These were taken on the same day that I went to explore Greenwood Cemetery back in 2004. These were taken in both Greenwood and Holt Cemetery.

I had never heard of Holt Cemetery until I came across it that day. From the Save Our Cemeteries website:

Originally a cemetery for the city’s indigent population, Holt Cemetery passed through several rounds of ownership before being established by Dr. Joseph Holt, a city board of health official, in 1879.

Holt is a potters field cemetery in New Orleans, and nearly all of the gravesites are below ground. The sites are taken care of by the families of the deceased, and there are a lot of homemade gravestones or memorials. Even though the city has done a lot of repairs and upgrades over the years, the cemetery still shows significant neglect, with some graves showing human remains.

It’s such a drastic change from the well-manicured above-ground tombs of Greenwood.