New Orleans Bicycles
Mary Richardson and Nicholas Costarides
- Page Count: 128
- Size: 8 x 9 inches
- Format: Paperback
- Publication Date: December 2006
- Price: $14.99
- ISBN: 978-0-9779850-0-5
New Orleans will forever exist in a post-Hurricane Katrina context. New Orleans Bicycles features over 100 colorful and detailed photographs taken eighteen months prior to the disaster, showcasing the beauty and allure of the city’s category-defiant population. Though some of the bikes look as if they would crumble under the weight of a rider, and others have the carefully considered accoutrements of art objects, every bike in this book was used on a daily basis. First and foremost, they are modes of transportation, enabled by the city’s flat terrain and inspired by those who chose to live in a city that even prior to Hurricane Katrina was economically challenged, yet artistically rich.
With a staggeringly personal introduction by Andrei Codrescu and Mary Richardson’s lyrical text, New Orleans Bicycles celebrates the city that most visitors never see. The photographs are not about Mardi Gras or Jazz Fest; they are about a city and its residents.
Naturally, the photographs depict how things were at the time they were taken. It is impossible to predict what the future will bring for New Orleans, and New Orleans Bicycles does not claim to address how the city has changed. What it creates, however, is a nostalgia for how the city was in those months leading up to the hurricane, and hope for those ways to return.
A portion of the proceeds from sales of New Orleans Bicycles will go to Plan B, a New Orleans community bike project.
Color throughout
