Corner Businesses in New Orleans and The Naïve Commercial Art of Lester Carey

Corner Businesses in New Orleans and the Nave Commercial Art of Lester Carey
Anthony DelRosario Preservation Technology Professor Heather Knight Master in Preservation Studies Tulane School of Architecture
PRST 6720 - Preservation Technology Professor Heather Knight April 24, 20009
Introduction: Comfort in Decay

Looking at New Orleans after the levee failures after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 is similar to rolling over a fallen tree that has been decaying. One sees countless things that were previously hidden from view things that some believe beautiful while others may find ugly. These could be a house covered in cats claws vines (Figure 1), an abandoned business with weathered signs (Figure 2), or a burned out car with graffiti (Figure 3). I am in the group of those that see the unfortunate beauty in the destruction around us in New Orleans.
Fig. 1. covered house in Central City Fig. 2. Leroys Place in Gert Town Fig. 3. abandoned car in St. Claude
For many months after my return to the post-disaster city, I was in a funk from a five year relationship that ended as a Katrina casualty. I rode my bicycle to and from work along St. Charles Avenue in pensive reflection. After a few months, I was introduced to Flickr by a friend, Christopher Kirsch, who had been riding his scooter around the Ninth Ward taking photographs of po-boy sandwiches on the many corner buildings that served as the neighborhood store. Seeing his photographs and his nudge to join Flickr helped knock me out of my post-Katrina funk. He also invited me to join him in an art project of painting smashed cans to attach to telephone poles around the city which he called the Can Project.
Anthony DelRosario Masters of Preservation Studies - Tulane School of Architecture
These new artistic endeavors were the spark to jump-start a creative therapy to kick me out of my doldrums. Instead of taking the usual route of St. Charles Avenue from the Lower Garden District to Tulane University and back, I began to experiment with my course. For a while, the new route was still near St. Charles Carondelet, Baronne, and Dryades. Eventually I found my way further and further into Central City into many neighborhoods that I had not been. My new muse of capturing the unfortunate sights of the flooded neighborhoods led me to places that I would never have ridden my bicycle before the storm. I now biked through the deserted C. J. Peete Housing Projects, also known as the Magnolia Projects. There I found interesting murals (Figures 6 & 7), decaying reminders of residents (Figure 4), and hidden street art (Figure 5).
Fig. 4. C.J. Peete Housing Project
Fig. 5. C.J. Peete Housing Project
Throughout Central City, I also discovered many abandoned commercial buildings, including many corner stores that had pictures and lettering similar to those that my friend had found in other parts of the city. By comparing photographs, we concluded that a single artist had painted many of these signs. Fortunately the artist
signed his name on a few works. The name found on several murals, including a mural at C. J. Peete Housing Projects, was Lester Carey.
Fig. 6. Mural at C.J. Peete Housing Project
Fig. 7. Mural at C.J. Peete Housing Project
Around the same time that my eyes were opened to this entirely new way of seeing the city, my friend and I also noticed street art (or graffiti) with the words You Go Girl (Figure 8). These three words were often found on decaying crumbling buildings. The artist seemed to also have an eye for the unfortunate beauty of post-flood New Orleans or as the artist wrote on an abandoned truck, Comfort in Decay (Figure 9).
Fig. 8. You Go Girl graffiti in Central City
Fig. 9. Comfort in Decay by You Go Girl
From then on, we were inspired, or maybe obsessed, to find as much work by Lester Carey and the person which we called You Go Girl. Works by both were
sometimes seen just blocks apart in the same neighborhood a neighborhood with a corner store, a neighborhood ravaged by the flood.
Down on the Corner, Out in the Street

New Orleans has long been a city of neighborhoods. These neighborhoods are distinct from one another yet have a common bond, an individual blend of residences, groceries, bars, laundries, parks and po-boy shops that infuses a neighborhood with its unique personality. (Peck) For many decades, the corner store was the heart of the neighborhood and the corner bar was the soul of the neighborhood. According to Metropolis Magazine:
The corner store was the anchor of New Orleans neighborhoods for more than a century. The convenience store for pedestrians, it was a place where people ran into each other, and a place where bulletin boards made connections possible. Bethany Rogers, in a radio interview on a story called Charting New Orleans' Everyday Landmarks, said that corner bars are where people trade information and pass down stories and keep cultural traditions going.
However, today these corner businesses are in peril or are already gone in many areas of the city. For some neighborhoods, the corner store felt the blow long ago. Chris Kirsch explained his opinion of the downfall of the corner store in an email:
the death of the corner store began when Kmart and Walmart moved in, scratch that, it dates back to Schwegmann, before Schwegmann's it was all corner stores in New Orleans, there were no super markets only corner stores.
According to Blake Pontchartrain in Gambit, when the Schwegmann Brothers opened their first Giant Super Market in 1946 on St. Claude Avenue, the modern age of grocery shopping in New Orleans had begun. This led to the demise of a multitude of corner stores in working class areas such the Bywater and the Irish Channel.
Most recently the ravages of the disaster of 2005 have directly or indirectly destroyed many corner businesses. If the flooding did not completely ruin a corner business, the flooding drastically changed the fabric of the neighborhood which in turn affected the corner.
Fig. 10. the Pub Lounge (abandoned)
Fig. 11. the Pub Lounge (demolished)
Throughout the more devastated areas of New Orleans, one can find empty lots that were once the neighborhood store or neighborhood watering hole (Figures 10 & 11). In other parts of the city, the empty land is much more vast areas where housing projects once stood, areas with a significantly diminished population. Before the flood, a housing project would often have a corner store within easy walking distance every few blocks around its perimeter. Without the nearby clientele, a majority of these corner businesses did not reopen.
Delta Dawn
Delta Super Market was once such corner store that did not reopen after Katrina. On Desire Street one block off Florida Avenue, the Delta Super Market (Figure 15) was a cornerstone of the neighborhood along with Club Desire just down the block. Before August 2005, the large yellow building was a beacon in the area for someone buying milk and eggs or someone buying cigarettes and beer. After the disaster of 2005, the building caught the eye of Chris Kirsch on one of his scooter/photography outings. Here he found po-boys painted on one side of the building and a mural painted by Lester Carey on another side of the building (Figures 12, 13 & 14). Chris often returned to the building, one time with me while on a bicycle tour of the area. On a flickr page with a set of photographs of the Delta Super Market, Chris tells what attracted him there:
I've been here dozens of times since Hurricane Katrina, brought some of my friends and Many a tourist here....It's quite (sic) here and I often just sit here and think of the destruction and how New Orleans has changed since August 29th 2005. I too returned several times. The building itself was not special. However, the yellow walls, interesting paintings, and large sign gave a special presence to the area and to a few people that discovered it in the era of K-Ville. (This block had been used as scenery in the short-lived series. A building across the street from the Delta had been spray painted with K-Ville.)
Figs. 12, 13 & 14. mural at Delta Super Market
Fig. 15. the Delta Super Market on Desire Street
In October 2008, three people in the New Orleans preservation/flickr scene journeyed out early one morning to witness the demolition of the Delta (Figure 16). These were Chris Kirsch, Karen Gadbois of Squandered Heritage (Figure 17), and Michelle Kimball of the Preservation Resource Center. In an interview via email I asked Karen what drew her to the demolition. She replied with a copied portion of her blog post about the Delta. Her response came from this paragraph:
Some people fall in love with grand buildings and some fall in love with history. Sometimes something just grabs you and wont let you go. On my ride up to the Delta I thought about how much I dont know about history, and then I thought I dont know much about my liver and I depend on that every day. So maybe you dont have
to know much about history to feel it programmed in your body like some somatic impulse. At any rate if you follow my line of reasoning going to see the Delta torn down was like a salmon swimming upstream I was pleased to find out at least 2 other people felt compelled enough to get up and go watch the Delta come down at dawn.
Fig. 16. demolition of the Delta Super Market
Fig. 17. Karen Gadbois deep in thought
Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign

Corner businesses in New Orleans are often associated with hand-painted signs. A mom and pop business, especially in a poorer part of New Orleans where corner stores flourish, often does not have the disposable income to spend on expensive signage and relies on a cheaper solution of signs painted by hand on the wall of the business (Figure 18 & 19). Photographer and writer Joe Baeder states:
Availability of a surface on which to paint is an essential of sign language. Cardboard, a discarded piece of wood, the side of a box, a crate slat, a simple piece of paper, or other scraps are familiar mediums for the sign producer. But perhaps most familiar of all are the walls of buildings....Buildings have long served as mediums for signage. (104)
The building as sign is an easy and cheap solution no need to buy more material and no need to worry about attaching something to the building. Bill Harris, foreword contributor to Talking Shops: Detroit Commercial Folk Art, makes the point that innercity African-American businesses must often operate with financial handicaps, including poor capital, elevated insurance rates, and the high cost of whole sale goods bought in small quantities. (8)
Fig. 18. Bayou Super Market in Central City
Fig. 19. bar in Algiers
Due to the landscape and settlement patterns of the city, the poorer parts of the city that contained the majority of hand-painted signs were some of the most devastated areas. Hollygrove, Trem, Lafitte, Pigeon Town, Central City, Gert Town, Desire, Florida, St. Bernard, Seventh Ward, St. Roch., St. Claude these are areas that took on several feet of water; these are areas of predominantly African-American population; these are areas that once had numerous corner businesses; these are areas that were filled with unique signage. An untold number of corner stores, their walls, and their signs have been since demolished. In Signs of New Orleans, Anne Giselson contributes that "these signs are individual creations, impossible to authentically replicate and as we learned the hard way a few years ago after the levee breaks, when they are gone, they are gone." (7)
10
To document the city, several people around town have been collecting images including buildings and signs. These people include myself, Chris Kirsch, Michelle Kimball, Karen Gadbois, and more flickr users as well local designer Tom Varisco who compiled a book titled Signs of New Orleans. In an article in The Times-Picayune by Angus Lind, Varisco said that he had the idea for his book before the Katrina. I asked him what rekindled the flame to publish the book. He responded via email:
After the storm, I realized that we never know what will happen day to day or minute to minute. I decided, after doing the SPOILED book, that I should seize the day. He also said in the introduction that Signs of New Orleans "is an attempt to preserve some of the city's unique words and images before they get painted over or destroyed by the passage of time, another natural disaster or our own unreliable memories." (3) Dave Clements, author of Talking Shops: Detroit Commercial Folk Art, reiterates the idea in his preface:
Even more so than diners and roadside attractions, the images of Americas changing commercial landscape are fleeting and should be documented, if not preserved. The images are uniquely American, and for that reason alone their existence deserves some cultural awareness. (5) Many anonymously painted signs have been captured. Fortunately, not all of the signs were left unsigned.
A few styles can be seen repeated in the signs of various corner businesses. A common style is black lettering with red shadowing (or vice-versa) on white. This style can be found on bars, on corner stores, and even at a parking lot at city hall. Some of
11
these works are signed By PAM, which could be either a womans name or initials (Figure 20). The most ubiquitous style is that of Lester Carey. Fortuitously Lester signed some of his work on murals at the C. J. Peete Housing Project and the Delta Super Market and on the side of a corner store. Another repeated style is a nondescript yet distinctive script that is on Brown Derby No. 1, Brown Derby No. 2, and Brown Derby No. 3 and is often seen on other buildings along side Lesters work (Figure 21).
Fig. 20. sign By PAM
Fig. 21. Lester Carey lettering next to Brown Derby lettering
In Signs of New Orleans, I found that the only sign maker represented more than once was Lester Carey. I asked Tom Varisco if he had noticed that he had several photographs of hand lettering by a single person. In an email he said that he could tell that his favorite sign, Big Will Fried Chicken, was similar to another sign but he did not recognize that any others were the same. From my count, over ten percent of the eighty six images in Signs of New Orleans contain work by Lester Carey. One photograph contained the two other styles mentioned previously.
Overlooking Lester's work can often be easy. I did not realize one photograph in Signs of New Orleans was Lester's work until I saw the photograph on the website of
12
Tom's contributor, Jackson Hill. The signs of Lester almost hide in plain sight. Unless one is consciously on the lookout for his work or interesting signage in general, one would naturally be unaware of these signs. Many of the sign painters themselves do not know the subtle impact of their work. Nick Marinello, another contributor to Signs of New Orleans, added Somewhere out there are the sign makers who, whether they know it or not, are telling the continuing story of this city. (9)
In Search of Lester
After searching for and photographing the works of Lester for several months, I created a flickr group to gather the photographs of the works. In February 2008 I started a pool on flickr called the Society to Preserve the Art of Lester Carey. Later in the same week, I began to stop at the business with work by Lester to inquire about the painter. First I asked at an auto repair shop (Figure 23) on South Miro near Washington. One of the men working said some fellow pushing a Winn-Dixie cart painted the sign. The next week I stopped to ask at a corner store in Central City, the Baronne Grocery (Figure 22) at the corner of Philip, which had some recent work painted by Lester. The man at the cash register did not know because his family had purchased the business only a month previous. Next, I conducted some research in the Special Collections library at Tulane. There I looked in telephone directories of New Orleans from before 2005. I found an address for a Lester Carey on Broad Street near Zulu headquarters but a barber and beauty shop was now at the address.
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Fig. 22. Baronne Grocery
Fig. 23. Louis Autoelectric on South Miro
On Good Friday 2008, I woke early on my day off to take a bicycle ride around Central City to take photographs and to search for Lester. I stopped at a tire shop at the corner of Felicity and Clara where a man was sitting in a chair in front of a sign painted by Lester (Figure 24). I asked if he knew Lester, the sign painter. To my astonishment, he told me that Lester was probably just down the block at the Keller Market (Figure 25). I introduced myself to the helpful man whose name was June, short for Junior. After taking his picture in front of the tire shop sign, I headed to the Keller Market. Inside, I found a man sitting at a table with a milk crate of what looked like art supplies (Figure 26). He was a bit surprised when I asked if he was Lester Carey.
Fig. 24. June at Turners Tire Shop at Felicity and Clara Fig. 25. Keller Market on Felicity at Magnolia
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After buying him breakfast, I talked with Lester for a while and called Chris to come meet up with us at the market. For two hours, Lester took us on a walking tour of Central City to see some of the buildings that he had painted (Figure 27). There were quite a few places that neither Chris nor I had seen previously. Since the first meeting, I bike by the area of the tire shop about every two or three weeks to check in with Lester and often bring him paint or brushes.
Fig. 26. Lester Carey, Artist
Fig. 27. cart with paint and cans Fig. 28. Lester in a Lester Carey t-shirt
Fig. 29. Lester with sister, Alice
Fig. 30. Lester with June and sketch of a building
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Lesters Story
During the walking tour in March 2008 with Lester, Chris and I found out some details of his life. Lester was born in New Orleans. He attended the University of New Orleans, Louisiana State University, and Delgado Community College. Lester went to Baton Rouge to attend school when he saw an advertisement from the university seeking football players. Unfortunately, by the time he arrived in Baton Rouge, the football team had been filled. He graduated from Delgado with a degree in commercial art. From 1976 to 1989, Lester served the country in the Army, the Army Reserves, and the Army National Guard. In 1982, he began painting signs on buildings such as corner stores. One of the first stores that he painted was the Project Food Store on Martin Luther King Boulevard at South Liberty. Lester also told me that he first painted the Delta Super Market sometime in the 1980s. For some time in the 1990s, he worked at the Green Project, an environmental non-profit. Lester lived at First and Claiborne before the flood after which he ended up in San Antonio for several months. While there he took some continuing education classes. However, after having returned to New Orleans, Lester no longer had a place to live. Since his return he has been mainly living on the streets making money by recycling aluminum cans and other metal. He occasionally finds jobs to paint a business (Figure 31) or to make meat board specials (poster boards with prices for the deli area of a corner store) (Figure 32).
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Fig. 31. Bread of Life on Jackson Ave
Fig. 32. meat board specials in Project Food Store
Lesters Style: Nave Commercial Art

Lester Careys art style is distinctively characteristic. His style is based in the commercial art that he learned at Delgado yet contains his own unique interpretations. Even without a signature on a sign, one could discern his style. One distinguishing characteristic of Lesters style is his combination of words in block lettering and words in script lettering on the same sign, often with in a single phrase (Figures 33 & 34). Another characteristic is his sense of space within a sign. Often words are crowded together although there is enough room. Despite the training in commercial art, Lesters style would not be considered proper in the usual realm of design. An appropriate description of Lesters style is commercial folk art or nave commercial art.
Fig. 33. mixed lettering styles
Fig. 34. mixed lettering styles
17
A defining icon of Lesters oeuvre is what has become known as the triangle meat po-boy. This icon was a major lead to discovering Lester Carey. In an email, Chris Kirsch said I started noticing a lot of the Triangular meat Po-Boys around and figured it had to be the same artist. The Delta Super Market with a triangle meat poboy on one wall and a mural signed by Lester Carey on another wall is where pieces of the puzzle fell together for Chris. These paintings of po-boys by Lester look as if they are sandwiches that contain sliced deli meat such as a square piece of ham which are placed at an angle on the bread so that a piece sticks out and resembles a triangle. (Figures 35-40)
Figs. 35- 40. examples of the triangle meat
Another, yet more subtle, key to distinguishing Lesters style is his block lettering. Some of the signs painted by Lester are just a line of block letters such as NO LOITERING. A clue to his block lettering is the way Lester composes the letter R. Where some painters might make the hump and angled leg of the R in one motion,
18
Lester first makes a P and then adds the angled leg to finish of the R. Similarly, he creates a letter B from a letter P (Figures 41 & 42). Another clue in the block lettering is his letter O. Instead of starting at the top of the line and making the O in 360 degrees, Lester makes to semi-circles (or near semi-circles) starting at the top of the line. Without a triangle meat po-boy nearby or a word in script, close inspection of a couple of letters will help identify the work of Lester.
Figs. 41 & 42. examples of R and B created from P
Fig. 43. flickr map of a selection of Lester Careys work throughout the city
19
Im citywide.
In what neighborhood can one find hand-painted signs by Lester Carey? Better yet, in what neighborhood can one not find work by Lester Carey? I asked Lester in what neighborhoods he had painted. He proudly responded Im citywide. (Figure 43) The highest concentration of his nave commercial art can be found in Central City. With the C.J. Peete Housing Project (also known as Magnolia), the B.W. Cooper Housing Project (also known as Calliope) , and the Guste Housing Project (also known as Melpomene) in or just outside of Central City, there were many corner businesses serving the area which needed signage. For years, Lester was the artist providing a common thread among the businesses. Radiating out from Central City, Lesters work can be found upriver in Gert Town, Hollygrove, and Pigeon Town. Towards the river, work can be found in the Lower Garden District, the Irish Channel, lower Uptown, and River Garden (formerly the St. Thomas Housing Project). Towards the lake, work can be found in Mid-City, Gentilly, and near the St. Bernard Housing Project. Downriver, work can be found in Treme and Seventh Ward near the Lafitte and Iberville Housing Projects, St. Roch., St. Claude, the Lower Ninth Ward, and near the Desire and Florida Housing Projects. No examples of Lesters work have been found in the Bywater, the French Quarter, the Central Business District, and upper Uptown (from Jefferson to Carrolton).
The Future
The future of the corner store is in as much flux as the city of New Orleans. In the non-flooded areas of the city, the corner store has already been in decline since the introduction of Schwegmanns Super Markets. The buildings survive mainly as housing
20
today. In the flooded areas of the city, one sees several things happening to the buildings that were once corner businesses. If the building was not destroyed in the flood, was demolished after the flood, or is sitting in decay, then the building may have been raised to meet flood elevation or renovated and has lost the inherent character associated with a corner business building (Figure 44).
Fig. 44. after and before of former corner business
In many of the flooded areas, the population has diminished so much that corner stores may never flourish again. In other flooded areas such as the Magnolia and B.W. Cooper housing projects, new construction has begun to replace the demolished housing projects (Figures 45 & 46). A new increase in population in these areas could possibly help revive the corner businesses in the surrounding area. Thus, the population of the neighborhood will dictate the chance of survival for the corner business.
Fig. 45. demolition of C.J. Peete Housing Project
Fig. 46. new construction at C.J. Peete
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The future of hand-painted signage depends on several factors. In many parts of the city, hand-painted signs are inherently connected to the corner business. So, the survival of hand-painted signage depends greatly on the survival of corner businesses. Beyond the survival of the corner store, hand-painted signs are endangered by the plastic and vinyl signs (Figure 47) that are cheaply available, often at no cost from companies seeking free advertising (Giselson).
Fig. 47. vinyl sign in contrast to Lesters work
Fig. 48. recent new painting at Brown Derby No. 3
In addition, professional commercial hand painting is not practiced by very many people in New Orleans. Mystic Blue Signs on Magazine Street carries on the tradition but would be out of the price range of most corner businesses (Giselson). Some of the self-taught and nave commercial artists that are affordable for the typical corner business may not have returned since the flood or may have stopped practicing the trade. Two styles of hand lettering continue to be seen in the city, Lester Careys work and the style previously described as a non-descript yet distinctive script. (Figure 48) Lester continues to create signs but not in the same amount as before Hurricane Katrina. He has been painting signage for a few businesses and has been creating the poster board signs for the deli areas of corner stores. Unfortunately, he has been living a rough life on the streets since returning from the evacuation after Katrina.
22
I have been trying to help out Lester. I bring him paint and brushes and give him a few dollars when he really needs money. Last November I spent some time with Lester one day. My friend Bud and I picked him in Central City and took him to breakfast at Two Sisters on Bienville, a soul food restaurant which he had painted (Figure 49). Next we went to Draw-a-thon, a twenty four hour drawing party at the Green Project (Figures 50 & 51). Afterwards, I dropped Lester off at a restaurant on Chef Menteur where he had been painting a sign on the window (Figure 52).
Fig. 49. Lester at Two Sisters
Fig. 50. Lester at Draw-a-thon
Fig. 51. Draw-a-thon 2009
Fig. 52. Lester entering Mama Lus (he painted Lous instead of Lus)
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Recently he checked into an outpatient program for military veterans on the Westbank. He was in a program there to help him receive his Veterans Administration benefit check. I ran into Lester this past Good Friday while he was on this side of the river after taking the programs shuttle to the V.A. hospital downtown. That afternoon I drove him to a corner store on Washington Avenue (Figure 53) so that he could talk to the owner about painting the building. While there, he made some poster boards for the deli area (Figure 54). Also, on the way to the store we stopped at a house where a food truck was parked so that he could talk to the owner (Figure 55).
Fig. 53. Nicks Super Market
Fig. 54. Lester making deli sign Fig. 55. Lester pointing out his Spiderman
However, I recently saw Lester back in Central City where he had been for a few days without returning to the Westbank and had been spending time with the crowd that hangs out at the liquor store across from the tire shop previously mentioned. Hopefully, Lester will be able to stay in the program on the Westbank and start receiving his Veterans Administration benefit check. I plan to help Lester keep his unique style alive. I told Lester that the owner of the Saint, a bar in the Lower Garden District, would like him to paint the outside. We also discussed having him paint some canvases and have an art show.
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Commercial hand-painting is a dying trade. Without an apprentice sign painter under his tutelage, Lesters experience and enthusiasm may not be passed on to the next generation. However, there will always be the self-taught painter and the need for cheap painting. But to what extent, one cannot foresee. One thing for sure is that there will not be another sign painter to cover as much ground as Lester Carey.
Sources
Baeder, John. Sign Language: Street Signs as Folk Art. New York: H.N. Abrams, 1996. Carey, Lester. interview with the author. March 2008. Clements, Dave. Talking Shops: Detroit Commercial Folk Art. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2005. Esolen, Gary and Valeri LeBlanc. Rebuilding New Orleans: Twenty Big Ideas and a Postscript. Metropolis 31 October 2005. <http://www.metropolismag.com/story/20051031/rebuilding-new-orleans-twentybig-ideas-and-a-postscript> Gadbois, Karen. "Delta Dawn." Squandered Heritage blog 23 October 2008. <http://www.squanderedheritage.com/2008/10/23/delta-dawn/>. Giselson, Anne. electronic letter to the author. April 2009. Kirsch, Christopher. Delta Super Market flickr photo set description. <http://www.flickr.com/photos/skeletonkrewe/sets/72157606319794870/>. Kirsch, Christopher. electronic letter to the author. April 2009. Lind, Angus. "Tom Varisco's Signs of New Orleans Documents another Unique Aspect of New Orleans." The Times-Picayune 11 November 2008. <http://blog.nola.com/anguslind/2008/11/tom_variscos_signs_of_new_orle.html>. Peck, Renee. New Orleans neighborhoods improve on the walkability index. The Times Picayune 14 February 2009. <http://blog.nola.com/reneepeck/2009/02/new_orleans_neighborhoods_impr.html >
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Pontchartrain, Blake. "New Orleans Know-it-all." Gambit 24 May 2005. <http://bestofneworleans.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A34566> Ulaby, Neda. Charting New Orleans' Everyday Landmarks. All Things Considered on National Public Radio 20 August 2008. <http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93790509> Varisco, Tom. electronic letter to the author. April 2009. ---. Signs of New Orleans. New Orleans: Garrity Printing, 2008.
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Images
Figures 16 and 17 Christopher Kirsch Figure 44 Karen Gadbois Figure 45 Nathan Tempey Figure 48 Bart Everson All other photographs by the author.

Corner Businesses in New Orleans and The Naïve Commercial Art of Lester Carey

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Corner Businesses in New Orleans and the Nave Commercial Art of Lester Carey

Introduction: Comfort in Decay

Anthony DelRosario Masters of Preservation Studies - Tulane School of Architecture

Fig. 4. C.J. Peete Housing Project

Fig. 5. C.J. Peete Housing Project

Anthony DelRosario Masters of Preservation Studies - Tulane School of Architecture

Fig. 6. Mural at C.J. Peete Housing Project

Fig. 7. Mural at C.J. Peete Housing Project

Fig. 8. You Go Girl graffiti in Central City

Fig. 9. Comfort in Decay by You Go Girl

Anthony DelRosario Masters of Preservation Studies - Tulane School of Architecture

Down on the Corner, Out in the Street

Anthony DelRosario Masters of Preservation Studies - Tulane School of Architecture

Fig. 10. the Pub Lounge (abandoned)

Fig. 11. the Pub Lounge (demolished)

Anthony DelRosario Masters of Preservation Studies - Tulane School of Architecture

Anthony DelRosario Masters of Preservation Studies - Tulane School of Architecture

Figs. 12, 13 & 14. mural at Delta Super Market

Fig. 15. the Delta Super Market on Desire Street

Fig. 16. demolition of the Delta Super Market

Fig. 17. Karen Gadbois deep in thought

Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign

Anthony DelRosario Masters of Preservation Studies - Tulane School of Architecture

Fig. 18. Bayou Super Market in Central City

Fig. 19. bar in Algiers

Anthony DelRosario Masters of Preservation Studies - Tulane School of Architecture

Fig. 20. sign By PAM

Fig. 21. Lester Carey lettering next to Brown Derby lettering

Anthony DelRosario Masters of Preservation Studies - Tulane School of Architecture

Fig. 22. Baronne Grocery

Fig. 23. Louis Autoelectric on South Miro

Anthony DelRosario Masters of Preservation Studies - Tulane School of Architecture

Fig. 26. Lester Carey, Artist

Fig. 29. Lester with sister, Alice

Fig. 30. Lester with June and sketch of a building

Anthony DelRosario Masters of Preservation Studies - Tulane School of Architecture

Anthony DelRosario Masters of Preservation Studies - Tulane School of Architecture

Fig. 31. Bread of Life on Jackson Ave

Fig. 32. meat board specials in Project Food Store

Lesters Style: Nave Commercial Art

Fig. 33. mixed lettering styles

Fig. 34. mixed lettering styles

Anthony DelRosario Masters of Preservation Studies - Tulane School of Architecture

Figs. 35- 40. examples of the triangle meat

Anthony DelRosario Masters of Preservation Studies - Tulane School of Architecture

Figs. 41 & 42. examples of R and B created from P

Anthony DelRosario Masters of Preservation Studies - Tulane School of Architecture

Fig. 44. after and before of former corner business

Fig. 45. demolition of C.J. Peete Housing Project

Fig. 46. new construction at C.J. Peete

Anthony DelRosario Masters of Preservation Studies - Tulane School of Architecture

Fig. 47. vinyl sign in contrast to Lesters work

Fig. 48. recent new painting at Brown Derby No. 3

Fig. 49. Lester at Two Sisters

Fig. 50. Lester at Draw-a-thon

Fig. 51. Draw-a-thon 2009

Anthony DelRosario Masters of Preservation Studies - Tulane School of Architecture

Fig. 53. Nicks Super Market

Anthony DelRosario Masters of Preservation Studies - Tulane School of Architecture

Anthony DelRosario Masters of Preservation Studies - Tulane School of Architecture

Anthony DelRosario Masters of Preservation Studies - Tulane School of Architecture

Anthony DelRosario Masters of Preservation Studies - Tulane School of Architecture

Anthony DelRosario Masters of Preservation Studies - Tulane School of Architecture