Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Storyville, pt.1


According to Jazz historian and New Orleans polymath Al Rose, this picture was taken by a Times- Picayune photographer from a balloon around 1914, which would make it a technological marvel, since it's shot on a glass plate. The date on the glass plate is 1922, although Rose claims that the smokestack at the bottom came down prior to that date.

It doesn't matter- there's Storyville. St. Louis Cemetary no. 1 is at the bottom right and St. Louis Cemetary no. 2, is at the top. Except for a storefront that I've never found, those cemetaries are all that's physically left of the grandest legal social experiment in the history of the United States of America.

The actual buildings came down in the 1940's, were replaced by a housing project for the poor, neglected now more than ever since Katrina.

This image is from the Louisiana Digital Library and is crdited to Charles L. Franck.

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