This special exhibition was planned in the wake of Hurricane Katrina's tragic demolition of much of the city, and is accompanied by a fundraising effort for "Museums Helping Museums," a national relief effort helping Gulf Coast area museums and cultural treasures rebuild and recover from the recent hurricane.

In 1984 Bucks County photographer Michael A. Smith was commissioned by the Historic New Orleans Collection — a private foundation and museum based in the city's French Quarter — to photograph neighborhoods and buildings throughout New Orleans. The exhibition included more than 40 photographs from his New Orleans project. Viewers would recognize some of the city's iconic buildings and landmarks, ranging from Royal Street in the French Quarter to the shores of Lake Ponchartrain; from Preservation Hall to the Superdome.

"New Orleans is perhaps the most distinctive city in the United States," Smith says. "It has a charm that few other American cities can match. I hope I did it justice."

Smith uses large-format cameras and makes contact prints, a technique in which the negative is placed in direct contact with the photographic paper rather than enlarged. This is a somewhat laborious process, but one that results in extraordinary richness and depth in the prints. "The bottom line is, it's more beautiful," he says. "It gives the prints a presence you just don't get in enlargements."

Through Smith's lens, this exhibition offered a window onto the city's incomparable character before the devastation of Hurricane Katrina: from its famous above-ground cemeteries to its notorious watering holes, from shotgun houses to grand avenues.

A donation box was provided for visitors to make contributions to the "Museums Helping Museums" hurricane relief effort throughout the run of the exhibition. Also in conjunction with this exhibition, and in acknowledgement of the city's reputation as the home of jazz music, the Museum donated the proceeds from its January 28, 2006, jazz concert, featuring vocalist Ella Ghant of Philadelphia's Legends of Jazz Orchestra, to the "Museums Helping Museums" effort.

• Press Release

	Changing and Permanent Exhibits

	In Doylestown: Lilli Gettinger: Memory Transformed Elliott Erwitt: Dog Dogs Intertwined: Contemporary Baskets from the Sara and David Lieberman Collection James Fuhrman: Contemplative Spaces In New Hope: Art and the River