Backstreet Cultural Museum Celebrates 1st Anniversary In Their New Treme Home

A brass band roams Treme in 2019. Photo courtesy rl reeves jr

On Saturday June 17, 2023 the Backstreet Cultural Museum is throwing a wild party in the streets outside their 6th Ward repository. The museum was founded in 1999 by cultural stakeholder Sylvester Francis as he sought a place to host his growing collection of New Orleans ephemera including personal work as a videographer using the Super 8 format.

Unfortunately Hurricane Ida sent a giant tree through the roof of the original facility leading to the museum moving a few blocks away to an old wood-frame building across from Tuba Fats Square.

This Saturday at noon a classic New Orleans street party will kickoff at the new museum. I expect a bit of a second line vibe as the otherworldly Lil Rascals Brass Band are performing along with some other street parade regulars. Of course there will be more food and drink than anyone could sensibly imagine.

Various troupes of Baby Dolls will promenade about in their finery as they are wont to do.

Mr Francis passed away from appendicitis on September 11, 2020 leading to his daughter Dominique assuming the reins of the business.

The party begins at noon and slows to a halt at 4pm

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Ruthie The Duck Girl Party In New Orleans

Ruthie The Duck Girl Party in New Orleans

It is unfathomable that Ruth Grace Moulon aka Ruthie the Duck Girl has been gone for 15 years.

Ms. Moulon had developed a measure of fame in the French Quarter of New Orleans for bar-hopping across the neighborhood on a pair of old-fashioned roller skates with her retinue of pet ducks quacking and waddling to keep up.

It nearly didn’t matter that Ruthie the Duck Girl generally wore a ratty old wedding dress or weathered fur coat as she made her rounds.

Ruth Grace Moulon died September 6th, 2008. She had evacuated to Baton Rouge for Hurricane Gustav and passed away at Our Lady of the Lake Hospital.

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