Fire in the French Quarter: The Up Stairs Lounge - Part 3

Episode 128

In Part 3 of Fire in the French Quarter: The Upstairs Lounge, we turn our attention to the investigation—and to the stark differences between the work of the New Orleans Police Department and the Louisiana Fire Marshal’s Office.

We dig into the physical evidence recovered after the fire, including the Ronsonol lighter-fluid can, laboratory testing of the stairwell carpet, and a surprisingly fascinating series of flammability tests. Then we follow investigators as their attention turns toward Roger Nunez, a man thrown out of the Upstairs Lounge shortly before the fire who, according to a badly injured survivor, left after making an ominous threat.

As the Fire Marshal’s Office continues chasing witnesses and leads, investigators uncover a broken jaw, conflicting timelines, contradictory witness statements, and evidence that raises serious questions—but provides few definitive answers.

The police file contains many of those same questions. What it seemingly does not contain is much evidence that anyone kept trying to answer them.

More than fifty years later, we compare the investigations side by side and ask: Was the investigation into the deaths of 32 people simply difficult—or did investigators stop pulling at the threads before they should have?

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Inner Sanctum Acknowledgments:
Eternal gratitude to our Inner Sanctum patrons, Melanie Curtis, Beth Charis-Molling, Laura Pisciotta, and Jason Wolfe for helping us bring light to the stories others would rather leave in the ashes.

Listener discretion is advised.

Background music by Not Notoriously Coordinated 

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SOURCES:

Delery-Edwards, Clayton. The Up Stairs Lounge Arson: Thirty-Two Deaths in a New Orleans Gay Bar, June 24, 1973. McFarland & Company, 2014.

Fieseler, Robert W. Tinderbox: The Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberation. Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2018.

Camina, Robert L., writer, director, and producer. Upstairs Inferno. Camina Entertainment / Upstairs Inferno, LLC, 2015. Documentary film. Narrated by Christopher Rice.

The National WWII Museum. “Tinderbox: The Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberation.” Conversation with Robert W. Fieseler and Ed Lengel, PhD. September 9, 2020. YouTube video. https://youtu.be/6A13PovoDAQ?si=7GnzAeQBCgEfE1it