Mardi Gras World, New Orleans
17 January, 2002

On Thursday I took a short ferry ride across the Mississipi River to the island of Algiers, where I wandered freely through an enormous factory peopled by dragons, jesters, and thirty-foot flowers.

This is Blaine Kern's Mardi Gras World, the year-round home to New Orleans' fantastic Mardi Gras floats.

In this 75,000 foot warehouse you can watch as new floats are being built. Once a float is wrapped and painted, it is decorated with paper flowers, fish, or stars, as well as tall figures carved from papier mache and foam.

Look closely and you might also see ghosts. In the Repair Shop rows and rows of lucky statues wait patiently to be mended. And on high shelves that hug the ceiling you will see past favorites, now sleeping peacefully under layers of dust.

Begin