Continued on Page 66, Column 4] spokesman for the coroner said.

Three hours after the fire was extinguished, rescue workers had still been able to remove only a few bodies. A reporter who saw the second-floor scene before the police blockaded it said he saw "at least 20 bodies, all melted together," jammed against the front windows. Three bodies still lay in the windows, one with head and shoulders protruding through the frame, hours after the fire was out.

Fire Chief William J. McCrossen said that the fire might have been the worst in the city's history. He said its cause was "under investigation."

Some firemen reportedly heard witnesses say that the fire had been set by an angry customer.

Two young men from Pineville, in central Louisiana, said they had entered the bar shortly before the fire started, but had left at once because they "didn't like the looks of the place." A neighboring bartender said the place was frequented by homosexuals.

"We walked in and there were two guys arguing," William White said. He and his companion, Garry Williams, left immediately and had walked about half a block when he looked back and saw the second floor of the building in flames, Mr. White said.

The bar was in an old three-story building at Iberville and Chartres Streets, one block from Canal Street and a few blocks from the Mississippi River.

Four men, including one or two seamen lived in rooms on the third floor, but they apparently were not hurt. Neither were occupants of a second bar on the first floor. All the victims were thought to be in the second-floor bar.

The fire was brought under control in about 20 minutes.

Douglas M. Rasmussen, the bartender at The Upstairs, said he heard the doorbell ringing before the fire, indicating that someone wanted to be admitted.

"I saw the front door opened and it stayed open for a second," he said. "That's when the flames started coming in. I took 25 or 30 people out the back way with me."

Walter Harris, a bartender at a place next door, said The Upstairs "puts on shows on Sunday nights, playing the piano and all."

Siege Last January

Last Jan. 7 and 8, the 18-story Howard Johnson's Motel in New Orleans was gripped in terror for 30 hours after a band of gunmen---the precise number was never determined---set fire to rooms on the upper floors, shot guests and then engaged the police in a long gunfight.

Seven persons were killed, including three policemen and Mark James Robert Essex, a 23-year-old rifle-toting black who was flushed from a rooftop hideout by police marksmen in a hovering helicopter. Fifteen others were wounded, eight seriously.

Some six weeks earlier, six persons died when a fire swept the upper floors of the 16-story Rault Center Building, across the street from the motel. Three of the victims died when they plunged eight stories from burning rooms, another was found dead in a hallway, and two others succumbed weeks later of burns.

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Meanwhile, back at the farm.....


June 25, 1973, New York Times, page  A21, Homosexuals March Down 7th Avenue, by John Darnton,





This has to have been the most charming parade year ever, with the straights still capable of being wonderstruck at what had been under their noses all along, and the paradegoers not yet overdoing it. So why does the Times obstruct searches to such a good year? Is it because of the too-high-a-contrast value with the bad news from New Orleans?


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June 26, 1973, New York Times, page 26, Arson Suspected in Deaths of 29 in New Orleans Bar, [.pdf]


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June 30, 1973, UPI - New York Times, page 39, 30th New Orleans Victim,

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May 30, 1977, New York Times, page 16, Nightclub Toll of 491 in Boston in 1942 Was Highest, by Charles Kaiser, [.pdf] [page A-1]

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