A Different Look

I felt kind of silly when I first saw them, or when heard someone talk about them. The cemeteries, here in the New Orleans area, before I came here in February I did not know that the bodies and final resting place is above ground. The concept makes sense. This area is so close to sea level (in Douglas Brinkley’s excellent book, The Great Deluge, in which he recaptures the before, during and after events of Hurricane Katrina, he points out how Bienville and his fellow settlers went to the area’s highest point, which was just 11 feet above sea level. Two and a half centuries later, that area may be about four feet above sea level, while many parts of the city and outlying areas are below sea level) that burying our dead under ground is not even an option.

Cemeteries here draw quite a bit of attention. Just this morning, I drove by one that had a tour bus stopped in front with a number of people peering in through the gates and taking pictures. This particular one is nice. It's right in the city, on Esplanade Ave., just down the street from where I’m now living. These photos show how beautiful one of these can be. Some of the structures are really striking. When I walked around in there, it felt similar to when I would go into an old church and look up at the ceiling and see all the artwork or statues. The detail on some is really impressive. Yet the entire time you know you’re in a cemetery.

Not all made it through Katrina in good shape, however. There’s a cemetery about 500 yards down the road from Camp Hope, where I first stayed when I got here. Many of the tombs were ruined, and it has yet to be fixed or cleaned up. Lots of rumors float around about what happened in this and other cemeteries like it, that coffins were carried away by the high waters and that bodies washed away. I’ve never been able to substantiate this (it’s something I’d like to confirm before leaving). Regardless, the cemetery on St. Bernard Highway should be rehabilitated. One would think that the Parish Government would make this a priority. It’s sad to see the pictures below; sadder still to actually walk through this cemetery. What’s going to happen to this place? It’s a question I’m going to pose to Parish officials.

Cemeteries in New Orleans, though, are an interesting phenomenon, and it may be worth reading up more on them. If interested, here’s a link to some information on the cemetery referenced above, on Esplanade Ave.

http://goneworleans.about.com/od/famouslandmarks/a/stlouis3.htm