Jimani Lounge Clip
On the last Sunday in June, 1973, a gay bar in New Orleans called the UpStairs Lounge was firebombed, and the resulting blaze killed 32 people. At the time, the bar had recently served as the temporary home for the fledgling New Orleans congregation of the Metropolitan Community Church. Founded in Los Angeles in 1968, the MCC was the nation's first gay church.
It was the third fire at a MCC church during the first half of 1973, following earlier arsons in Nashville and Los Angeles. The church's Los Angeles headquarters was destroyed on January 27, five days after the U.S. Supreme Court announced its momentous decision in the case of Roe v. Wade.
That Sunday was the final day of Pride Weekend, the fourth anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising of 1969. Yet there was still no Gay Pride Parade in New Orleans. Almost two dozen gay bars dotted the French Quarter, but gay life in the city remained largely underground.
Located on the second floor of a three-story building at the corner of Chartres and Iberville Streets, the UpStairs Lounge had only one entrance, up a wooden flight of stairs. Nearly 125 regulars had jammed the bar earlier that afternoon for a free beer and all you could eat special. After the free beer ran out, about 60 stayed, mostly members of the MCC congregation.
Before moving worship services to their pastor's home earlier in June, congregation members had been holding services at the UpStairs on Sundays. But the bar was still a spiritual gathering place. There was a piano in one of the bar's three rooms, and a cabaret stage. Members would pray and sing in this room, and every Sunday night, they gathered around the piano for a song they had adopted as their anthem, United We Stand, by The Brotherhood of Man.
United we stand, divided we fall...
And if our backs should ever be against the wall,
We'll be together...
Together...you and I.
They sang the song that evening, with David Gary on the piano, a professional pianist who played regularly in the lounge of the Marriott Hotel across the street. The congregation members repeated the verses again and again, swaying back and forth, arm in arm, happy to be together at their former place of worship on Pride Sunday, still feeling the effects of the free beer special.
At 7:56 pm a buzzer from downstairs sounded, the one that signaled a cab had arrived. No one had called a cab, but when someone opened the second floor steel door to the stairwell, flames rushed in. An arsonist had deliberately set the wooden stairs ablaze, and the oxygen starved fire exploded. The still-crowded bar became an inferno within seconds.
The emergency exit was not marked, and the windows were boarded up or covered with iron bars. A few survivors managed to make it through, and jumped to the sidewalks, some in flames. Rev. Bill Larson, the local MCC pastor, got stuck halfway and burned to death wedged in a window, his corpse visible throughout the next day to witnesses below.
This photo appeared in wire stories about the tragedy. Rev. Larson's body was not removed from the window throughout the initial investigation, and symbolized the city's uncaring attitude towards the mostly gay victims.
Bartender Buddy Rasmussen led a group of fifteen to safety through the unmarked back door. One of them was MCC assistant pastor George Mitch Mitchell. Then Mitch ran back into the burning building trying to save his partner, Louis Broussard. Their bodies were discovered lying together.
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Celebs you didn’t know were tall! From a western-film icon to a woman who sings about lost love
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10. Andy Richter [1.85m]
This six-foot-one star was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1966. One of four kids born to Laurence Richter and Glenda Swanson. His parents split up when he was four. Years later, his father came out as gay. Playing “Mike Brady” in the New York play The Real Live Brady Bunch launched Richter’s career. Later, Richter was hired for Late Night with Conan O’Brien as a writer and eventually became O’Brien’s sidekick. Maybe it was a seven year itch that led him to leave the show in May of 2000. In 2009, Richter again joined up again with O’Brien on The Tonight Show. On a more personal note, Richter and his wife of twenty-five years, Sarah Thyre, recently divorced in 2019.
9. Joel McHale [1.92m]
Another tall glass of water is Joel McHale, who stands six-foot-four. He was born in 1971 in Rome, Italy. But, Jole spent his childhood on Mercer Island in Washington. In 1995, Joel graduated from the University of Washington with a bachelor’s degree in history and then earned his Masters in Fine Arts. McHale moved south to Los Angeles, earning small roles in Will & Grace and CSI: Miami. He also acted in Lords of Dogtown, guest-starred in Thank God You’re Here, and hosted The Soup in 2004. He also did bits on The Adam Carolla Show and Mickey and Amelia. In 2014, he hosted the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, and in 2017 McHale hosted the Webby Awards and People’s Choice Awards. Jole and Sarah Williams got married in 1996 and have two sons.
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