The red Xs are, I believe, universally used during catastrophies, indicating the house has been checked for survivors, the numbers indicate how many non-survivors are (now, were) inside.
It’s the only place I’ve had them.
Metal, “U” shaped taps are secured to the heel and toe of the shoes.
I didn’t notice the horses being unmannerly. It could be, they lost the more experienced horses in Katrina. They are big, because they are a big breed. :dubious:
The Mardi Gras spirit lives year round in New Orleans.
A picayune is a small coin that was used during the Spanish colonial days. It’s also the name of a town in Mississippi, and is a word that means “something insignificant, or of little value”.
I have no idea which meaning is the source of the local newspaper name (Times-Picayune).
Some of it has been answered but what the hell, my wife and I went to college in New Orleans and my little brother is a Baton Rouge police officer that has some post-Katrina work.
This one has been explained to me a couple of times but I can’t find a cite. They did house to house searches after Katrina. There is a mark that shows that the house had been entered, the date, and the number of bodies found inside. There might be some other information too.
Those beans are awesome. I used to eat them when I was a bartender. I have only seen them in New Orleans and they are fairly expensive. They are like $9 a jar. I bought some on a trip to take back a few years ago.
They have little tappers attached.
New Orleans police have many problems but they are some of the world’s finest units for crowd control. They have to move thousands of people at a time around during Mardi Gras and some weekends on Bourbon Street. The horses are well-trained to be somewhat aggressive in herding people. I have never seen one do anything it wasn’t asked to do though.
As was said, the only day there isn’t some Mardi Gras in New Orleans is probably the first few hours of Ash Wednesday when they force everyone out of the streets of the French Quarter using a V formation of police and equipment. The rest of the time bars or open and usually quite lively 24/7. A clever person can make a beads for tits exchange in many places at any time.
It is such a great and unique city. I hope it hangs in there.
Here’s another question about New Orleans I thought of after watching the movie “Skeleton Key”.
Why are there many plantation homes in New Orleans? I know that in many states there are plantations because of agriculture but I was wondering what agriculture there was around New Orleans? Isn’t there a lot of swamp around New Orleans or is this just a misconception? Are there some large mansions in the middle of these swamps or is this just a movie thing?
Most of the very large plantations aren’t in New Orleans but they are within a reasonable drive for day trips. Not all of South Louisiana is swamp although there are several huge swamps that take up a lot of land and there are millions of acres of wetlands as you approach the Gulf of Mexico.
There is a whole string of plantations on the River Road that runs about from New Orleans to Baton Rouge.. Those were (are) real plantations that centered around agriculture fueled by slave labor. Louisiana has some excellent farm land and it can be lucrative. The crops that built the plantations were commonly cotton and sugar cane. Soy beans and rice also grow well there. Plantations of that type are scattered all over the state.
What you may be referring to are New Orleans mansions that have roughly the same architecture as some of the plantation houses. Many of those were built by affluent people in the Garden District and uptown areas. The city has been there since the 1700’s so they didn’t build them in the sticks. It was just the best residential land in the city in the mid to late 1800’s. There are hundreds of glorious houses in the area and the idea was just as simple as it is today. People with tons of money built gigantic houses clustered together in the same neighborhoods. New Orleans is a generally poor city but it has always had a large, very rich population even up to today. The people that built these houses generally got their money with something associated with the POrt of New Orleans. THere was vast wealth going up and down the Mississippi River and people found ways to capitalize on it.
I used to work in a mansion like you may be referrring to. It is one of St. Charles Ave. most stunning houses now the Columns Hotel. The man that built that 19 bedroom home with a full-sized ballroom, a commercial sized bar and everything else made his money in the international cigar trade.
Walking with my gf and her 4 best friends, I began singing, “I’m walkin’ through New Orleans” and they all echoed back each line without any prompting.
Being thrown out of The Dungeon.
Dozing off in a taxi, and waking up to the driver saying, “black pussy, white pussy, yella pussy, all pussy is good to me”. (One of my gf’s buddies asked him and he answered.)
I didn’t know that was possible. Does it still open at midnight? If you try to find the entrance the next day, you will find that the whole thing was simply a dream. That warms my heart. My wife went down a few weeks ago for business but she didn’t party much. If things like the Dungeon are open, at least the core is still there.
Shagnasty, The Dungeon is up and running. In fact, the French Quater as a whole is in great shape. It (Dungeon) opens at midnight, and the location of the bathrooms is a howl. A bouncer didn’t like the way my gf’s friend was kicking her leg up over my head. He said it was dangerous. The whole idea about The Dungeon worrying about someone getting hurt was so funny, and I guess I got in the bouncer’s face a bit over it.
Operation Ripper, I had never been to NO before this trip and I knew nothing about the town. Honest questions. What would make you think I was being disingenuous?
Because it is freakin’ hot there. Really. Thick stone/masonry walls and high ceilings made a house much cooler in the pre-AC days. So if you could possibly swing the financial end, that is how you built your house.
Another question - what is the purpose of the metals disks bolted onto the sidewalks? They are about 3 inches in diameter and stamped IIRC “Pat. Pend.” and NOLA. They were spaced a fairly regular intervals, every 6-8 feet or so, in the area just west of the French Quarter. I can’t find any reference to them.
in reference to 1).
The number of the search team is part of the code. In my neighborhood, you can see the search progression as the numbers change. Team 12 was at it on one end, 13 in the middle, 11 down by the canal, etc.
I have heard so many “official” descriptions of the rest of the numbers I hesitate to repeat them. One thing I know for sure, it is a good thing to have a 0 in there somewhere…
