A different kind of New Orleans thread-Share your stories with me

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

We have been saturated lately by news about New Orleans - details about the hurricane, the survivors, the criminals and the government.

My family is originally from Louisiana, and many members of my extended family still live in the state. Though I’ve never lived in Louisiana, I always considered it a part of my heritage. I wanted to start a thread about New Orleans that doesn’t have anything to do with the heartache and misery that we are associating with the city right now. Rumors that I see printed in the media occasionally say that perhaps New Orleans will never be rebuilt. I certainly hope that’s not the case.

I think we need a thread to commemorate the Big Easy, a thread that tells people who maybe haven’t visited the city what kind of a place it was (and will be again, I hope).

Yes, New Orleans is known for drunken revelry, for Mardi Gras and even for a great deal of crime and corruption, but it’s been one of my favorite places to visit over the years.

I first went to Louisiana when I was 14 years old with my grandparents, on a trip to visit relatives in west Louisiana. We drove through New Orleans and passed signs on I-10 for the French Quarter. The French Quarter! A place I’d heard about all my life (and a place I was sure my grandparents would call “wicked and evil”…). We’d stopped right outside the city at a Waffle House for breakfast on our way to Alexandria, LA and sat behind some boys who were obviously from the area - a few years older than me, they were without parental supervision. The thing I remember most about that visit was their accents (and I say that as someone from South Georgia, sporting quite the accent myself). Those boys weren’t from New Orleans proper, as far as I know. Their accent suggested a more country Cajun birthright but I came to associate them with the city and the state of Louisiana. I was enthralled, I could have listened to them talk all night.

My first real visit to the city was years later, December 31, 1999. Moving from Georgia to Texas, we happened to arrive in New Orleans late in the evening on the 31st and decided to celebrate the holiday there. I had my children with me, so we didn’t celebrate as much as many of the residents and tourists did that night but we did pop off some fireworks that night after dinner. The smoke was so thick (from fireworks) when we left to go back to our hotel we could hardly see to drive. That day we’d taken the kids through the Quarter, they bought masks and beads. We went into all the crazy little shops everywhere and walked along the streets with someone who had been on the ghost tour once - he told us about some of the more interesting stories.

I had my fortune told on the street. Musicians played in the middle of the sidewalks. In any other town, you would have thought you’d come into town on a special arts and crafts day. There were artists who were selling their works, more fortune tellers, kids dancing for tips, a fire eating swordsman and more musicians. I think that New Orleans has a unique culture that everyone should have the opportunity to experience.

I have since visited other times and each time I’ve been, I found myself intrigued by the people, the music, the culture and the food. I worry that things might never be the same in New Orleans again after this disaster, but I hope that one day I will find myself in the French Quarter again, or walking by Anne Rice’s house, amazed at the sheer tenacity and creativeness of the people who live there.

Have you visited New Orleans? What did you love about the city?

2

I first went to New Orleans at the age of 6. We met my uncle, traveling to a medical conference from South Africa, there. He was there with his new wife, whose wedding we had attended the year before. I have two memories of this trip – he brought me a radio controlled car, and we strolled down Bourbon street and I saw pictures of naked ladies in signs advertising strippers outside of clubs.

I next went to New Orleans for 2 days as a 19 year old, during a spring break of college. I went with a bunch of high school friends and we all stayed in one room. Accompanying me was my girlfriend, who one day I would marry. Memories that remain from this trip mainly revolve around drinking – sitting outside drinking at Pat O’Brien’s, sitting inside listening to a blues-rock band buying $2 Budweisers every set as cover, sitting in a mall enjoying a beer with lunch, going to a Tulane medical school party and drinking a beer in a gazebo. I also remember standing on the balcony of a Bourbon street bar, watching some guys taunt a very large, very drunk, very ugly girl with beads. She eventually got them. We stood there fascinated: it was like a safari watching some bizarre mating ritual or waiting for hours to take a picture of a hippopotamus yawning.

Third story. I went for 5 days in November 2002, with my wife who was 6 months pregnant. I was reading Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson. We stayed in a hotel on Decatur. She napped a lot, I read. But in the interim, we explored the boutiques and galleries of the French Quarter, ignoring the drinking and tittie shows. We had great gumbo and fried seafood, had a muffaletta at Central Grocery, bought art from sidewalk vendors around Jackson Square, did a cemetary tour. One day we did the inevitable swamp tour somewhere across the Ponchartrain Bridge outside of Slidell. We took a streetcar all the way down St. Charles in the early evening as the light was fading. I remember looking into the fancy homes around Tulane, with their bay windows showing warmly lit front rooms with leather sofas and built in bookshelves filled with books. It was altogether pleasant and relaxing.

My mind returns to these homes and to the swamps around Slidell. I know that most of them stayed high and dry, but I also know that things have irrevocably changed, and that city that we were able to stretch our legs in does not exist anymore and will never return. I remember our guide on that swamp tour, on a shallow bottomed aluminum boat with tourists from New York and Europe, pointing out nutria (imported from South America by the McIlheny family of Tabasco fame for their fur), raccoons, alligators, and the flora of the swamp. He had a baby alligator in his minivan, which he brought out at the end of the tour. He refused our $10 tip and told us to buy something for the baby. I hope he is OK, but I know that he invariably is not. Nor is anyone from there anymore…

3

I haven’t posted to the Dope for ages, but this thread pretty much forces my hand.

I love New Orleans- or is it loved now? No, I think I’ll stick with love, because it’s still there, in my mind, just as it was before Katrina.

My husband and I went to New Orleans on our honeymoon. It was a fluke, actually. We were supposed to go to Savannah. But a last minute change of plans took us to a city like no other. For years, I’d read about it. I had the typical schoolgirl’s Anne Rice fever. I adore history and culture and love to read about exotic religions, so I’d done plenty of reading about creole, voodoo, slavery, gumbo and the french quarter. I thought I knew all about the place.

When we got out of the airport, something inside me knew that it was magic time- and it was. We caught a taxi to our Garden District Hotel, passing the now infamous Super Dome on the way. Our cabbie pointed little things out as we drove along, all in that rich, wonderful accent. I didn’t understand even half of what he said.

When we reached the hotel, I was struck by the leafy coolness of the streets. The streetcar tracks ran just outside and there was the most charming, run-down corner grocery right next door. All that and we hadn’t even gone inside. The hotel was nothing special, other than the amazing king-size bed. I’d never slept in a king-size bed in my life. It felt like a tiny, soft island. The window looked over a parking lot that was entirely squared in by red, brick buildings. There were people moving around in the windows. I imagined that they could see me too, but I didn’t care.

We did all the tourist-y things; ate at Antoine’s, had beignets at Cafe Du Monde, took the ghost tour and the cemetary tours. We went to the breathtaking cathedral and walked down Pirate’s Alley. I bought beads and voodoo dolls and little books about the cultural heritage of the locals. My husband ate gumbo and crab and anything else they put in front of him.

The best food we had (Sorry, Antoine.) was some sort of crawfish pasta in the mall next to the Riverwalk. (aka The Convention Center) It was creamy and spicy-hot, with just the right amount of sour cream and cheese. We liked it so much that I’ve figured out how to make a reasonable facsimile of it at home in the past three years, just through trial and error. At the same mall, we bought the dry ingredients needed to make gumbo and a little cookbook. I picked up a compilation cd of the local jazz bands.

We took fifteen or twenty pictures inside of Harrah’s. It was the first “real” casino I’d ever been in. The extent of the decor baffled and thrilled me. I hate to actually gamble, tight-fist that I am, and so I wandered from one section to another while my husband played the slot machines. A sweet older couple took our picture in front of a pirate ship. There were palm trees outside of Harrah’s. I don’t think I saw them anywhere else in the city. They looked out of place there, but somehow at home- a little chunk of California displaced.

We had forgotten to bring any clothes worth wearing, but we had recieved a Target giftcard as a wedding present, so we asked the guy at our hotel’s front desk where to find a Target. He declared there to be none in the city, but said we could take a taxi over the bridge and get to one that way. We did so. The cab got us there, but never came back to take us to our hotel again, despite promises. A friendly kid working at the store called one of his buddies, who had an “independent” cab company. The friend showed up- eighteen or nineteen years old, grinning all the way around his head and high as the stars. He was great- talked the whole way about how much he hated the city and living there, just like kids everywhere. His car broke down on a corner of Canal Street. He wasn’t too upset, actually. We gave him an extra ten and took the streetcar back to the hotel.

We stayed in New Orleans for three and a half days. There must be twenty anecdotes I could tell for each of those days. It only took half of that time to convince me that I wanted to move there immediately. It wasn’t possible to do so, and obviously it didn’t happen. Imagine if it had…

I’ve been wondering about the people we met there for the last little while; the lady that made our bed at the hotel, the crazy kid-cabbie, the waiter at Antoines, our lovably sinister ghost tour guide. I hope they all survived and are well enough, considering. I know they must be in an indescribable amount of pain. They must be, because I am just heartbroken- and it wasn’t home to me…yet.

4

hyperjes…yes, I love New Orleans, too. I don’t know if people who haven’t been there can fully appreciate what a magically place it is. It is a city like no other I’ve ever been in. You sound just like me! I have read all kinds of books about New Orleans and the history, heritage, culture, cooking and religion. One way to guarantee I will buy a book of fiction is to have it set in New Orleans. You should visit Savannah, too - if you never made it there. It’s not far from my hometown and it’s a special place in its own way, too.

edwino, you reminded me of this couple we met close to New Orleans once, when my truck broke down in Slidell. They stayed with us for hours, helping us get parts for my truck and trying to repair it. They’d been intending to go into the city for a visit before they saw us. I hope they are doing ok. They didn’t live in the city but they lived close enough to have possibly been in danger if they still lived there. Some of the nicest kids I’ve met in years. edwino, I hope you are wrong about one thing: Nor is anyone from there anymore…. The human spirit is resilent, and I get very strong feelings of courage, resilency and hope from most of the people I met in New Orleans. (especially some of the poorest residents I met…I saw so many children who obviously had nothing with the biggest smiles on their faces…dancing for crowds of people or performing in some way to get money. There were these two cute little black boys tap dancing on the sidewalk…they looked like brothers. I hope they are doing ok, too.) I hope that the residents of New Orleans do go back and remake the magic that’s lived there for so long. I would be heartbroken if it were never close to the same again.

5

From the other thread (edited to correct errors I found):

My first time in New Orleans started on July 24th, 1993. I was there to work on my friend’s film. It was a two-week shoot, and I had three hours to explore the city the whole time I was there. He was living under a house on Freret, not very far from Tulane. The basement was at street level and the house was built above it. The basement had two rooms in addition to the open storage space. He and his g/f stayed in one room, and I stayed in the ‘war room’ (which was wear they did art projects, prepared for the film, etc.) There was a separate toilet, but we used the showers in the house proper. I couldn’t believe how hot and humid New Orleans was. I fell in love with it.

The next time I was there was also to work on a film. Stayed at the Freret house again.

Other times I was there for Mardi Gras. My friend had moved over to Burgundy with his new g/f. Much nicer digs. One of my favourite things was to sit at Café do Monde sipping cafe au lait and munching on beignets while a cool breeze blew off of the river and street musicians played jazz on the sidewalk. Kaldi’s was across the street, and it was pleasant to sit at the open window with my coffee and watch the people pass by.

Checkpoint Charlie’s was a favourite hangount in the evenings. Nice and cool there in the evenings, with a breeze blowing through the open windows. Good live music and cheap beer. Didn’t even have to pay a cover, since we’d get in before cover-charge time. And the burgers there were really good. Checkpoint Charlie’s always amused me because if also contained a small laundromat. Sometimes we’d go to The R Bar.

The Clover Grill at Bourbon and Dumaine was a great place to grab a bite. They cooked their burgers under hubcaps. A cheeseburger with a side of hashbrowns always hit the spot. There was a French bakery staffed by Vietnamese not to far away from there, and I liked the pastries.

My friend’s g/f worked at ‘The Famous Historical Court Of Two Sisters’. One Mardi Gras we made a sign that read ‘Heinous Hysterical’ and put it over the ‘Famous Historical’ part of the sign.

Surprisingly, I’m not actually the least romantically successful person on these boards. but I think I’m close. But I was at a party at the Burgundy house and met a girl. We went to a pauper’s cemetery and then went to her place for sex. Best oral sex I’ve ever had. And the intercourse was great, too.

The Krewe Of Cosmic Debris parades. Who wouldn’t like them? I always joined in when I was in town for Mardi Gras. It was unspeakably fun! I never sussed out bringing an instrument, so I’d find a beer can and some discarded beads for an improvised musical instrument.

Walking around Algiers. Cool.

Visiting the tomb of Marie Laveau. And Marie Laveau’s House Of Voodoo. And the Voodoo Museum.

Eating alligator-onna-stick with local hot sauce.

I still have the cheap-ass pair of tortoise shell shades I picked up at the French Market.

Thai food on Esplanade.

Neutral Ground.

Meeting up with my mom and taking her for a drink somewhere on Bourbon Street. Imagine taking your mom to Bourbon Street! :eek:

Riding the trolly from the Freret house to the French Quarter.

So many pleasant memories. Though I don’t like hot, humid weather, New Orleans is my favourite town. Good food, good music, cheap beer. And the spirit of the New Orleanians I met was fun.

Favourite sayings from New Orleans:
[ul]li New Orleans. Third World, and proud of it![/li][li](Another T-shirt) It’s not the heat. It’s the stupidity.[/li]li If you can’t make it in New Orleans, don’t leave![/ul][/li]
…

I’ve been telling my friends ho much I wanted to go back to New Orleans for years. (It’s been about eight years since my last visit.) We’re talking about opening a new studio in Los Angeles. (This has been put on hold until we make a film.) In one of the many conversations with my partner New Orleans came up. He said, ‘Well, why not open the new studio there? We don’t have to go to L.A.’ I told him how horrid the summers are, and he countered that there is such a thing as air conditioning. The idea is intriguing, really; but I think L.A. would be better for the business than LA.

But we were thinking of maybe taking a holiday there soon. Neither he nor his SO have been there, and I’d like to reconnect with old friends and enjoy the city. I was thinking about how cool it would be if I just took off for a road trip in the MGB when I get it back, stopping at New Orleans for a week on my way to Cape Canaveral. I was looking forward to adding new memories to my old ones. Looks as if it may be a while now. :frowning:

…

Muffalettas! I remember my first one. It was in the Burgundy house near the Quarter. I don’t know where it came from, but it was delivered. Hot. (You can eat them hot or cold, and I like 'em hot.) Unbelievably good. The only thing I don’t recall is the bread. It’s supposed to be a round Italian loaf, but there’s a ‘glitch’ in my memory that tells me they might have used focaccia. I have a few jars of Muffaletta salad (from Trader Joe’s) in the cupboard. I should hunt down the proper meats, the cheese, and a loaf of Italian bread. (But I’ll wait for my friends to get back from out of town so they can help me eat it.)

About deliveries. My friend and his g/f would order stuff from a local market. (This was at the Burgundy house again.) ‘We’d like an oyster po’boy, a shrimp-and-oyster po’boy, a vegetarian po’boy, and three chips. Oh, and a pack of cigarettes and a six-pack of beer.’ Yeah, they delivered beer and smokes. How very civilised! :slight_smile:

6

The only time I was in NO as an adult, my wife and I took the train from Houston (where we’d spent Christmas with family) to spend a few days (including New Year’s) before flying home.

It certainly was the best sounding and best smelling city I’d ever been to in the States. I don’t remember the names of the places we ate, but it was all delicious. We went to Mardi Gras World, where they store lots of the massive floats. It was pretty amazing, and I can’t help but wonder what’s happened to it now.

It was a very casual time, with lots of wandering and relaxing around the FQ (where we were staying), browsing through shops and sitting in cafes reading, talking, etc.

But the highlights were dinner & music, the first night at a small hole-in-the-wall called Donna’s Bar & Grill on Rampart, where the place was packed and rocking (Bob French & co. were there) with classic old school NO jazz. The next night, we went to Funky Butt down the road to watch Jason Marsalis and ring in the New Year. It was a little crazy walking back because of the crowds but knew that was what made NO so unique.

No real plan or itinerary–just a fun, relaxing, indulgent 48 hours.

Here’s hoping it’s not the last visit we’ll make to the Big Easy.

7

I’ve been there in August. :stuck_out_tongue:

Ah, the smell of rotting vegetation and garbage! Three-inch flying cockroaches! Oh, the magic!

(But it’s still my favourite city.)

8

Well, New Orleans and I have a long, mostly wonderful history. My family’s always gone down there for vacations, since I was a little kid. We have(Yes, have, it’s still standing) an apartment on St. Charles that my parents bought when my oldest sister was a sophomore at Tulane. Then the real estate market went bust, and they never bothered to sell it.

And that’s where my history with the city really ramps up. When I was seventeen, my parents, God love them, let me spend a month down there alone. And I didn’t do anything. I should mention that Copeland’s is catty-corner to the apartment. I was a real tightwad in high school. I worked at the Hermann-Grima house at the corner of Bourbon and St. Louis. Every morning I’d take the streetcar all the way down the line to Canal then I’d walk down Bourbon to St. Louis. And I loved it. I spent my free time eating. Camellia Grill. Rocky’s Pizza. Even Popeye’s fried chicken tastes better down there.
New Orleans will always seem a little like home to me.
-Lil