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December 7, 2007
Mrs. Cora Foster's house
Mrs. Cora Foster's house, slow-mo demolition in progress.
August 2006, right after salvaging some family heirlooms and giving up on gutting halfway through due to the structural unsoundness:
October 2007, I drove by to see what it looked like. Of all the houses I've done, this was one of the special ones because of the history involved:
Karen said she saw Mrs. Cora's daughters approving the demolition a couple of months ago, so I wasn't sure it would still be there, but this is what it looks like today:
The foliage is coming back, somebody has ripped the porch roof half off, and somebody pushed the front window right out of the frame. I thought about climbing in and looking around, but I didn't have a mold mask with me (the mold is still really bad), and something about that open window said "crackhead" to me.
Apparently the city's demolition plan is to let vandals and crackheads and the elements take these houses apart over a series of decades, so that we can all grow old watching it while we pass around Klonopin and Zoloft in candy dishes.
I harbor this fantasy that one day I will happen to drive by and they'll be knocking it down, and that back closet will be ripped open by a backhoe, that closet that we could never search well because it was on the other side of a collapsing floor and a head-high ramshackle pile of moldy rotting bedroom furniture. And the demo contractors will listen to me explain what might be in that rubble, and instead of having me arrested, they'll let me dig through the pile and I'll find all that documentation on Buddy Bolden and Honore Dutrey from the Smithsonian that we never found.
And I harbor this other fantasy that one day Karen says "Ray, whatcha doin' today?" and we just fucking go over there with some masks and trespass and go Katrina-spelunking and take one last crack at finding it now that the house is a little bit drier.
If I'd had a mask, I might have been tempted today, but it's not a safe house to be alone in. At this point, I imagine it's haunted. Buddy Bolden was a crazy motherfucker at the end, and they're making a movie about him now so his ghost is probably on the prowl.
Posted by ray at December 7, 2007 5:48 PM | Permalink
Categories: [katrina | movies | music | new orleans ]
Comments
The dozers are coming, this week.
There have been several out of control demos already.
This house is too far gone, but wait till you see what is coming.
I will go in, I have a death wish!
Posted by: Karen at December 7, 2007 10:38 PM
You allowed to be in houses, dearie? I'm free Sunday.
What happens when you get caught trespassing? Citation or a few hours in the hoosgow?
Posted by: Ray at December 7, 2007 10:53 PM
Sunday could work, I just say I am looking for my lost pussy.
Posted by: Karen at December 7, 2007 10:58 PM
I'm back in town next Thursday. Wait for me -- I'm game.
Posted by: ashley at December 7, 2007 11:21 PM
Just fucking do it. Maybe you'll find the lost wax cylinder, too.
Posted by: Robin at December 13, 2007 2:10 PM
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