William Greiner was born and raised in New Orleans. However, he never fully appreciated how unique the city was until he left for college. It was then that he realized New Orleans was completely singular in its culture, food, architecture, music, art, and colloquialisms. Even the air felt distinct thick with humidity, influencing the light itself.
NEUTRAL GROUNDNEW ORLEANS 1990–2005
At the age of seven, in 1965, Hurricane Betsy formed around the date of his birthday, September 8th. It was his first experience with a terrifying hurricane, though not his last. The storm left a lasting impression on him. He often wondered, and worried, how people could live below sea level. Betsy had broken levees and flooded the city’s low-lying areas, causing a billion dollars in damage.
His final encounter with a hurricane came nearly fifty years later, when Katrina struck and again flooded the city. It marked his last experience with levee failures. Afterward, he moved northwest to Baton Rouge, seeking higher ground further inland.
The photographs in this book, made between the time of these pivotal events and realizations, helped shape how he saw the city he loved.
All images were made in and around New Orleans, between 1990 and 2005.
FOREWORD
In New Orleans what other cities called a median, the raised strip of land sep- arating lanes of traffic, is called the neutral ground. It plays a prominent role in the history, culture, and life of New Orleans. Millions of residents and visitors to the city use the neutral ground every year to jog, walk dogs past monuments erected there, watch parades, and board and step from streetcars. Neutral Ground originally defined the area in the middle of Canal Street that separated Creole and Anglo neighborhoods. The neutral ground on Saint Charles Avenue contains streetcar tracks as well as a place for crowds to gather to watch Mardi Gras parades close up. It also means a place where one is safe from traffic. The word neutral means an impartial or unbiased place.
The title of this book, Neutral Ground, becomes a metaphor for where William Greiner stands as a photographer. He shoots from the point of view of an ob- server, an artist without fear because he is shooting the world from the safety of his ground—his talent.
—JOHN RAMSEY MILLER
William Greiner (Born 1957, New Orleans LA), is an artist residing in Santa Fe, NM. Greiner holds BFA degrees from Tufts University/School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and an MBA from Suffolk University, Boston, MA. He is the recipient of a Louisiana Endowment for the Arts fellowship in 2004. Greiner’s work can be found in more than 60 public art collections, including The Museum of Modern Art NY, The Art Institute of Chicago , The J. Paul Getty Museum and The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Greiner has had three monographs published, The Reposed (1999), Show & Tell (2014), and NEUTRAL GROUND – New Oeans 1990-2005 (2025). Since 2014, Greiner has expanded his practice beyond photography to include painting, collage, sculpture and print making. Recently, he has focused on multi disciplinary projects and portraiture. He is a Millennium Images contributor
