Restoring New Orleans Cemeteries One Tomb at a Time
☼ New Orleans, LA
Tomb Do You Love?
● About
A history restored is a history respected
In many New Orleans cemeteries, experts estimate that 80% of the tombs are abandoned. Time, neglect, the elements, and unfortunately vandalism threaten to permanently destroy these marble and brick and mortar monuments that symbolize our city’s history.
New Orleans’ cemeteries draw visitors from around the world to experience and learn about the city’s unique multicultural and burial traditions and view our exquisite tombs in person. Tomb Do You Love’s goal is to renovate and repair these tombs to preserve our culture and ensure them for future generations.
Tomb Do You Love is the only nonprofit in New Orleans that focuses specifically on tomb restoration. Just as a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, the restoration of our cemeteries begins with one tomb at a time.
Because love persists even after death.
● Currently Restoring: The Bellocq Tomb
One Infamous Storyvillle Photographer
What does it mean to have documented the most desired undesirables? Ernest Bellocq, a New Orleans photographer during the early 1900s, secretly photographed prostitutes in New Orleans’ Red Light District known as Storyville.
His photographs give us a permanent glance into the ephemeral lives of women who existed on the peripheral of society. His revolutionary treatment of these women as not evocative subjects but as empowered individuals who have inspired films, novels, poetry, and scholarly discourse to this day.
The restoration of his tomb seeks to honor his memory just as he honored those that he photographed.
● Contact
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Whether you’re curious about Tomb Do You Love, the tomb we’re working on, or anyone involved, we’re here to talk.