Brandon “Mike” Odums puts the finishing touches on a mural of Marion Colbert, known as the “Banana Lady of Tremé” on a building in the historic New Orleans neighborhood. (Photo by Andrew Laubie)
As Mardi Gras season wraps up, crowds gathering in the Tremé danced past the bright mural of Marion Colbert — the “Banana Lady of Tremé ”— who, between shifts as a bathroom attendant at Brennan’s, took care of the children of working moms in the neighborhood.
Her memory is woven into the rhythm of New Orleans: joyful, generous and sustained by labor that rarely earned what it was worth. Today, the mural celebrating her by Brandan “BMike” Odums at Sweet Lorraine’s Jazz Club on St. Claude overlooks the French Quarter where hospitality workers, cooks and housekeepers provide the fuel of the economic engine that this city relies upon…