As Hurricane Francine lashed New Orleans and the city flooded, there was an oasis of comradery — and leather — through the storm.
The Phoenix Bar, just north and east of the French Quarter in the Marigny neighborhood of the Crescent City, has a long tradition of staying open 24/7/365, even through the punishing and frequent tropical storms New Orleans is prone to.
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If there isn’t a mandatory evacuation order, said owner Tracy Deroche, the Phoenix is open.
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Francine was already the third tropical storm to descend on the city this year.
“We stayed open until we had to evacuate,” Deroche said of the monster of all hurricanes, Katrina, in 2005. Thankfully, he said, the water stopped rising just a block from the bar, which hugs a double-sided boulevard called Elysian Fields that runs south the seven …