New Orleans, Part 2

Music

"pLink Floyd" at Music Legends Park

When I was last in New Orleans, I remember walking up and down Bourbon Street in the evenings and hearing incredible live music from so many different venues, good jazz music. That is a thing of the past. Bourbon Street is now mostly taken over by bars playing rock music in an attempt to entice the drunks. There are a few exceptions, but that's the rule. The more serious jazz clubs have moved off of Bourbon to the edge of the Quarter.

Street musician in astronaut suit.
I have no explanation for it.

There's a place still on Bourbon Street called Music Legends Park, an open air space with seats and tables with performing musicians all day long and into the evening. We stopped by there several times. Preservation Hall is still open, but they do three shows per night in the evenings to packed, standing room only crowds. Consequently, the best and most accessible music in the Quarter is from street musicians. They work for tips and they all have CDs for sale, of course.

The woman front/left was singing.  Beautiful voice.

The Royal Street Gum Scrapers
These guys were fun and had a great sound.
I got their homemade CD.
One can only hope and assume that they will use their
earnings for more piercings and tattoos.

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Architecture

After the fire, during Spanish rule, building codes required brick,
which was generally covered over with stucco.  The invention of cast iron
allowed for fancier railings and largely replaced the wrought iron.

This house was typical of the pre-fire, French buildings.
This property was rebuilt after the fire but before the new
building codes were enacted that required brick.

The best walking tour in town is done by the State Historical Society.  They have a storefront on Jackson Square. 

It is history and architecture, and overall the best flavor of the city tour I have done, both times I've been in New Orleans.  The guides are local volunteers and they really know their stuff. 


The groups are small.  Ours would have been 10 or 12, but two guides showed up so they split it in half and we had a very small group. 

You can't talk about architecture in the French Quarter without talking about history. 

One of the Pentalbo buildings, the oldest apartment building in the U.S., flanking Jackson Square.
A magnificent Live Oak tree sprawls from Jackson Square towards the building.
There is an absolutely wild story behind the woman who built this after getting a legal separation from her husband in France after her father-in-law shot her repeatedly.  She survived but he succeeded in killing himself.  A great story of a "traditional" marriage. 

Lafayette # 1

Cemeteries

Cemetery tours are big in New Orleans and once again we went with a volunteer-based, non-profit group called Save Our Cemeteries.  This tour took us to Lafayette #1 in the Garden District, and it was interesting and informative.  Most everyone says that the reason for above ground burials was due to the high water table, but this guide said it was really more of a cultural holdover from the French population than anything else.  In fact there are in-ground burials and the above ground tradition continued even when cemeteries were built on higher ground. 

St. Louis #3

The cemeteries in the older parts of the city fell into ruin because many families built tombs in the newer cemetery out in Metarie.  Burials were as much about location and being seen in the right place even after death, and having a fancy house (tomb) to show off in perpetuity. 

Lafayette #1

Our city bus tour stopped at St. Louis # 3, which is huge and extremely well maintained compared to the older cemeteries. 

The tombs have architectural styles just like the houses that reflect when they were built as well as the social status of the inhabitants. 















Miscellany

A house made of stucco over brick.
The tall narrow shuttered openings can be doors or windows.
The wider entryway on the right would have been for carriages.

We did a pleasant river cruise aboard the steamboat Natchez

Here's a few final pics that I liked and wanted to include.

Another swamp pic. 
Look closely for three turtles on the log in the foreground.
(You can enlarge any picture by double clicking on it.)

The courtyards behind the houses are beautiful spaces.
This was behind the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum.

My mother sharing a bench with a permanent resident.