THE UPSTAIRS LOUNGE FIRE MEMORIAL

 

Yesterday, June 24th, marked the 40th anniversary of the horrific Upstairs Lounge fire in which 32 people - 31 of them gay men - were burned to death.  The fire is widely believed by authorities and many members of the New Orleans gay community to have been deliberately set.  No one was ever captured or charged with the crime and case is still open, making it the oldest unsolved hate crime against gays in American history.

 

Yesterday's jazz funeral and memorial capped off PRIDE celebrations in New Orleans that also included the premiere of "Upstairs: The Musical" and declarations by Mayor Mitch Landrieu and other officials naming June 24th Official Pride Day - a long, long way from 1973, the year of the fire, when Mitch's own father, Mayor Moon Landrieu, failed even to acknowledge the tragedy.

 

I've told my story so many times - there's a link to that on this website, for those of you who might be interested - and there are so many images of the awful tragedy that was the Upstairs fire, that I think for the remainder of this post anyway, I'm going to let yesterday's images speak for themselves.

 

A beautiful floral tribute was donated for the occasion.

 

A brass band assembles to play for the traditional

New Orleans "jazz funeral."

 

Gay community leader Misti Ates (right) has worked

unceasingly for the past two years to make an Upstairs

fire memorial reality.  She is joined here by cast members

of "Upstairs: The Musical."

 

Charbonnet Funeral Home donated the services

of one of the last remaining horse-drawn hearses

in New Orleans.  The hearse is meant to symbolize

the dead who are not with us.

 

A better view of the hearse.

 

The funeral moves north on the Rue Chartres.

 

A smiling Misti Ates, for whom this memorial

means a promise is kept.

 

Attendees stretch back for blocks.

 

Relatives of the victims and others who couldn't walk

were given a ride in a streetcar shaped bus, seen here

as it moves west on the Rue Ste. Louis.

 

With the band playing "Just A Closer Walk

With Thee," the funeral makes its way

south along the Rue Royale.

 

The hearse, now with the flowers inside symbolizing

the spirits of the dead, comes to a stop in the Rue Iberville

next to the Upstairs Lounge site.

 

The band and people assemble outside the old Upstairs

to hear the blessing and the reading of the names.

 

A tearstruck Misti Ates reads the names of the

32 victims of the Upstairs Lounge fire.  Standing

just beyond her, in the grey shirt, is Duane Mitchell, Jr.,

son of Duane "Mitch" Mitchell, one of the 32 names on

that list.

 

Here is a very brief video I captured of the

blessing being rendered at the Upstairs site.

 

The story of the Upstairs Lounge didn't end with yesterday's memorials.  In many ways, the story has really just begun.  There is still much work to be done.  There is still much that might be learned about the victims; there may be family members who, overcoming the fears that kept them silent in 1973, might choose to come forward to help fill in the details; and there is a legacy to be celebrated, changing and growing and producing new expressions such as the dramatic musical that instantly became so integral a part of memorial activities. 

 

And speaking as a paranormalist, I would be terribly amiss if I were inclined to call the investigations and paranormal research carried out at the site complete.  Indeed, it is anything but complete.  Certainly, the tormented dead, who may conceivably have been reliving the horrific last moments of their lives in a fog of fear and anger, and in relative obscurity for the past 40 years - these dead may have finally passed on.  But the question for the paranormalist must always be, "Just what - if anything - remains?"