The Lower 9th Ward Revisited In Photos

WUNC | By Laura Lee,

Published December 10, 2015 at 12:14 PM EST

When photographer John Rosenthal vacationed to New Orleans in 2007, he was stunned by the condition of the Lower Ninth Ward. Contrary to the images that he had seen on television and in newspapers, he found the community to be one not in chaos but at a standstill.

Photographer John Rosenthal

He began documenting the small and intimate details of everyday living in the neighborhood that was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. His work is featured in a new book, “After: The Silence of the Lower 9^th Ward” (Safe Harbor Books/2014).

Host Frank Stasio talks with Rosenthal about his work.

Laura Lee

Laura Lee began her journalism career as a producer and booker at NPR. She returned to her native North Carolina to manage The State of Things, a live daily statewide show on WUNC. After working as a managing editor of an education journalism start-up, she became a writer and editor at a national education publication, Edutopia. She then served as the news editor at Carolina Public Press, a statewide investigative newsroom. In 2022, she worked to build collaborative coverage of elections administration and democracy in North Carolina.

Laura received her master’s in journalism from the University of Maryland and her bachelor’s degree in political science and J.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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Frank Stasio

Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.

See stories by Frank Stasio