Browse Items (123 total)

Memorial service program in Los Angeles and in New York plus a report on the service in San Francisco along with information about auctions there being organized to raise funds and a blood drive.

The March 1972 issue of MCC's In Unity announces that the New Orleans mission has now been chartered as a congregation.

This edition of the The State-Times (Advocate) from Baton Rouge mixes even more homophobic subtext into its reporting.

Mrs. Willie Inez Warren, 59, housekeeper from Monroeville, Alabama, died along with her sons James Curtis Warren, 26, and Eddie Hosea Warren, 24, both from Pensacola, Florida.

Report of news conference by the Rev. Troy Perry of national MCC and Morris Kight from the LA Gay Community Services Center, who come to New Orleans to provide support for victims, families and friends.

The story in the Bay Area Reporter about the initiation of this national memorial fund lays out, in some detail, the financial needs of persons in New Orleans, as well as the mechanics of who will oversee the fund and how it will operate.

Photo 1: Tad Turner as the heroine Pauline and Adam Fontenot as the hero Harold Trueblood in production of “The Rise and Fall of Sir Jaspar Hardmaster.”
Photo 2: Rick Everett as Connie Francis in "Where the Boys Are."

A new permanent pastor at MCC, Ron Pannell, arrives two years after the fire to bring renewed energy to the community.

New Orleans’ daily morning newspaper, The Times-Picayune, publishes several articles the next day reporting the appalling suffering of the fire victims as well as the survivors.

The next-afternoon coverage in The State-Times, published in Baton Rouge, includes undercurrents of aversion to homosexuality.

The wire service story about the Upstairs Lounge fire is picked up by The Oregonian, largest newspaper in the Pacific Northwest.

This popular song (recorded by the Brotherhood of Man) is the anthem sung regularly by Upstairs Lounge patrons gathered around the piano.

A rescue worker leans heavy against a charred window at the Upstairs bar in New Orleans where 29 persons died and another 15 were injured during a fire Sunday night. The rescue worker was helping remove the bodies when apparently he couldn’t face it…

The Morning Advocate, on the second morning after, reports presence of national gay leaders Kight and Perry and focuses on MCC interim pastor killed in fire.

Five days after the fire, the New Orleans newspaper publishes a short article listing names of persons killed along with statements from Rev. Troy Perry responding to the tragedy.

Henry Kubicki, an early member of MCC New Orleans, has recorded his recollections and impressions of this affair, along with an account of the subsequent history of the MCC congregation.

Picture of Philip Esteve, owner and manager of the Upstairs Lounge bar.

Reginald Eugene Adams, Jr., MCC member, former Jesuit scholastic, partner of Ricky Soleto.

The official NFPA report, published in January 1974, provides a detailed account of the fire, how it started and spread.

The Morning Advocate’s Eric Newhouse writes sympathetic account of the July 1st memorial service.