Renowned Death Hag
"What if the Hokey Pokey is what it's really all about?" Jimmy Buffett
Renowned Death Hag
If you look closely at this pic, there is a person completely charred behind the man at the window.
"What if the Hokey Pokey is what it's really all about?" Jimmy Buffett
Renowned Death Hag
Boggs wound up dying from the burns and thermal-related damage to his lungs, etc. He was the man who opened the door when the arsonist knocked and threw the firebomb/Molotov Cocktail.
"What if the Hokey Pokey is what it's really all about?" Jimmy Buffett
Okay, I have to say that is the most bizarre thing to see. Its as though the fire reached him but didn't burn him up completely so he is still in tact but burnt. Did that make sense? That is just so weird.Originally Posted by Alanwench
If you look closely at this pic, there is a person completely charred behind the man at the window.
Renowned Death Hag
That makes sense for the first man in the window. The heat probably 'cooked' his internal organs while he was alive. After watching a Dr. G. episode about someone who died in a fire, plus stuff I learned in class, high temperatures without flames and smoke could be enough to kill.Okay, I have to say that is the most bizarre thing to see. Its as though the fire reached him but didn't burn him up completely so he is still in tact but burnt. Did that make sense? That is just so weird.
"What if the Hokey Pokey is what it's really all about?" Jimmy Buffett
oka you guys went with the hubby to take pics upon doing so it was get htis queen night on the radio dont stop be now started right as I pulled up ...my favorite one ever! And then I got out to snap a pic and my batteries died !!!! Right then and there! Just drained ....I was like ookkkaaayyy......Im gonne go back....note to everyone these were pretty new battiries! Thanks for posting the pic. m thinking the one guy was lowering his foot out ....wow what a way to go!
Renowned Death Hag
You're welcome, Lisamarie. Let's hope the batteries work next time. This sounds totally crazy, but maybe if you would kind of send a message, (think the words instead of saying them so you don't wind up in a straightjacket) that you want to remember the victims, you would be allowed to take a pic.
"What if the Hokey Pokey is what it's really all about?" Jimmy Buffett
Lisamarie, I sure hope you are able to go back. Is your hubby a death hag too? If not, your lucky that he still went with you anyways.
Like Alanwench said maybe next time you might want to ask first just before you take your pic. But then again this could be the few spirits that wouldn't leave so they might not be cooperative. Thanks for trying and I hope you are able to go back and try again.
LisaMarie, my friend is a medium and she has tried to go there many times and every time she gets sick, sweats and feels like she is on fire and hears people screaming for help. SHe has to leave. I don't know how true this is but she told me another medium actually had blisters on her hands while visiting . When I go home after Xmas I am going to pay a visit there.
Excellent post by the way .
Renowned Death Hag
thankyou....well I havent really had tme cause of school..but I will def go soon...I did not get any negative vibes at all when I was tere then again Im not a medium at all.....Maybe a bt sensitive ...I did have the dream and they were all talkng at once....but thats it....Ill keep everyone updated...I wonder why police let the arsonist go?
I would like to think it was lack of evidence but more likely back then it was because it was only faggots killing faggots.
I read somewhere that the arsonist was a professional hustler thrown out earlier in the evening.
Unfortunately gay on gay crime is still not well investigated. When we lived in South Florida there was clearly a gay serial killer killing gay men. The ony place it got any coverage was in the gay community. There were warning in the local gay papers and gay and lesbian centers.
http://news.tbo.com/news/MGBQOBKJ59E.html
http://www.floridablade.com/2004/11-...ws/missing.cfm
Both of the last set of disappearances happened in 2004 while we were there. They got almost no coverage. W knew someone who knew the Drake Tower guy. He was supposed to e a very nice man. His friends really pressured the police and pointed all the similarities in the caes cited here. The police insisted he had made an unplanned trip to Key West and he would be back soon even though that was totally out of character for him. It was a couple of months before they began to go through the motions showing the surveilance tape of him leaving with someone on the news.
This is off topic but i just reenforces the point that gay on gay violence is still not taken seriously and prosecuted aggressively.
Lisa Marie I can't wait until the stars align and you get to go and really check it out.
Regards,
Mary
I know I feel like I need to march on washinton on this one ...because its gay on gay crime makes it a non issue ...this was a mass murder!!! Thanks for all the support Im on it!
Member
This is such a sad story Lisa. To think that when I was in New Orleans working for about a year (a long time ago), I also walked/drove by this building at times and never knew what happened there. Be sure to update us when you're able to take pics!
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I drive past it all the time and had no idea..a friend of mine once told me every buiding n the french quarter is haunted ....I believe it !
Renowned Death Hag
Please update us with pics when you get the chance.
"What if the Hokey Pokey is what it's really all about?" Jimmy Buffett
I will I am sorry I have been so bust latley@! Ill update soon...Im hoping to post the Rault center pics the anniversry at the exact time !
Member
That's a good idea!
.
oh its on people! Its on!
Renowned Death Hag
This article is by Alyne A. Pustanio
PART ONE: ITâ??S PERSONALOn the evening of Sunday, June 24, 1973, James â??Jimâ? Massacci, Sr. was relaxing at home with his family when a call came in from his bar, The Jimani, located at the corner of Iberville and Chartres Streets in the French Quarter. The employee on the other end of the line told Massacci that smoke was coming from the windows of another lounge upstairs from the Jimani, and that the police and fire department had been called. Although it didnâ??t sound like much of an emergency, Massacci decided to head down to the bar anyway, just to check things out; he brought his young son along.Upstairs Front Door with Barred Window Next to It
A few hours later, Massacci and his son, twelve-year-old Jimmy, were standing by in horror, surveying the remnants of one of the most gruesome and tragic events in the history of modern New Orleans. And on that night they became members of a very exclusive club, a small group of friends and neighbors who could say, in the intervening years, that they were there the night the Upstairs Lounge went out in flames.
But in the landscape of 1973 New Orleans, â??Gay Prideâ? did not exist. A handful of gay bars were scattered around the French Quarter, usually in derelict or crime-ridden neighborhoods that provided secrecy in a city where gay life was lived almost entirely underground.
The Upstairs Lounge was located on the second floor of a three-story building at the corner of Iberville and Chartres Streets. Jim Massacciâ??s Jimani bar occupied (and still occupies) the ground floor, and the third story consisted of bare, sparsely furnished â??flopâ? rooms that Upstairs patrons sometimes used for sexual liaisons.
That Sunday, June 24th, was the last day of national Pride Weekend and the fourth anniversary of the Stonewall Gay Pride Uprising of 1969. At the time, the bar was also the temporary home of the small New Orleans congregation of the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC), the nationâ??s first gay church that had been founded in Los Angeles in 1969.
Worship services had been held earlier in the day and congregation members had stayed to join regular patrons for an afternoon of free beer and an all-you-can-eat special. At the height of the activities, almost 130 people were jammed into the bar, but as the evening wore on, and the beer ran out, the number dwindled to approximately 60, most of whom were MCC members.
The building that housed the Upstairs Lounge was one of a rare few left in the French Quarter that had a wooden exterior; the lounge had only one entrance, up a wooden flight of steps and a narrow hallway from a door that opened directly onto the Iberville Street side. The lounge consisted of three open rooms, decorated in the plush style popularized during the 1970â??s, with long bars and a cabaret stage complete with a baby grand piano. MCC members and Upstairs regulars often gathered around the piano for sing-a-longs; one popular song, â??United We Standâ? by the Brotherhood of Man, had become a kind of anthem for the Upstairs crowd. One of the most popular performers at the Upstairs was pianist George â??Budâ? Matyi, a popular New Orleans entertainer whose trademark song was a rendition of the 70â??s sailor hit â??Brandy.â? He, as well as house pianist David Stuart Gary, would perish in the horrific blaze.The Upstairs Lounge Commerative Plaque ~ A Memorial Plaque Fund was set-up through the Vieux Carre Metropolitan Community Church.
Sitting with Jimmy Massacci, Jr. in his second-floor corner office on a humid, rainy June day, the events of 37 years ago seem vividly real.
â??That window right there,â? says Massacci, pointing at the window to my right, â??thatâ??s the window where the man got stuck in the bars and burned alive.â? Immediately, images I had seen of the charred corpse of MCC Rev. William Larson, frozen in the grisly pangs of death, come to mind. â??I think he was there all that next day, while they were in here investigating. Didnâ??t bother to cover him up or anything.â?
For Jimmy Massacci (James Jr.) the Upstairs Lounge remains a prominent and sobering memory of his childhood. â??Iâ??ll never forget it,â? he says, shaking his head.
The Massacci family came to New Orleans a generation ago when James Massacci, Sr. agreed to take on the job of managing and promoting famed New Orleans trumpeter Al Hirt. â??Little Jimmyâ? was always at his fatherâ??s side and the French Quarter soon became a familiar stomping ground; it was a natural progression when James Massacci went into the bar business for himself and in the early 70â??s James and his wife JoAnn opened the Jimani.â??Jimani? Gemini?â? I ask. â??How do you pronounce it exactly?â?
Jimmy laughs. â??Itâ??s a combination of my parentsâ?? names, my momâ??s idea â?? Jim And I, see?â?
He continues, â??Of course a lot of what you see up here [in the old lounge area] has changed a lot since it was the Upstairs. Weâ??ve had several different businesses making changes over time, but if you look around youâ??ll see the original brick walls and especially around the windows and at the top of the ceilings, you still see the charred bricks. And Iâ??ve left a lot of the bars in place,â? he adds, â??just to show what they had to deal with to try to get out that night.â?
Looking around, I comment on how horrific it must have been. â??Iâ??ll never forget it as long as I live,â? he says. â??I can tell you that.
â??Those stairs you came up from outside,â? Massacci says, â??well those are the same stairs and the outside door is the same. It was kept locked. Whoever did it had to be a regular and had to know the routine.
â??They threw something all over the stairs, probably lighter fluid, and then they tossed in a Molotov cocktail and the whole thing exploded. But the people in the Upstairs wouldnâ??t have known right away if they didnâ??t hear the buzzer.â? Massacci shakes his head. â??They opened that little panel and it [flames] just shot into the room like a big fireball.â?
Beyond the Front Door: The Stairway to The Upstairs Lounge photo
Copyright © 2010 by Alyne A. Pustanio
[That night, the dwindling group of friends in the Upstairs lounge gathered around the piano, as they had so often, and sang a few choruses of â??United We Stand,â? swaying together and repeating the verses, happy in each othersâ?? company and celebrating the remains of Pride Weekend. David Gary, a pianist who played regularly in the lounge of the new Marriott Hotel across the street, was on the keyboards; soon Bud Matyi would take his turn and round out the evening.
At approximately 7:56 p.m. the buzzer sounded on the downstairs door. This usually indicated that a cab had arrived, but curiously no one had called a cab. The single second-floor door into the Upstairs lounge was one of the old â??Speakeasyâ? kind with the little sliding panel set at eye level so that patrons could check out who was in the stairwell. Someone went to the door and slid the speakeasy panel back. Like a stream of napalm, flames shot through the little hole into the plush Upstairs interior. Velvet curtains, silk panels, damask table cloths, heavy stage curtains, carpets â?? within minutes everything was consumed in flames. The bar became an inferno.
Emergency exits were not marked and the windows that werenâ??t jammed with boards were covered with iron bars. The two fire escapes suspended on the sides of the buildings hovered a full story above the street; victims who made it to the fire escapes, some of them in flames, had to jump the full story to the street below, receiving worse injuries as they did so.
"What if the Hokey Pokey is what it's really all about?" Jimmy Buffett
Renowned Death Hag
A very few who were thin enough, and frightened enough, managed to squeeze through the iron bars at some of the windows. Unfortunately, however, when MCC Rev. William Larson attempted to escape the same way he became wedged in the bars and burned to death. Witnesses gathered on the street listened in helpless horror to his cries of, â??No! God, no! No!â?
[Larsenâ??s body would be left there throughout the next day as police and fire investigators plumbed the scene. The sight was shown endlessly on local television and even made the front page of the local New Orleans papers. Not a single person thought to provide the pastorâ??s corpse the decency of covering his remains.
When they arrived on the scene, James Massacci and his son Jimmy found the streets blocked off for several blocks. Police vehicles and fire trucks were lined up around the building and groups of people were standing around looking up and pointing. The acrid smell of smoke, and of something else that Jimmy couldnâ??t identify at the time, filled the night air.James Massacci took his son to a vacant lot across the street from the bar near the Marriott and admonished him to â??stay right hereâ? while he [James] went over to the smoldering remains of the building for a closer look.
Jimmy Massacci watched as his dad convened with police and firemen; they, like the crowds nearby, were looking and pointing. Jimmy remembers a kind of excitement in the air as local news crews arrived on the scene and started filming or interviewing onlookers. In the stark klieg lights of the TV cameras, the charred building and the strange objects at the windows looked even more surreal. But Jimmy was enthralled.
â??Well, it went on into the next day,â? he continues his account. â??The police and firemen had to investigate and then they had to remove the bodies.â?
Newspaper reports of the time described bodies â??stacked like pancakesâ? at the exit doors, and firemen â??wading through charred flesh â?¦ some of the bodies had been completely cooked.â?
â??Itâ??s a smell Iâ??LL never forget,â? Jimmy says, grimacing. â??Burned meat, or maybe old, rotten burned meat. Just horrible. And they didnâ??t seem like they were in any hurry to get the bodies out of here.
Of course my dad was anxious about the whole thing,â? he adds, â??because it was horrible but also he had lost his business. The bar [he motions downstairs to the Jimani] had so much water damage it was almost a complete loss. So he [James, Sr.] had lost his livelihood and his investment. He could have lost even more that night, but one of his employees had the presence of mind to go into the bar the next day and get the cash box and the money from the register and,â? he hesitates, â??this is horrible but it really happened â?¦ When the guy was coming out the front door of the bar, the body that was in that window [the pastorâ??s frozen burned corpse] broke apart and fell on him!â?
A stunted silence came over us as the rain crackled on the windows outside. Jimmy Massacci nods his head. â??That really happened.â?
"What if the Hokey Pokey is what it's really all about?" Jimmy Buffett
Renowned Death Hag
In addition to the horribly incinerated Rev. Larson, twenty-eight other individuals lost their lives that night, and three others later died of injuries received in the fire. The death toll was the worst of any fire in New Orleans history up to that time, including the great fire of 1788 that burned the old French Quarter to the ground. It was also the largest mass murder of homosexuals ever in the U.S. and what is more, it is a crime that has never been solved.
But the city of New Orleans did its level best to ignore the whole event. The fire exposed a surprisingly deep fissure of homophobia in a city that has historically prided itself on its egalitarianism and cosmopolitan tolerance. For the first time, New Orleans had to confront the reality of a thriving homosexual community in its midst. Evidently, this was a very hard lesson for it to learn.
News coverage, both print and television, made every effort to omit the fact that the fire had anything to do with homosexuals in the community, even though a gay bar and members of a gay church congregation had been involved. The stories that appeared included quotes from local citizens that can only be described as ignorant, such as a cab driver who said â??I hoped the fire burned their dresses off,â? and one woman who opined that â??the Lord â?¦ cooked them.â? Local talk radio hosts were making jokes such as, â??What do they bury the ashes of queers in?â? The answer: â??Fruit jars.â?
Statements from the local police and fire chiefs, though less caustic, were equally dismissive, with NOPD chief detective Henry Morris pointing out that identifying the victims would be especially problematic because â??thieves hung out there [with these people] â?¦ and you know it was a queer bar.â?The story disappeared from television and print news within a few days.
[SIZE=3]For the victims, there seemed no rest. Churches across the city, churches of all faiths, refused to allow services to be held for the dead, and even forbade memorial prayer meetings in their honor. The rector of St. Georgeâ??s Episcopal Church agreed to allow a small prayer service on the Monday evening following the event and was promptly rebuked by his bishop. Eventually, a local Unitarian church and St. Markâ??s United Methodist Church in the French Quarter offered sanctuary for those seeking to share their grief and mourn the deaths.
City officials made gargantuan efforts to completely ignore the tragedy; no statements of any kind were ever issued from the City administration. Even more callous and stunning, some families would not even step forward to claim the bodies of their dead sons, so rabid was their fear of being vilified for acknowledging that a child of theirs might have been gay. Several anonymous individuals stepped forward and paid for some burials, but the unclaimed, the unwanted, were dumped together in a mass grave in a Potterâ??s Field on the outskirts of New Orleans, buried alongside criminals, vagrants, and departed pets.
â??My father was a very tolerant man,â? Jimmy tells me as we leave his office for a tour of the building. â??He was a man who said, â??live and let live,â?? you know? It didnâ??t matter to him if they were gay or straight, he treated everyone the same way.â?Then Jimmy laughs as he remembers how his father used to get annoyed with the noise from the Upstairs dance floor. â??You know what it was like,â? he laughs, â??I mean it was the â??70â??s, you know, and everyone was wearing those stupid clogs with the wooden platform heels. Well, when theyâ??d get started up here dancing, and with the music going, the sound of those shoes just drove my dad nuts!â? He laughs, â??Thatâ??s the only time he had to come up here and tell them, â??Alright! Keep it down with those damn shoes!â??â?
Jimmy also shares a little known fact about his father. â??After the fire, he was the only one who put up a reward for the capture of whoever did it. He felt awful about it and put up his own money.â?
"What if the Hokey Pokey is what it's really all about?" Jimmy Buffett
Renowned Death Hag
Asked if they had any leads, or if his dad had any suspicions about who it might have been, Jimmy shrugs, “Well, they caught a guy a day or so after in a diner over on Royal Street. He had been bragging that he was the one who did it, but the police finally said he was just some nut taking credit for it, for ‘killing fags,’ so they let him go.”
But Jimmy also gives a knowing nod to my suggestion that rumors are still rampant in the New Orleans gay community. “Oh yeah,” he says, “somebody, somewhere knows who did it.”
We tour the empty portions of the second level – some parts have been converted into a kitchen serving food to Jimani customers below – and then Jimmy takes me to the little used third story, a section of the building barely changed from the time of the fire thirty-seven years ago.
Digital camera images reveal the presence of several possible positive orbs and definite cold spots are encountered here. These bare, forlorn apartments, where the gays of the Upstairs had carved out what little intimate time they could in the hit-and-miss sexscape of the early 1970’s, have a heavy atmosphere of sadness. The rain tapping on the roof adds to the gloom. I’m not unhappy as we wrap up the tour and return to Jimmy’s office.
When asked if he has ever had any strange experiences in the building, anything that he might categorize as supernatural, at first Jimmy shrugs. This doesn’t surprise me. At 50, Jimmy Massacci is fit and muscular; straightforward and level-headed, I can tell he is not the type of man that scares easily.
“Well, I hear things every now and then, when I’m here late or alone,” he admits, then his eyes light up. “I will tell you this, though: One afternoon I was here with a friend of mine; the bar wasn’t open and I had just stopped by, and as soon as we came up here I thought I heard something. I looked at my friend and he nodded that he heard it, too.
“My first thought is, ‘Well, it’s a homeless person or something,’ you know? Maybe a vagrant got in, but just in case, I had my gun with me. We both had flashlights and we went off into the empty part [points toward the little-used second story area] and I could definitely hear something by this time. You’re going to laugh,” he says with a grin, “but it was chains rattling.”
I do laugh. “That’s a classic!”
“Yeah, but it was definitely chains, because there’s an old elevator in here from years ago, one of those old crank kind with the big wheel and the chains,” Jimmy replies. “We don’t use it because it’s blocked top and bottom and can’t go anywhere, but the mechanism is all still there from the days when this was a cotton mill.
“So my friend and I go up to where the chains and the wheel are and we see that the old chains are moving – they’re swinging back and forth. I even asked my friend, ‘Is that chain moving,’ and he’s already backing up,” Jimmy laughs remembering his friend’s reaction. “And then all of a sudden, there’s this feeling of ice cold air and I’m standing in it. And let me tell you, it was hot like it is today, and those rooms up there get unbearable in the heat. That cold breeze came out of nowhere, and it was blowing the chains!”
Jimmy laughed and held up his hands. “I said, ‘That’s it! We’re out of here!’ I told it, ‘Everything’s OK! We’re leaving right now!’ and we hauled our asses downstairs and got the hell out! THAT scared the hell out of me!”
On the 30th anniversary of the Upstairs Lounge fire a plaque appeared on the sidewalk in front of the door outside Jimmy Massacci’s bar.
“I never knew anything about it!” he says. “I was out of town. I come back and there’s this plaque there all of a sudden. I mean, I’m glad it’s there, it should have been put there a long time ago, but no one even bothered to tell me about it, you know?”Jimmy naturally takes the history of the Upstairs fire very seriously and not the least because it had a very dramatic and real effect on his personal life.
“My dad never forgot those people who died,” Jimmy said. “He kept that reward out there for years, but of course nobody ever came forward. Another thing about my dad, that most people didn’t know [James, Sr. has passed on] is that he was always into that esoteric stuff – he believed in astrology and all that, and I think the deaths of those people in that fire stayed in his mind because he felt that their spirits just are not at rest.”
When asked what he thought might help the spirits to find peace Jimmy minces no words, “I think they need to be acknowledged and remembered! I mean, there’s a huge gay community in this city now and they have Southern Decadence every year, and I can tell you, there’s never a thought given to the Upstairs and the men who died there. I mean, those men died in part so that the gay community could come out and live and be what it is today. At the very least, somebody ought to acknowledge that.”
Last edited by Alanwench; 08-28-2010 at 11:35 PM. Reason: Cleaned up text
"What if the Hokey Pokey is what it's really all about?" Jimmy Buffett
Renowned Death Hag
That is horrific, and yeah, that would be a great place to do ghost investigating. That is another tragic story regarding a building that doesn't have any exits.
Last edited by okidoll; 08-29-2010 at 12:09 PM.
Renowned Death Hag
I had never heard of this before -- so fascinating and aggravating at the same time.
Great post thank you..I pas this buiding just about each day. Also the Rault center...but thid one really bothers me because these men should have been saved...and who could have done such a cruel and horrific thing ....Great post thank you!!
Renowned Death Hag
YW, Lisamarie. Did you ever get to take pics of Jimani or what used to be the UpStairs Lounge? One woman died in the blaze, she was with her two sons.
"What if the Hokey Pokey is what it's really all about?" Jimmy Buffett
Renowned Death Hag
This is part two of Ms Pustanio's story. She is currently working on Part three.
It was 2:00 a.m. in the humid early morning of Sunday, June 27th and the temperature outside still read a scathing 95° as members of Louisiana State Paranormal Research Society pulled up to the intersection of Iberville and Chartres Streets for their investigation of the old Upstairs Lounge.The offload of equipment began curbside as team founder Bernadine LeBlanc and I ducked into the noisy, smoke-filled dimness of the Jimani Bar in search of the man who held the key to one of the best-kept paranormal secrets in New Orleans: the old Upstairs Lounge.“I’m comin’ up with ya,” said Mr. Eugene, a thin, gray-haired man with a face deeply-lined by years of living the New Orleans bar life.
]We followed him out the bar and around the corner to the non-descript red door that stares blankly at the Iberville Street night-life, as it has done for 37 years since the night the Upstairs bar was consumed by flames. Mr. Eugene rattled the key in the lock and the door gave way, opening outwards, revealing a darkened staircase just inside. It was through this door, on the night of June 24th 1973 that an angry bar patron tossed gasoline and a Molotov cocktail, causing the explosion that consumed the Upstairs bar, and 32 lives.
We stood by as Mr. Eugene felt around deftly for the stairwell light; soon everything was awash in a stark fluorescent glow.
Mr. Eugene led the way up to the second floor, the former location of the Upstairs lounge, now converted into business offices and a kitchen serving the Jimani bar downstairs. Though the temperature read 95° outside, the second floor – closed for business for the night – was reading a heat index of 108°.]“Whoever said ghost hunting was glamorous?” Bernadine sighed.
“Evidently, someone not from New Orleans!” I replied.The curious and the drunk gathered on Iberville Street blinking into the luminous light of the open doorway as the LSPR team hauled piece after piece of equipment into the oppressive upstairs heat. Once all the equipment had been brought up and all the team members were inside, Mr. Eugene pulled the big red door shut and locked it securely. The sounds were slightly ominous.No, my research being genuine, the locations and the facts surrounding them had to be genuine, as well. That’s when I settled on The Upstairs Lounge.
Locked in for the remainder of the night, the team commenced its investigation of the old Upstairs Lounge.
[Background to the Investigation
My interest in the 1973 Upstairs Lounge fire was kindled in May of this year I happened to be discussing locations in New Orleans that were genuinely haunted – not the hyped-up “haunts” peddled by the New Orleans tour companies, which consist mainly of notorious locations with interesting pasts taken into fakelore overdrive, fiction sold as fact.It was at this time that I was introduced to a psychic medium, a former resident of New Orleans who, after living in Arizona for the past several years, had recently returned here. It so happened that when I mentioned my research into the Upstairs to him, the aging psychic grabbed my hand and said to me, “Honey, after all these years I can’t believe you’re bringing me back to the Upstairs!”Over the next several weeks we talked at length about the Upstairs tragedy: He had been there that night, watching from the doorway of Candyland, a bar just across Iberville Street from the Upstairs. Like others, he helped as he could, rushing to the assistance of anyone who made it out – only 15 people came out alive – or helping to keep the crowds back, and all the while sobbing as the cries of his friends dying in the Upstairs – those no one could help – came to him over the roar of the fire and the din of the emergency response.“I knew them,” he told me. “I knew all those people. They were my friends,” he said, his voice faltering as he began to tick off the list of names of those lost in the fire. “And Bud,” he said at last, “he was a good man.”“Bud actually made it out,” the old psychic told me, tears coming to his eyes, “and he had helped a couple of people make it out. But he went back in to help others escape. He never came back out. They found him dead under the piano with his arms wrapped around two other bodies. That’s the way Bud was …” he trailed off. And then, almost as an afterthought, he said, “But he’s still there.”
George “Bud” Matyi was a local entertainer who played at bars and restaurants around New Orleans. Although he was “out” to his close friends, most people never knew that Bud was gay because at that time in New Orleans (1973) the gay community was still laboring under prejudice and hatred. To be openly gay was like asking to be marked with a scarlet letter; in many, many instances it was literally asking for trouble as crimes against openly gay men and women were common and silently tolerated.
But Bud Matyi took it in stride. Playing piano at the Upstairs Lounge was just one of several gigs he had around the city, but one he liked the best because of the intimacy of being surrounded by friends in a comforting atmosphere. Matyi also often played piano for the meetings of the displaced Metropolitan Community Church (MCC), the first gay-friendly church of its kind in New Orleans. It so happened that on the night of the fire the MCC had just wrapped up a meeting and an all-you can-eat buffet special for church members and other patrons, and Bud had been one of the entertainers that night.
Last edited by Alanwench; 08-29-2010 at 05:41 PM.
"What if the Hokey Pokey is what it's really all about?" Jimmy Buffett
Renowned Death Hag
PART TWO: THE INVESTIGATIONBeyond the Front Door: The Stairway to The Upstairs Lounge photo
Discussions with another psychic who had also been there that fateful night, but who had done a walk-through of the building more than once in the intervening years, confirmed the assertion that the spirit of Bud Matyi still haunts the old Upstairs Lounge – along with several others.It was then that I determined that an in-depth investigation of the old Upstairs had to be done as soon as possible.
As related in part one of this article, I reached out to Jimmy Massaci, Jr, the owner of the Jimani bar and the de-facto manager of the entire location. His father, James Massaci, Sr,, had demonstrated a rare tolerance and acceptance in the early 70’s by allowing local gays to use the second story of his building for a bar and nightclub. Massaci agreed to allow me full access to the building’s upper levels primarily because he would like his father’s legacy to be acknowledged, but also because, as he frankly admitted, “This place is haunted!”
An intriguing walk-through with Massaci that produced photographic evidence and identifiable cold spots further piqued my interest and the Louisiana State Paranormal Research Society was mobilized for a June investigation, scheduled as close to the anniversary date of the fire as possible.
But while the team and I awaited the date, and I did further investigation, something one of the psychics had said to me seemed to resonate very clearly: “They just want to be remembered.”
Massaci had said it, too, but in a different way. “They’re forgotten over here,” he had said, “I mean, they [the gay community] have their bars and their lifestyle, and they have that big Decadence festival every year, but nobody ever remembers the ones who died here. I mean they died up here,” he said, pointing around his office, “because they couldn’t do any of that openly. And personally, I don’t think they’ll ever be at rest until the gay community does something to acknowledge that.”Outside the blank red door of the old Upstairs, fixed into the aging flagstone, is bronze plaque that recalls the tragedy and lists the names of the dead along with the people who sponsored its placement. I look at it and recall what Massaci had said about it.
“That plaque out there,” he said, “I come back from vacation one day and I see this plaque in the ground and I asked my guys [in the Jimani bar] ‘Where the heck did that come from?’ And they told me that some group had come by and just put it there while I was on vacation.” He held out his arms, “I mean, they don’t even bother to come inside and ask me, or involve me in any way, and it was my father who helped them so much – he was the only one who ever even put out a reward for the killer.”
[Massaci’s point is well taken, and he is absolutely right. Although there have been perfunctory memorials, such as a 2007 art show of photos and memorabilia from the Upstairs and other gay bars in that same area meant to focus more on the repression of the time than the tragedy itself, there is next to no official acknowledgement by the current gay community of the tragedy and sacrifice that occurred that summer night in 1973.
The bronze plaque obliquely refers to the fact that it was the Upstairs tragedy which brought the gay community in New Orleans out in pride and unity, to become what it is today; and yet, that community never, to my knowledge, gives credit to the dead – who in my mind are truly martyrs to the gay cause in New Orleans.
It was with this in mind that I approached this investigation. The story of tragedy and sacrifice affected me on such a personal level that I made a promise, not just to those who survived and remember, but to those who are dead and remember, that I would tell their story to the public and by doing it appeal to the gay community of New Orleans that they adopt and remember the martyrs of the Upstairs lounge.And I can say that, after spending the night in the remains of the Upstairs lounge, passing the dark watch through the “dead time” of 3 a.m. and beyond in the empty rooms and hallways of the old bar – and most especially judging by the evidence we found – the dead of the Upstairs truly are restless, truly are waiting to be acknowledged and embraced by the community they gave their lives to help create. Only then will they be able to pass on and be at peace.
Last edited by Alanwench; 08-29-2010 at 05:45 PM.
"What if the Hokey Pokey is what it's really all about?" Jimmy Buffett
Renowned Death Hag
Ooooh, I can't wait till Part 3!
Renowned Death Hag
At this link, pics of the victims before the fire...
http://www.davidmixner.com/new-orleans/
Renowned Death Hag
Thanks for the link, racingfan.
"What if the Hokey Pokey is what it's really all about?" Jimmy Buffett
Renowned Death Hag
Are there any pictures of the inside of the lounge?...before the fire...
Senior Death Hag
So, who's gonna find the picture of the body in the barred window?
(We are all thinkin' it.)
Renowned Death Hag
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
"I will be buried in a spring loaded casket filled with confetti, and a future archaeologist will have one awesome day at work."
That picture is way more then just sad....total disturbing. That poor Man!
damn what a way to die, ugh!
Renowned Death Hag
I agree, rjbrasher. Then, to top it off, part of the Reverend's corpse falls on a guy walking out of the Jimani.
"What if the Hokey Pokey is what it's really all about?" Jimmy Buffett
Thanks for the article and for keeping this thread alive, Alanwench. This one is tragic on so many levels.
Renowned Death Hag
I saw Ghost Hunters tonight and they investigated this bar. It was a gay bar, and Adam on the show, "outed" himself to try and reach any of the possible ghosts there. They didn't find much.
http://www3.gendisasters.com/louisia...ire,-june-1973
They weren't too politically correct in 1973 when it was written!
Death Hag of Legend
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.
Renowned Death Hag
Wow. Just wow. Never heard about this fire. Is that a man attempting to get out the window feet first? And the man behind him? My God. RIP.If you look closely at this pic, there is a person completely charred behind the man at the window.
Administrator
Freaky do you still have it, would like to see a picture.
Renowned Death Hag
Renowned Death Hag
We're just watching Wednesday's Ghost Hunters ep, and as soon as they started describing the case, I was like "Wow, I read this on FAD!" My husband just laughed, as he's heard me say that many times.
I have never heard of this fire! Horrible!
hey I saw the ghost hunters as well...Adam is adorable...I have been back a few times..and feel very comfotable there ..I want to see this exhibit they have of what it looked like when it was open....they have a statue that survived the fire and its on disolay I gave the matches to a friend who lost his lver there that night I thought it was suiting, He cried.,..he also told me he was going to go that night and meet him there and was late got there just as the blaze was started ..
Administrator
That was a nice thing to do Lisa, that is horrible what happened to those poor men
Renowned Death Hag
OMG! That just sent shivers down my spine. I don't remember this happening, but the entire thread left a pit in my stomach, the total disregard for humanity. Lisamarie, you are absolutely a compassionate person, your actions have touched my heart!
By my troth, I care not; a man can die but once; we owe God a death.... He that dies this year is quit for the next.
--William Shakespeare!
Senior Death Hag
Awful - truly awful. If the legends about who started the fire are true, what a cowardly little pussy he was.
This is in the headlines of our newspaper today. The father of one of my dearests friends died in this fire and it has been a haunting memory me for many years. Over 30 gay men died when trapped behind burglar bars and have been described by firemen as having roasted to death. (why burglar bars on the second floor?) and afterwards many churches here refused to hold services for the dead, which as a Christian I find to be just heart breaking.
*****
The deadliest fire in New Orleans history occurred on June 24, 1973. On that night, an unruly patron was thrown out of the UpStairs Lounge, which was located at the corner of Iberville and Chartres streets. About 30 minutes after being ejected from the bar, the patron returned and deliberately set the stairwell on fire. Thirty-two people died as a result of the arson.
The police and fire department responses were nonchalant and no arrest was made in the case, even though authorities knew who set the fire. Mayor Moon Landrieu, nor any other government official, had anything to say about the tragedy. Churches were either silent or subtly suggested the victims deserved what they got. Today, the fire remains largely forgotten.
Why? Because the UpStairs Lounge was a gay bar.
http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.s...re_gay.html#/0
MORE ARTICLES HERE:
http://topics.nola.com/tag/upstairs%...rt_maj-story-1
Last edited by Bayou Queen; 06-24-2013 at 05:42 AM.
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