Edors of the Gay Communy News, a natnal weekly... - UPI Archiv

Contents:

• A VIEW OF THE FIRE DAMAGE AT THE GAY COMMUNY NEWS
• THE UP STAIRS LOUNGE FIRE: HOW A ADLY ATTACK ON THE GAY MUNY FUELED LASTG CHANGE
• THE WORST CRIME AGAST THE GAY MUNY YOU'VE NEVER HEARD OF -- UNTIL NOW
• THE GAY BATHHOE FIRE OF 1977
• BEFORE IT BURNED DOWN, THIS BATHHOE SERVED AS A HAVEN FOR NEW YORK CY’S GAY COMMUNY
• VIEW OM STREET OF THE FIRE DAMAGE AT GAY COMMUNY NEWS OFFICE AT 22 BROMFIELD STREET BOSTON
• EDORS OF THE GAY COMMUNY NEWS, A NATNAL WEEKLY...

A VIEW OF THE FIRE DAMAGE AT THE GAY COMMUNY NEWS

The shootg six years after the 2016 massacre at Pulse, a gay nightclub Orlando, Florida, which left 49 people ad and dozens advot spoke out agast the shootg and support of the victims Sunday. ”Transportatn Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who as a ndidate the 2020 printial electn beme the first openly gay ndidate to n for the natn’s hight office, lled the news of the shootg “sickeng and heartbreakg” and part of a “pattern” a tweet Sunday. Jared Polis, who 2018 was the first openly gay man elected ernor and is currently quarantg wh Covid, lled the shootg "horrific, sickeng, and vastatg" a statement released Sunday morng.

THE UP STAIRS LOUNGE FIRE: HOW A ADLY ATTACK ON THE GAY MUNY FUELED LASTG CHANGE

This photo documents the fire damage done to 22 Bromfield St, the lotn of the Gay Communy News on July 7th, 1982. Arnold, Tim-Piyune archive) NEW ORLEANS - This weekend marks 50 years sce the adlit fire New Orleans history ripped through a French Quarter gay bar, killg 32 people.

But as thor Robert Fieler explas, fdg "the enemy" this tragedy is more nuanced than sounds – and the gay rights movement fueled ntu half a century later. The Up Stairs Lounge (Tim-Piyune archive) "I thought this was a standard te crime story, " said Fieler, thor of Trbox: The Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberatn. "I thought I was gog to figure out that there was someone who hated the Up Stairs Lounge patrons and was overtly homophobic who'd mted a hate crime, " he said.

But Nunez himself was not an outwardly homphobic vigilante: he was an "ternally nflicted" gay sex worker, Fieler said, "who was tensely nflicted due to relig and cultural reasons about his own same-sex sir. At the time, the "gay el" of New Orleans, who were surprisgly tertwed wh cy officials, tried to keep the arson out of the spotlight to avoid "further outg the gay unrworld of the French Quarter. " "They feared if the social pact between semi closeted queers and the rt of society end, that there would be much more police vlence and thgs would be even worse for lol gays, " Fieler said.

THE WORST CRIME AGAST THE GAY MUNY YOU'VE NEVER HEARD OF -- UNTIL NOW

" Hours after the Up Stairs Lounge fire happened, natnal gay lears om ast to ast cid to fly to New Orleans "to help triage and mister to a grievg muny. The gay muny spent the ‘80s fightg for legislatn to protect themselv om police vlence and other atroci they faced. In 1973, an arsonist set fire to a popular gay bar New Orleans’ French Quarter lled the UpStairs Lounge, killg 32 people and jurg many more.

The fire effectively outed what was prevly a eply closeted Deep South gay muny and exposed, the cy’s rponse to the tragedy, pervasive prejudic the famoly live-and-let-live Big was the largt mass murr of LGBTQ cizens Uned Stat history until the Pulse nightclub massacre 2016, but we had never heard of . Fieler’s recently published book Trbox: The Untold Story of the UpStairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberatn as our gui, we ntacted survivors, fay members, first rponrs, activists and journalists and disvered stori of unimagable The ABC News origal documentary 'Prejudice & Pri: Fire at the UpStairs Lounge, ' now streamg on and the ABC News app. Bill Larson, the pastor of the lol chapter of the gay-iendly church that met the bar, whose attempt to pe the blaze end wh his charred rpse hangg om a send-floor wdow for all passersby to see.

THE GAY BATHHOE FIRE OF 1977

A lol photojournalist ptured the gome image, which served as a remr to the lol gay muny of society’s measure of their worth. Tragilly hangg out of the wdow, " said Frank Perez, a lol historian, “served as a metaphor to remd the gay muny, ‘Hey, you better not make wav. Courty Johnny TownsendBut we also disvered stori of another kd, stori of rilience the face of tragedy, the qualy that has e to fe post-Katra New Orleans and s was Stewart Butler, who, acrdg to The UpStairs Lounge Arson by Clayton Delery-Edwards, was spired by the fire to enter a life of activism, anizg lol efforts wh the then-nascent gay liberatn movement.

Sunday marks the 45th anniversary of the UpStairs Lounge arson, a flash fire that killed 32 people the New Orleans gay bar on June 24, 1973. Some of those who were intified went unclaimed by fai who were too ashamed to llect the remas of their gay sons and brothers.

BEFORE IT BURNED DOWN, THIS BATHHOE SERVED AS A HAVEN FOR NEW YORK CY’S GAY COMMUNY

Bettmann via Getty ImagWhat happened the aftermath of the fire mak clear the pervadg homophobia at the time. ” Click below to see more pictur of the UpStairs Lounge before the earlier versn of this article was published June You GoGay Pri Around The World.

M., ne men — trapped si a buildg wh blocked-up wdows and no fire p — would not make out years after Stonewall, the tragedy at the Everard Baths — never vtigated as anythg but an accintal mattrs fire — marked the begng of the end of a brief, exuberant heyday of New York Cy gay life that was able to thrive part bee of cheap real tate and a cy ernment that was willg to look the other way when me to, say, S&M clubs like the Mhaft the Meatpackg District (drs clud no logne). But even as the '70s New York were a relatively open, excg time to be a gay man New York — pri paras, gay bars and clubs proliferatg, a mastream weekly gay newspaper, a gay rights prott at the 1976 Democratic Natnal Conventn New York — beg openly gay, whether on the street or the workplace, still me wh dangers. The bathhoe had long been an anonymo space where gay men uld be themselv whout shame — but the fire at the Everard rerced the ia for many queer men that the few spac they thought were tly their own weren't always safe.

Everard Baths was not jt any gay bathhoe; the wrer Michael Rumaker, his acunt of gog to the baths (A Day and a Night at the Baths) for the first time the wter of 1977, lled Everard "the most venerable, loathed, and affectnately teemed baths all of New York Cy. " Everard (or "Ever-hard, " as was nicknamed) had opened as a Turkish bath 1888, but by the 1920s had bee a known, and culturally signifint, gatherg place for gay men. Author Gore Vidal met his longtime partner, Howard Aten, at Everard 1950; over the years Everard was reportedly vised by the wrer Tman Capote, theater director Aled Lunt, the ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev, and gay rights activist and wrer Larry his memoir Cy Boy: My Life New York Durg the 1960s and 1970s, Edmund Whe remembers the Everard as "filthy...

VIEW OM STREET OF THE FIRE DAMAGE AT GAY COMMUNY NEWS OFFICE AT 22 BROMFIELD STREET BOSTON

If anythg, he looked aaid of gettg beaten up, or murred — not unmon fears the backs of the mds of most gay mal. "Ined, was an important and, s when much of gay life was lived secret, necsary space for gay men to associate wh each other — and, particularly for closeted men, a safe place to meet and have sex wh other men. Bathho are private and exclive; whereas anyone generally has accs to other gay male spac, like bars and clubs, bathho were, and ntue to be, exclively for gay men — and th play a unique and signifint role gay life.

They generally existed on the g of lawfulns; the Everard, along wh other gay bathho New York Cy, were perdilly raid by police, wh a few people beg rted off to jail for lewd behavr now and then, but generally left alone — the ultimate "don't ask, don't tell.

And th the fire shone a not-totally-wele light not jt on New York gay life, but also on the cy's negligence makg sure the buildg was up to . The tragedy galvanized the gay muny New York an unprecented and public way, and was nsired a ser tragedy a cy mired fisl crisis.

EDORS OF THE GAY COMMUNY NEWS, A NATNAL WEEKLY...

And the gay muny was quick to claim the tragedy: The pastor of the New York branch of the Metropolan Communy Church — the gay church found Los Angel 1968 that had held servic at the UpStairs Lounge jt prr to the fire — tablished a fund to help those jured the fire, as well as pay for the burials of the men who were aftermath was also vered the media.

"Homosexuals Mobilize to Aid Fire Victims" was the headle a New York Tim article on May 26 that explaed that gay men "led up to donate blood" — which today, post-AIDS, they are still banned om dog, meang gay men uldn’t donate to their iends and loved on hospalized after Orlando — and "helped intify bodi and promised to raise money on behalf of the jured, " and that "telephone appeals for help volved a work of 15 homosexual relig anizatns as well as activist homosexual polil groups. " In this way, the Everard fire serv as a kd of pre-AIDS era timtamp: Gay men uld still donate blood, bee AIDS hadn't happened yet; gay polil groups were actively advotg for gay rights a way that was startg to be supported by the mastream media. They had been a uple for six years— teachers their mid-30s, jt returned om jobs the Middle East" — and prience, wrg the same article that the Everard Baths were "a kd of 'Marlboro Country' among homosexuals' gatherg plac...

" Bce Voeller, a -executive director of the Natnal Gay Task Force who would go on to be a leadg AIDS rearcher and activist (and die of AIDS 1994), told the Tim that "you uld often meet an off-duty p or fireman at the Everard. Like the UpStairs Lounge fire of 1973, which 30 gay men were killed a spected arson, there was no attempt or sire on the part of policians or the media to claim as anythg but a gay tragedy. Today, the sh to claim the Orlando tragedy as "human, " as opposed to a specific attack on queer Latx people, the real danger that people of lor and queer people still face this untry n get lost — the first versn of the Tim' story about the Orlando shootg didn't mentn that Pulse was a gay club; the #AllLivMatter movement elis the fact that vlence by police agast black people is an tractable problem.