David Hilgier Photographs

The corner of Canal and Baronne Streets illuminated by the vintage neon signage that marks the entrance to the store.

A cacophony of drumming, bar music, conversation, and city noise accompanies our entrance to the famous New Orleans street.

What better place to get a ‘FAMOUS NEW ORLEANS PO BOYS’ than from a bar with sticky floors that smells like piss and stale beer on some nondescript corner of Bourbon Street?

A concert played for those who paid the simple admission of passing through Frenchman Street.

We meander down Canal Street in a cable car that helps us make our way to our evening plans. The dimly lit interior of our car augmented by the marquees, neon, and storefronts lining the street.

The dearly departed included in the celebrations and festivities of the still living.

I always relish a ride on a street car and I found those of New Orleans to be quaint and inefficient. Their aesthetic appeal, open air windows, wooden benches, and interior lighting generated by common household lightbulbs made up for their tardiness and overcrowding, especially on the St. Charles Line.

We’re all in some sort of loop. Some more drawn out than others. The boat comes and goes, making the same loop down and back up the Mississippi River today as it did yesterday and will do tomorrow. The deckhand goes through the tasks of arrival, so familiar with them he could do them in his sleep.

A few of my favorite homes I encountered while wandering the neighborhood of Bayou St. John in New Orleans. The uniqueness and details of the architectural stylings found in these dwellings was one of the aspects I enjoyed the most when looking back on my visit to the city.

St Patrick’s Day draws to a close and the revelers make their way to their final stops or destinations for the night  Whether just for a night or the longterm, a couple jovially celebrates their nuptials as they make their way down Frenchman Street.