So, today I received an unsolicited email from a photographer by the name of Frank Relle who has taken a number of truly incredible images from New Orleans, both pre and post-Katrina. One in particular, "Felicity," comes from one of my favorite neighborhoods in the city, the Lower Garden District. Cassie and I had lived in that neighborhood until fairly recently, but many of my favorite memories of the city are from that neighborhood, long before we had lived there. I was thinking about some of the places I used to haunt when I was much younger and far more irresponsible: RC Bridge Lounge (long before its recent "rehabilitation," it was the bane of the gentrifiers as a music club), the Half Moon (which seems to have undergone a reverse rehabilitation over the years) and Pie In The Sky (the Sky Pie was the greatest pizza ever, before the restaurant's many misfortunes).I miss visiting Gus the blind senior citizen who would have me and Steve over to drink room temperature Milwaukee's Best (his preference) in his sparse home with gunshots punctuating the night, a little too close for comfort.
That was the early 90's - a particularly low point in the city's history, but a time that I fell deeply and madly in love with New Orleans.
If you get a chance, check out Frank's work. It's beautiful and spooky, just like New Orleans.
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