![]() Current local residents include Sandra Bullock, Nicholas Cage, Mos Def and, until her recent death, mistress of the night Anne Rice. The Garden District encompasses just a quarter square mile, and is home to stunning mansions. And so when I set off to explore the Garden District neighborhood of "Uptown" New Orleans, Lafayette Cemetery No. As counter-intuitive as it might be to consider a graveyard as a tourist destination, I have found cemeteries in many parts of the world to be revealing about the local history and traditions. 1 is one of many quirky cultural attractions in New Orleans. Generations of the same family can be interred in the same tomb,” says Heather Veneziano.Lafayette Cemetery No. The original remains are bundled up, placed to the rear or in a place called the caveau. The way our tombs work, is that multiple interments can happen. “We are the original green cemetery model, where you can continue to use tombs in perpetuity as long as long as they’re in good condition. Louis Cemetery Number One worked extensively on the cemetery database project. Heather Veneziano is the Director of Public Engagement and Development for New Orleans Catholic Cemeteries and also part of Gambrel & Peak Historic Preservation Consulting. The bodies are above ground along with the structures, because of the high water table, which is partly what makes New Orleans’ cemeteries unique.Īnother feature of the cemeteries is that hundreds of years, passed their construction, there’s still room for bodies. However, there is a functionality with New Orleans’s above ground styling. This is a style that originates in Europe. Père Lachaise Cemetery in France and the Necrópolis Cristóbal Colón in Cuba, among others, also have above ground structures. However, New Orleans’ tombs are not the only tombs that have above-ground structures. The cemeteries are alike to the catacombs of Paris or the tombs of Egypt’s Pharaohs, in that they are iconic. Louis Number Two is considered to be the largest monument of African Americans in the country. Then there are less grim highlights of history as St. Howard Margot is well-versed in the history of the cemeteries and points out that some of the nameless vaults are due to yellow fever epidemics from the past, where too many died and were buried quickly. All of them, wanted to preserve the thousands of tombs of historic figures and hundreds of years of history, preserved in the tombs of the “City of the Dead.” The Database was ten years in the making and a collaboration with The New Orleans Catholic Archdiocese, Tulane University’s School of Architecture, Save Our Cemeteries, The University of Pennsylvania’s Historic Preservation Program and Gambrel & Peak Historic Preservation Consulting. We actually needed police detail to guard us during the project,” says Lemmon.Īs the years continue to pass, tombs would sink and every cemetery has examples of nameless burials. Cemeteries were not a safe place to visit. These tombs and cemeteries were endangered by the climate, the weather, institutions and vandals. “What struck me was the urgency of the project. ![]() He like others were up for a monumental task that was rigorous, time sensitive and dangerous. When he first began employment at THNOC, he was assigned to the cemetery project. Alfred Lemmon is the Director of the Williams Research Center at the Historic New Orleans Collection. ![]() The oldest of the city’s cemeteries is St Louis Cemetery Number One and it dates back to 1789. Soon, you can’t help but park the car and see how they are adorned with lithophytic ferns as deadly nigh shade plants grow out of the cracks that align the sidewalk. As you continue on into Treme, they tombs are closer. ![]() When going east, driving down Interstate ten, past exit 231, the “city of the dead” seems to grow out of the ground. It’s hard to describe the appearance of them. We had to do our part to keep them going.” They were an attraction then and they continue to be. Travelers from Europe and other parts of the world. “Howard Margo is a curator at THNOC and says, people were writing about our cemeteries in the early 19th century. Recently, The Historic New Orleans Collection launched The New Orleans Cemetery Database. Millions flock to the city and our impressed with the design of the cemeteries. NEW ORLEANS-With all of its intercultural charm, New Orleans is a feast for the eyes. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated. This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated.
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