![fire gay bar new orleans fire gay bar new orleans](https://www.syracuse.com/resizer/Fr3ZzEgCGMaXufw9tA2GBHs67cw=/600x0/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-advancelocal.s3.amazonaws.com/public/34BEZ4WWZ5FOVFCODVSJ7H7MFU.jpg)
Participants in the June 27 panel include Royd Anderson, director of the documentary The UpStairs Lounge Fire (2013) Clayton Delery, award-winning author of The Up Stairs Lounge Arson: Thirty-Two Deaths in a New Orleans Gay Bar, J(McFarland, 2014) Clancy DuBos, the journalist whose story “Blood, Moans: Charity Scene” ran on the front page of the Times-Picayune the morning after the fire Robert W. According to survivors, many avoided talking about the event, as they faced discrimination in the workplace and from landlords. Many felt the fire was inadequately acknowledged by the New Orleans community-some family members refused to claim the bodies of their relatives out of shame, and local civic and religious leaders largely ignored the tragedy. THNOC and the LGBT+ Archives Project will commemorate the 45th anniversary of the Up Stairs Lounge fire on Wednesday, June 27, with a panel of historians and witnesses discussing how it shaped the LGBT+ community locally and nationally.Ī case of arson for which no one was ever convicted, the Up Stairs Lounge fire claimed 32 lives on June 24, 1973, in a second-floor gay bar at 141 Chartres St.