A Photographic Journey


Sunday, February 27, 2011

Blaine Kern's Mardi Gras World, 2005

Mardi Gras World, a series of warehouses devoted to floats and statues geared toward Mardi Gras parades, sits somewhat inconspicuously across the Mississippi from New Orleans in the area known as Algiers.

I visited there in the spring of 2005, on my way home by car from an assignment in Mississippi. On that one spring morning, New Orleans and Algiers were their usual (at that time) normal, bucolic and unreal selves.

Later that same trip, I sat in a dining room with a group of bankers and lawyers as rain fell sideways outside the windows. "Wow- this is intense- will it flood?" I asked.

No, they all reassured me, New Orleans has the best series of pumping stations outside of Holland. "The best there are!" they informed me.

The next morning, the headlines in the paper said the pumps had failed, power went out and the streets flooded (mildly) near the lake. This was in April. Katrina hit on August 29th.

Blaine Kern's Mardi Gras World, April, 2005, Algiers LA:




















©2011 Breton Littlehales

4 comments:

SueWho said...

Is that Michael Jackson at the bottom there? These are amazing!

Bill Bowman said...

Great to see the out-takes from the series. Print some of these for sale down here!

B

Emilie said...

Wow, those are so strange. So you can just walk on in and take pictures? I guess it's open to the public?

Bret Littlehales said...

You pay an admission fee and are encouraged to join a tour. I didn't take the tour.
They also hold roller derby matches there.