Yesterday was stormy, rain and thunder and lightning, no good for a bike ride. But today was beautiful. It was warm and humid and the air was thick like summertime. In January. I put on a skirt and got on my bike to ride down to the Quarter, and it felt so, so good. I stopped to snap a picture of these steps for sale at Thalia and Coliseum. I’ve passed these steps many times, but today I noticed the new For Sale sign. And I wondered who would buy these steps. Obviously the land is for sale, but why are the steps the only thing preserved from the building that has long since disappeared? There are a lot of steps to nowhere in this town. Now, for P.1, there are steps to nowhere that are art. But what’s the difference between those and these? These are real. The building they used to lead up to is gone, to where and why, I’m not sure. This isn’t art, though. This is life. New Orleans is a city with missing buildings and many stairs to an uncertain future. Sometimes I see the beauty in decay, but this ruin, the ruin in this city? It’s not ok.
What I Saw Riding My Bike Around Today 
This was the location of the Coliseum Theatre. The theatre closed a long time ago. Until Katrina, the building was used as a sound stage. A couple of months after Katrina, the building caught fire and burned to the ground. For several months after Katrina, anything that caught fire was burning all the way down. The fire department did its best, but mostly it was just containment. It this case, they relied on helicopters to drop water from the river to put out the fire.
For a long time there were flowers, wreaths, and toy stuffed animals placed all along those stairs… The Coliseum Theater opened in 1915, stopped showing movies in the 70’s but became a workhouse and storage facility for old movies/filmwork/etc.
Even though it wasn’t a moviehouse anymore, every time I drove past, even after work late at night, many of the little white light bulbs were on, lighting up the sidewalk and ticket booth.
I remember the fire started around 3 in the afternoon and we (wdsu anyway) covered it Live from then to at least 6:30pm… the entire neighborhood mourned it’s loss for a very long time… hence, the shrine of stuffed animals and such.
I’m guessing these were cleaned away since the For Sale sign has gone up.
Here’s a few pics I stole from the internet… my fave is that the theater was used as backdrop for my fave bands 2nd cd cover, notice the little white light bulbs and ticket booth 🙂
Oh, and a link to some history… the comments are really good.
http://cinematreasures.org/theater/12267/