A 1973 gay bar fire killed 32 and went unsolved

Upstairs Inferno was made in 2015 by director Robert L. Camina, and it is a documentary about a 1973 fire in a New Orleans gay bar that killed 32 people and was never solved. Until the 2016 Pulse shooting, PBS reports, it was the deadliest known attack on a gay club in the United States.

On June 24, 1973, a fire tore through the UpStairs Lounge, a second-floor bar on Iberville Street in the French Quarter. At least 15 more people were injured. The film draws on interviews with survivors, friends of victims and witnesses, some of whom, according to the festival that screened it, had never spoken out before. Author Christopher Rice narrates.

What happened that night?

The fire started about 7:56 p.m. and was out by 8:12 p.m. Bartender Buddy Rasmussen, an Air Force veteran, led patrons out through an unmarked rear exit.

Shortly before the fire, a man named Roger Dale Nunez had been thrown out of the bar. He threatened to "burn" the place. Police never questioned him, and he died by suicide in November 1974.

Why was no one prosecuted?

New Orleans police closed their investigation on August 30, 1973, and called the fire's origin undetermined. The state fire marshal closed a separate investigation in 1980, also without answers. The festival description of the film notes that a discarded can of lighter fluid was found at the scene.

PBS reports that the city offered no official comment for more than two weeks. On June 23, 2022, the City Council issued a formal apology.

Who are the four victims in unmarked graves?

The coroner buried four of the victims anonymously in a potter's field with no grave markers. Three were never identified. The fourth was Ferris LeBlanc, a World War II veteran.

An anonymous caller identified LeBlanc, and local authorities never checked his military records. He was buried on July 31, 1973, without a flag ceremony. His family did not learn how he died until January 2015.

A city search for the graves in 2018 was dropped over lost or incomplete records. In 2022 the council voted to renew it.

What did the film earn?

Upstairs Inferno won Best Men's Documentary Feature at the North Carolina Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, where it was the closing film on August 22, 2015.

A bronze plaque was placed in the sidewalk outside the former bar in 2003 and was stolen on April 30, 2024.

The film is for viewers who want a longer record of the fire, told by the people who lived through it.

Documentary