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August 28, 2006
We're from the Wrecking Krewe!
Yesterday a small group of Rising Tide folks hooked up with the Arabi Wrecking Krewe to help gut a house and salvage belongings from it.
The house belongs to Mrs. Cora Foster, 84, who is a distant relative of Jelly Roll Morton and Buddy Bolden, and who has as uncles trombonist Honore Dutrey and coronetist Sam Dutrey. Miss Cora lived in this house in the Hollygrove neighborhood for 59 years; since Katrina she has been living with her daughters in Detroit. Both daughters, Regina ("You just call me Regina, not Miss Regina; I'm not that old.") and Miss Sandra, helped us sort through the stuff we took out.
We gutted the front two rooms down to the studs, until it became clear that the house was structurally unsound and would need to be demolished. More than one guy (including Oyster) fell through the floor, and we almost lost the refrigerator through a hole in the living room floor at one point.
In the afternoon we shifted into a mode of just trying to recover family belongings that could be saved. We were hoping to find some books from the Smithsonian about the Dutreys but could never locate them in the mess, but the sisters were amazed at how much we did recover.
I've got a flickr set of a few photos I took, and Scout Prime took some spectacular video, including the saga of the fridge.
The Arabi Wrecking Krewe is an amazing group and deserves your support. If you're local, go wrecking! And if you're not, send money. Every dime they take in goes directly to gutting and restoring houses.
You can tell they've got their heart in the right place when you see their tag. Every fridge that comes out gets the Arabi Wrecking Krewe tag on it: eighth notes with a peace symbol and a heart.
Posted by ray at August 28, 2006 5:06 PM | Permalink
Categories: [katrina | new orleans ]
Tags: arabi wrecking krewe, buddy bolden, hollygrove, honore dutrey, jazz, jelly roll morton, katrina, music, new orleans
Comments
It was nice to meet you, albeit for a short amount of time. Hopefully we will see you out at a site again, this time I will wreck!
Posted by: stacey at August 28, 2006 8:38 PM
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