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When he opened the door, a fireball burst through as if shot from a flamethrower.Īn updraft sucked the fire in, and within seconds the walls were aflame. The bartender sent a regular to check it out. It kept ringing, even though no one had ordered a taxi. The bust prices ended at 7, but at least 65 people were still hanging around nearly an hour later when the door buzzer went off.
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Duane George Mitchell, an associate pastor at the MCC known for his Queen Victoria impersonation, and his partner Louis Horace Broussard stopped by after dropping Mitchell's sons off at a movie. Warren's brother James and mother Inez came with him. Dufrene was there, as usual, this time on a first date with Eddie Hosea Warren, a "husky country boy" he met at a hamburger joint near the Upstairs. A pianist from the nearby Marriott played Broadway and ragtime tunes as patrons sang along. The beer bust on June 24, 1973, was typically festive. At other times the space was used for the elaborately costumed drag cabaret performances that regulars called "nelly dramas." "It was my safe haven," says Dufrene. The Metropolitan Community Church (MCC), a national Christian denomination founded to serve gays and lesbians, often held services in the bar's back-room theater. But up 13 steps on the second floor was a refuge: three adjoining rooms, decorated with red wallpaper and frilly curtains, where people could laugh, love, even worship without fear. tall and lean with a pile of blond hair, the 21-year-old would take two buses from his home in the New Orleans suburbs to make it to the Upstairs Lounge by 5 p.m., when the French Quarter bar held its weekly beer bust-two hours of all-you-can-drink drafts for $1.įrom the outside, the Upstairs didn't look much different from the other gay bars on a particularly seedy stretch of Iberville Street.