Before and After, Felicity Street

When Michael and I moved to New Orleans in 1995, we only looked at a couple of places before deciding on the one at Felicity and Camp Streets. It was one of three apartments made from what we were told had been an old bargeboard apothecary shop. The building was a triangle, like a slice of pie, and our apartment was the crust of the pie. It was tiny, only 600 sq. feet. 30 feet long, 10 feet wide(I always joked they were measuring the outside of the building, as it was certainly not 10 feet from baseboard to baseboard), and 2 stories tall. The Felicity side of the apartment made a weird 45 degree turn. Our unit went through from Felicity Street (the front door we never used) to Orange Street. It had a balcony at each end. It had bars on all the doors and windows, even upstairs. Michael used the smaller "half-bedroom" 6'x 10', as his painting studio. It was a bit like living in a doll house.

After I left, Michael shared the apartment with Pat, a friend of his brother, for a few months before Michael joined me in San Diego. A few years later, Pat saw a still from a Jim Jarmusch film and recognized the old Felicity apartment:
This picture is taken from across Felicity street, facing Southeast-erly, which goes off to the right. Orange Street is on the left. Our unit is the furthest away, you can just see the tiny front all the way on the right. The middle unit had 2 bedrooms and one bath, the pointy unit had one bedroom and one bath.

I was in New Orleans just a few weeks before Hurricane Katrina, and Robin and I drove by the old house. It was vacant, and through the windows I could see that someone was renovating -- all the interior walls had been pulled down, even between the three units. I'm not sure what the intention was, but it was never realized. Over the past two years we had heard from a couple of people that they thought the old building was gone, and Michael saw a post-Katrina satelite image with nothing at our old address, but until this trip we had no proof. Now we do:
I didn't think to take the picture from the same perspective as the Jarmusch still, but this is the spot. I am facing Southwest across Orange Street, the church in the background is on Felicity.

All gone.