Is Andrew Boyd Doing Us a Service?

Eleven news photographs of the 1973 fire in the Upstairs Lounge, were posted on June 21, 2013 at NOLA.com by Andrew Boyd. Taken together as a group the images display an interesting pattern, which, although it might be an overstatement to label diabolical, no other term comes to mind that can account for the whiff of corrupt organization the collection gives off. Boyd would have to be a dolt to have assembled the grouping unwittingly, and I imagine he is no such thing.

Eight of the eleven images are attributed to Times-Picayune staff photographer G. E. Arnold, while the remaining three go one each to individual photographers. There are at least two discrepancies in Andrew Boyd's attributions however.

One image of an apparently weeping Linn Quinton, shows him dressed in a form-fitting, open-net, wife-beater tee, with dark slacks accessorized by a wide belt, all of which look absolutely flawless. Even his hair and his cigarette-pack-as-accent look too, too perfect, as two firemen take his toned figure in hand, and "help him along." Quinton, a Houston resident, was one of the few survivors quoted by name in the next morning's newspaper, where he became the source for the meme: "small people seemed to get through the window, but the bigger people just couldn't get out." 

It is a standard rule that anyone who appears in the media as a source in connection to a synthetically staged event, especially as the ball gets rolling, is a ringer, and Quinton, who was featured in another photograph above the fold on page one of the Times-Picayune twelve hours after the fire is a true clarion

A detail adding to the talismanic impact of the image, are two bad boys who stand in the background, "on the wrong side of the fence." Too dramatic to be just bystanders, they each relate to the presence of the cameraman by staring into the middle distance in different directions. Andrew Boyd attributes this image to States-Item photographer A.J. Adams, while Time Magazine's photo gallery on the Upstairs Lounge fire, coincidentally posted the same day as Boyd's NOLA posting, claims the image was taken by Ronnie LeBouef of the Associated Press, which is at least technically inaccurate since LeBouef was a staff photographer at the Times-Picayune, and the credit should state as much.

A larger version found elsewhere:

June 21, 2013, NOLA blog, posted by Andrew Boyd, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune,
LINN QUINTON weeps as he is helped by firemen after he escaped the blaze at the UpStairs Lounge.
Quinton said he was with a group singing around a piano when the blaze swept through the bar. (States-Item photo by A.J. Adams)

The second discrepancy is a picture of the exterior of the burned-out structure taken under glowering skies within hours of the fire, an image which Boyd attributes to G.E. Arnold. But he should have known better, since this image was published in the morning edition of the Times-Picayune, above the fold on page one, where it is attributed to staff photographer Ronald LeBouef, who also took the picture of Quinton just a column away. The caption the Times-Picayune gave the picture: "Death Scene is Viewed by Weary trio," would seem to make no sense, unless the unusual capitalization was meant as a mask for that Other Trio: a.k.a. the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

June 21, 2013, NOLA blog, posted by Andrew Boyd, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune,
The UpStairs Lounge fire scene June 24, 1973. (Times-Picayune photo by G.E. Arnold)

Which leads us directly to our next image---such an egregious example of man's manipulation of man that it rises, or sinks, depending on your point of view, to a new cosmic order.


June 21, 2013, NOLA blog, posted by Andrew Boyd, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune,
Rescue workers cover a charred body as priests conduct last rites for victims outside the UpStairs bar. The flash fire, which lasted only 16 minutes, claimed 32 lives. (AP photo by Jack Thornell)

The caption is self-explanatory, although the attribution is to a photographer's name I haven't encountered before. The scene takes place directly underneath what was the non-functioning fire exit on the second floor, said to have been "inaccessible" because it lacked an exterior drop-down ladder for the single flight to the ground, although that didn't seem to matter to people who were attempting to escape out windows. The two adjacent windows along Iberville had been bricked over as part of an elaborate backbar designed in the style of Neo-Kiln dwellers long before the club was installed for its three-year tour of C.I.A. duty. The remaining window at the corner of the building, as well as the three along Chartres were said to have had steel rods installed in them to thwart intrusions by burglars. although what consideration was made for the reverse possibility isn't known.

The unsettling impact the image of Rev. Troy Perry's corpse has on one's psyche is partly due to the intense illogic it conveys. What is he doing down there when he had all of the rest of the window opening in which to effect an escape? He looks like a Limbo dancer trying to go under the pole. If he's attempting to squeeze through the bars of a burglar barrier, where is the rest of it? Did the firemen have to destroy every bit of metal grid in order to gain entrance to fight the fire? And where did whatever else was inside the window frames go? Short of an image of the exterior of the building during the three-year period of the lounge's tenancy or from before surfacing, which is a long shot, we'll have to guess.

The best guess is that either the original window-glass and mullions was left intact and simply allowed to get very dirty over time, or that the windows were removed and the frames infilled with stuccoing to match the stone of the walls, in the manner of Palladian architecture, when a window isn't wanted as an interior consideration, but an exterior symmetry still demanded the rows of evenly spaced windows, a blind frame of just the window moulding would be inserted. In the first event, the windows would look lifeless, and in the second, they would look historically accurate by being blind. The statements by the firemen who were first to arrive on the scene that they encountered flames pouring out the front windows "like blow torches" was pure buggery. 

They risked inciting thoughts of incendiarism in a tradeoff for providing an excuse for the decision to remove nearly every piece of material from within the window enclosures, which they could claim had been eaten away by flames, while leaving Rev. Perry's corpse where it was, which stood to accuse them only of an insensitivity to the feelings of gay people. My first thought was that Perry's corpse was being left on display in the same way a severed head of an executed criminal would have once been placed on a pike near a village crossroad---to serve as a deterrent, or warning on the wages of sin---but the real message they intended was, "see, we have nothing to hide."  

It didn't look good, but the sight onlookers first witnessed, of Terry scratching his way out of an 18-inch-high air-conditioner opening with the windows still intact above him, would look a damn spot worse.

Miraculously, after the fire, the fire exit door was restored to a basic functionality, probably by using a tool called a key. Anything flammable that had further blockaded the four barred windows was burned away. Even the steel bars that had prevented an exit for some were removed from the windows by firemen in advance of any picture-taking sessions offered to the independent press---all, that is, except for a single steel bar that held a lifeless body in its vise. There is only one immutable fact that can be garnered from any photographs taken after the fire, and that is the presence of that solitary steel bar.

The status of the fire exit at the time of the fire, shown in the image below, is one of the great kept secrets of the Upstairs Lounge, a commercial venue a third larger than the two drinking bars that stood underneath it. Five people met their deaths directly behind this illegally closed point of emergency egress, which is a fact at least as interesting as how a fire with little more than tablecloths and draperies to fed it could trap 24 others in a corner to die. 

Likewise, with all the doors and windows sealed up, what was the source of oxygen that caused a backdraft to develop that would suck in flames started by a mere can of lighter fluid, and cause a fire to behave like the pyroclastic and explosive chemicals used in bomb making? When firemen arrived, flames were already shooting out the front windows "like blowtorches," some reported.

It was out this exit that so-called fire personnel or "coroner's assistants" brought the fused remains of victims, the transfer effected by what they call in Louisiana a snorkle, but in New York is known as a cherrypicker.

But what plan of action was in effect that caused an image of three black men to be captured as they exited the building with the bagged remains of a human being, while in another "news" image made down on ground level, could includ a view of the charred black lower legs of a victim at the moment personnel were in the act of "draping" the corpse? Thank goodness the photographer didn't snap the shot one millisecond sooner!

The iconographic presence of the Catholic priests doesn't really bother me, since they tend to come when they are called without thinking, despite the consideration the church gave when the shoe was on the other foot, during the aftermath, when sanctified buildings and ministries were denied to service the dead.

I really resent however, the two youthful slugs who are wearing hardhats, who might appear to be coroner's assistants carrying the undignified body about in public---charred though it may be, it is still nude, and the rule is, never before noon. In another image the two young whippersnappers are anonymously posed as plainclothes detectives, carrying cameras and clipboards, alone in the destroyed bar after hours, under the glare of a work light and the watchful gaze of a tabletop-size statue of Hercules, which somehow survived. But I know the two for who they really are: acolytes who train in the ways of the secret systems, remaining ever submissive to authority, as they look consistently comely doing it. The heavier-set one needs a haircut, while the one with the sideburns needs a good, hard spanking with a barber strap.

June 21, 2013, NOLA blog, posted by Andrew Boyd, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune,
The main barroom of the UpStairs Lounge following the flash fire that killed 32 people. (Times-Picayune photo by G.E. Arnold)

Below is a cropped version of the image above, which deletes sight of the bricked-over window, and its partial defacement after the fire by those who responded to it. A second window behind the bar was also sealed up in this fashion, and partially destroyed after the "flash" fire swept through the space. Only the window closest to the corner in the front was left resembling a traditional window.. The architecturally balancing fourth window at the rear was converted into the fire exit when the upper floors were converted to commercial use. A proper exterior fire door would have been installed then, which would not have needed to be repurposed, except for the one time when its utility was required to fail.

Did the New Orleans' Fire Department do periodic fire inspections of commercial enterprises and public-gathering places or not?

At the 20th anniversary mark in 1993, unlike the saturation point made last year when the 40th-anniversary milestone was reached, a single article in The Times-Picayune sufficed to satisfy historical propriety and public curiosity in the fire. The article by staff writer Susan Finch was thoroughly prepared and prominently featured starting on page 1, but a forest of fictions had yet to be felled then. Finch could write, for instance, that

For days afterward, New Orleanians were shocked by the fire. Fire inspectors briefly swarmed through other French Quarter bars, looking for safety violations, although none had played a role in The Upstairs tragedy.

June 24, 1993, The Times-Picayune, page 1, Fire of '73: Tragedy united gays, by Susan Finch, Staff Writer,

June 24, 2013, NOLA.com What Happened at the Upstairs Lounge in 1973: Graphic, by Dan Swenson,


_______________________________________________________________________________



June 21, 2013, NOLA blog, posted by Andrew Boyd, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune,
A burn victim from the UpStairs Lounge fire is carried away on a stretcher June 24, 1973. (Times-Picayune photo by H. J. Patterson)



June 21, 2013, NOLA blog, posted by Andrew Boyd, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune,
Burn victims at the UpStairs Lounge fire await transport to the hospital June 24, 1973. (Times-Picayune photo by G.E. Arnold)



June 21, 2013, NOLA blog, posted by Andrew Boyd, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune,
This was the scene on Iberville Street as firemen battled a blaze that swept through three bars and three apartments in a single building Sunday night June 24, 1973, killing 32 people. (Times-Picayune photo by G.E. Arnold)



June 21, 2013, NOLA blog, posted by Andrew Boyd, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune,
This was the scene on Chartres Street as firemen battled a blaze that swept through three bars and three apartments in a single building Sunday night killing 32 people.June 24, 1973, (Times-Picayune photo by G.E. Arnold)



June 21, 2013, NOLA blog, posted by Andrew Boyd, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune,
Scene of the fire in the French Quarter at the UpStairs Lounge where 32 people died June 24, 1973. (Times-Picayune photo by G. E. Arnold)



June 21, 2013, NOLA blog, posted by Andrew Boyd, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune,
A crowd of people fill the street outside the UpStairs Lounge after a fire killed 32 people June 24, 1973. (Times-Picayune photo by G.E. Arnold)
________________________________________________________________________________

Other images by by G.E. Arnold


One of the victims of the UpStairs Lounge fire June 24, 1973. 32 people perished in the blaze. (Times-Picayune photo by G.E. Arnold)

_________________________________________________________________________________

June 21, 2013, NOLA blog, posted by Andrew Boyd, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune,
Rescue workers cover a charred body as priests conduct last rites for victims outside the UpStairs bar. The flash fire, which lasted only 16 minutes, claimed 32 lives. (AP photo by Jack Thornell)

June 21, 2013, NOLA blog, posted by Andrew Boyd, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune,
A burn victim from the UpStairs Lounge fire is carried away on a stretcher June 24, 1973. (Times-Picayune photo by H. J. Patterson)

June 21, 2013, NOLA blog, posted by Andrew Boyd, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune,
LINN QUINTON weeps as he is helped by firemen after he escaped the blaze at the UpStairs Lounge.
Quinton said he was with a group singing around a piano when the blaze swept through the bar. (States-Item photo by A.J. Adams)

June 21, 2013, NOLA blog, posted by Andrew Boyd, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune,
This was the scene on Iberville Street as firemen battled a blaze that swept through three bars and three apartments in a single building Sunday night June 24, 1973, killing 32 people. (Times-Picayune photo by G.E. Arnold)

June 21, 2013, NOLA blog, posted by Andrew Boyd, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune,
The UpStairs Lounge fire scene June 24, 1973. (Times-Picayune photo by G.E. Arnold)

June 21, 2013, NOLA blog, posted by Andrew Boyd, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune,
This was the scene on Chartres Street as firemen battled a blaze that swept through three bars and three apartments in a single building Sunday night killing 32 people.June 24, 1973, (Times-Picayune photo by G.E. Arnold)

June 21, 2013, NOLA blog, posted by Andrew Boyd, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune,
Scene of the fire in the French Quarter at the UpStairs Lounge where 32 people died June 24, 1973. (Times-Picayune photo by G. E. Arnold)

June 21, 2013, NOLA blog, posted by Andrew Boyd, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune,
Scene of the fire in the French Quarter at the UpStairs Lounge where 32 people died June 24, 1973. (Times-Picayune photo by G. E. Arnold)

June 21, 2013, NOLA blog, posted by Andrew Boyd, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune,
Burn victims at the UpStairs Lounge fire await transport to the hospital June 24, 1973. (Times-Picayune photo by G.E. Arnold)

June 21, 2013, NOLA blog, posted by Andrew Boyd, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune,A crowd of people fill the street outside the UpStairs Lounge after a fire killed 32 people June 24, 1973. (Times-Picayune photo by G.E. Arnold)

June 21, 2013, NOLA blog, posted by Andrew Boyd, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune,
The main barroom of the UpStairs Lounge following the flash fire that killed 32 people. (Times-Picayune photo by G.E. Arnold)
_________________________________________________________________________________