New Orleans

Posted on November 15, 2015

On November of 2015, we decided to take an impromptu getaway to New Orleans and we had a ball. What a place.

It was impossible to visit without staying up much too late, drinking too much and listening to very late night Jazz, so that is exactly what we did.

We managed to snag a hotel a block away from the French Quarter on Carondelet Street just across Canal Street, so we were spared the all night partiers but close enough that we could come and go as we pleased, so we got into the habit of staying out very late and sleeping in even later.

The French Quarter

The French Quarter in New Orleans is one of the oldest neighbourhoods in the city and it’s where we wanted to stay.

Established in 1718, this neighbourhood has everything from the party vibe of Bourbon Street to the elegance of Royal Street. I particularly enjoyed the stunning architecture with balconies adorned with intricate ironwork to the beautiful half hidden gardens and courtyards.

Located in the heart of the French Quarter, Bourbon Street, was laid out in 1721. While the original architecture along the street reflected its French roots, Spanish-style buildings replaced them following a fire in 1794. Bourbon Street was then designed as a residential street, conveniently located near the centre of the Big Easy. Over the next two centuries, it evolved into the entertainment district it is today, with jazz clubs, bars, restaurants, and strip clubs all along the street.

It became known as the nightlife epicentre of the city, offering people of all backgrounds a place to let loose, listen to live music, and partake in the celebrations of New Orleans. Today, Bourbon Street may cater to tourists more than locals, but it remains one of the most iconic streets in the world for a reason.

Starting from Canal Street, the first seven blocks of Bourbon Street are perhaps the most well-known. As soon as you cross over from Canal Street, you’ll see bars on every corner, neon lights, people greeting you from balconies, and drinks in the hands of happy customers. I spotted more then a couple of topless ladies wandering by also. The streets are packed with people catching up with friends and socializing. Music was everywhere. It was so much fun.

The intersection of St. Ann Street and Bourbon Street is known as The Lavender Line, marking the beginning of a strip dedicated to the LGBTQIA+ community. These lower blocks of Bourbon St. are home to gay dance clubs, drag queen street performances and even the oldest gay bar in America.

It was when we walked by this block that our visit got interesting. One of the Drag Queens stopped us and Yim wanted to go, so we bought some tickets and enjoyed a really fun night at the Bourbon Pub Parade.

Before the show, we had dinner at Acme Oyster House and enjoyed the best char broiled oysters we’ve ever tasted. Just off Bourbon Street, Acme is a timeless New Orleans establishment, popular with locals for generations. A vintage slice of New Orleans life in a casual, down-home atmosphere.

But for the most part, we enjoyed the street musicians and entertainers along the way as much as we did the in-house musicians in the bars. We also wandered into a few very late night joints along Decatur Street and discovered some well aged jazz musicians jamming away until sunrise.

On another night, we wandered further downtown and passed the New Orleans Voodoo Museum on our way to Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop.

This was our favourite Bourbon Street haunt. Lafitte’s operates out of the oldest buildings that has served as a bar and it looked the part. The walls are all moldering stone and wood, although the scene is pretty modern:. There’s a piano bar and excellent music.

Between 1772 and 1791, the property is believed to have been used by the Lafitte Brothers, Jean and Pierre as a New Orleans base for their smuggling operation. The legend is based on the fact that the property was owned by the family of Simon Duroche and the wily privateer Captain Rene Beluche. Although the owners of the property, Jean Baptiste Dominica Joly LaPorte probably lived on the premises, it is within reason that the Lafittes could have used the place as city base for negotiations with potential buyers of their goods. It is unlikely that a wealthy Creole would agree to meet at home on Royal Street and the Bourbon Street and St. Phillip location was probably regarded as a safe and convenient neutral ground.

Like most New Orleans legends, Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop is a gumbo of truth and French, Spanish, African, Cajun and American embellishments and now, good music.

The Laura Plantation

The Laura Plantation has a rich and unique history, from the home itself to the stories of the women who ran it.

As you walk through the house, banana grove, garden, and slave quarters, you’ll catch a glimpse of the plantation as it would have looked over 200 years ago, complete with furnishings of the period and photos of its original residents. Laura Plantation represents the many different cultural influences at play in Louisiana during this time period: initially the plantation was built and run by a French Creole family, and was later turned over to a German family, who ran it for nearly 100 years.

Stories told by a West African freedmen working on the plantation in the 1870’s, “Compair Lapin & Compair Bouki”, known in English as “Tales of Br’er Rabbit,” were recorded in the original 1840s slave cabins.

The land on which Laura plantation stands was originally owned by André Neau, who obtained it through a French royal land grant in 1755. In the early 1800s, the plantation became the property of the Duparc family and was divided between two family members in 1876. The house continued in the hands of Duparc-Locoul heirs until 1891, when Duparc-Locoul descendant Laura Locoul sold the property to A. Florian Waguespack. A condition of the sale was that the plantation and house continue to be called “Laura”. Constructed c.1805, the main house at Laura has a raised brick basement story and a briquette-entre-poteaux upper floor. The house is special because of its Federal style interior woodwork and Norman roof truss. In Louisiana, far more Creole houses with Greek Revival woodwork have survived than have those showing Federal influence.

When you arrive you can expect a 75-minute tour from a very knowledgeable guide. Your tour will take you through the basement, and up to the living quarters as you hear about the family’s troubled past. As you walk through the house, your guide will take you on a journey through four generations of this Creole family, both free and enslaved. After exploring the house, you’ll be guided through the mansion’s beautiful gardens and banana grove to the original slave quarters.

Laura Plantation has taken great care in not only renovating the grounds, but also uncovering the true (and at times, devastating) history of the plantation’s family and slaves. You’ll hear all sides of the story, thoughtfully and respectfully recounted on this 200 year-old sugar farm.

It’s a history that we had trouble hearing and seeing but it was an interesting day.

St. Louis Cemetery No. 1

In this storied “City of the dead,” elaborate, crumbling above-ground graves hint at the stories of the larger-than-life personalities entombed within.

St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 attracts more than 100,000 visitors each year. Some come to see the final resting place for Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau, while others come to tend the graves of loved ones interred within. Still, others come to experience the city’s living history via a stroll through its oldest cemetery.

Above-ground burials are just one of New Orleans’ idiosyncrasies, but they don’t exist solely for the sake of uniqueness. The city’s high water table makes in-ground burials impossible — a coffin buried underground simply floats back up to the top.

Once located at the marshy city limits, St. Louis Cemetery is now near the center of the city, thanks to the draining of the swamps, which permitted people to settle beyond the French Quarter.

One of the first things you’ll see when you enter St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 is a bank of “Oven Vaults” to your left. These tombs stack grave sites, filing them cabinet style, one above the other. Glance at the ground and you’ll see some graves are only partially visible — the rest are below the earth, evidence that New Orleans is gradually sinking.

Many oven vaults house the remains of countless family members. After a body is interred, it is left undisturbed in the grave for a period of one year and one day. At that point, the remains are pushed to the back of the tomb, where there is an empty space where the remains fall, leaving room for another body to be interred.

If you would like to be buried in this famous graveyard, you can make it happen, but it’s going to cost you.

City Park

For over 170 years, New Orleans City Park has provided access to abundant natural and cultural resources, connecting Southeast Louisiana residents and visitors to the region’s most-iconic park – with something for everyone. The Park is home to the New Orleans Botanical Garden, Couturie Forest and Arboretum, the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Louisiana Children’s Museum, and the largest grove of mature live oaks in the world, some of which are nearly 800 years old.

There is also the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden which houses 90 sculptures by world-renowned artists.

Glass blown orbs hanging in the Live Oak Trees, covered in Spanish moss made this outing a delight.

Louis Armstrong Park

Named to commemorate the talented New Orleans jazz musician, Louis Armstrong Park occupies 31 acres just outside of the Vieux Carré and contains the historic Congo Square and the Mahalia Jackson Theater for the Performing Arts. In 1994, the site was chosen by the National Park Service to become home to the New Orleans Jazz National Historic Park. Following Hurricane Katrina, the site was neglected for six years until reopening in 2011.

The entrance to the park features an iconic white metal arch, which was executed in the Postmodernist style and is reminiscent of the entryway of Tivoli Gardens. This gate opens to a wide axis that bisects the earlier and more recent sections of the site, with Congo Square to the south and the 1980 park addition lying to the north. Subsidiary gates, axes, and paths lead to the center of this addition. Ornately designed bridges, tree-lined promenades, and sculptural elements punctuate a weaving man-made lagoon. The park features sculptures of Louis Armstrong and Mahalia Jackson by sculptor Elizabeth Catlett.

There was a weekend long jazz fetival happening while we were in New Orleans so we spent an entire day listening to a variety of musicians.

The Creole Queen

We ended the visit listening to Grammy Winning Dixie while dancing on the bow of a traditional tMississippi Queen Steamboat, The Creole Queen, New Orleans’ most luxurious riverboat.

Then it was off home.