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Let ‘em burn.” As late as 1990, stories and memorials about the various fires throughout New Orleans history failed to mention the Upstairs Lounge, though it remains to While most of the first responders did their jobs, a survivor overheard one at the scene saying, “It’s just faggots. Jokes about “the weenie roast in the French Quarter” and “burying fruits in fruit jars” ran rampant in workplaces. Religious leaders refused to bury the dead. However, the reaction of the community-local politicians, the media, and religious leaders-turned what would otherwise still have been a horrific disaster into a hate crime. Though the fire was started on Gay Pride weekend, the tragedy did not appear to be a targeted hate crime, just a petty act of revenge that exploded out of control.
#FIRE GAY BAR NEW ORLEANS MOVIE#
Duane Mitchell, the son of a man whose father died trying to save his partner, gives a heartrending account of waiting all night at a local movie theater waiting for his father to pick him up.Ĭamina investigates possible suspects, the most likely a gay man kicked out of the bar earlier that evening. Director Robert Camina interviews survivors, notably Regina Adams, a trans woman whose partner died in the fire, and Rick Everett, who escaped out a back window onto the roof of an adjacent building. Upstairs Inferno (2015), winner of 18 awards, tells the story of the 1973 arson at a French Quarter gay bar which killed 32 people.