Do You Know What It Means, To Miss New Orleans
By myself now, Rob to his classes in Montgomery, and me onward to the Cresent City.
The sights and sounds from my table at Cafe Du Monde still feel the same. Visitors crowd every table, brushing powdered sugar off of themselves, the city anthem “Oh When the Saints Go Marching In” playing mournfully on a horn in the distance. The sun is shining bright today, the air is cool and to me the French Quarter still looks much the same as it always has. There are actually fewer panhandlers than I remember, but fewer street musicians too, and far fewer street vendors… there’s not one frozen man in Jackson Sq!
Cafe du Monde, by the way, has my favorite coffee on the planet. It has a mellow, almost rooty taste, which comes from the addition of chicory to the blend. Originally, this was ‘included’ as a cut as there was an embargo on coffee at some point in the Napoleonic era in France, and apparently in New Orleans too. When the embargo ended, the rest of the world went back to plain ol’ coffee, where the populace of New Orleans, in must have grown on, and now they don’t want their coffee without it! Me either.
Just so that it doesn’t keep coming up as I write here, let me just address my impressions pre and post Katrina. Whats different: the French Market (voodoo market), is mostly still gone. It looks like they are working on it and the surrounding streets, but be warned, its a bit more difficult to find your plethora of hot sauces and voodoo dolls than it used to be. Hopefully, all the jackhammering means that it will be up and full of vendors pretty soon. What else: there are little signs everywhere of rebuilding: a peek of scaffolding through the garden gates, a storefront with construction fencing around it. And the back end of the quarter has become even more charmingly delapidated. But remember, that faded rotting grandeur is part of the mystique, so its not such a bad thing. There is a reason, after all, that people associate this area with vampires.
Maybe the biggest difference is the change to the populous. It is not unusual to see an Asian or Latino face walking down the street or showing you that pretty dress in the window. I have always gotten the impression that this city clutched its ancestral heritage fiercely, and your stock was counted without remorse by how many generations of your line could call New Orleans, and the delta region home. Outsiders are treated very well, but always have remained outsiders – whether from China or Texas. Clearly this brand of self pride and community has had to rethink itself, as even now, only 330k of the cities 500k residents have returned. Somebody needs to be doing the day to day jobs in the city to keep the place alive and well, and immigrants are coming in all shapes and sizes. New faces seem actively welcome for the first time maybe since the french commander sent for the first female residents to join the men in the region during the colonial era. I personally view this with both a smile and a wistfulness, as diversity is great, and was probably one of the cities big problems before, but with diversity comes a watering down of what was so uniquely found in this area. Just like everything… you can always say “ah, when back 20 years ago the place was REALLY cool”.
So, back to my whereabouts on Day 0.5 and 1 of my stay in New Orleans. I’ll start with driving into the city, which is super simple from Pensacola, but you get dumped off of I-10 in an area with a shade of sketchiness, and then, even as familiar as I am with the city in my half dozen visits, I still got turned around and discombobulated by one way streets. During the daylight it would have been a cinch. As it was only about 9:30pm thanks to the time change, which Rob and I had forgotten about in Pensacola (it is so odd, driving and 5 minutes later being in a different ‘time’…somehow flights make this acceptable, but driving it is always weirder), I dropped off my bags at my hotel, the Prytania Park and went up a few blocks on the streetcar to the Columns Hotel for an outside nightcap, and an introduction to the city. I just love this place, its this greek revival mansion on St. Charles St, where they filmed a child Brooke Shields in Little Baby, which has a great veranda, and a bar that looks like it comes out of “the Shining” repleat with tuxedo wearing bartenders. You can actually stay here too, if you want to book far enough in advance, but I hear its haunted. Anyhow, it was a nice cocktail, but then true exhaustion set in and I headed the short distance back to the hotel. Which I will recommend, by the way. Location is so so (convenient, but not in the nice part of the garden district), but cute cute hotel in a collection of old houses, with super comfie bed.
Aside from my brief trip to Cafe du Monde, today is my garden district/uptown day. All I can say is that if you are a fan of beautiful neighborhoods and architecture, walking around the upper garden district is amazing. Even after my feet hurt and back is so done, I still walk on. It is, in my humble opinion, one of the prettiest neighborhoods in the world.. a mix of Greek revivial mansions and victorian creole shotgun cottages all surrounded by old brick sidewalks, hidden statuary, live oaks and spanish moss, and an almost unstoppable greenery which grows from every crevice. Grand and elegant, but still accessible and real, it is home to both eccentric millionaires, and post collegiate roommates.
Wandering down Colesium St, near the cemetary full of raised crypts, everything feels ancient and slow moving. The brick sidewalks are jostled, their herringbone pattern mangled by the tree roots fighting for the space over many decades. The smell of the flowers, jasmine among them, is overwhelming here too – almost sickly sweet and adds to the aura of opulent rottenness that surrounds the city.
After 4 hours of walking around the garden districts and the shopping district at Magazine street, I hop back on the St. Charles Street Car ($1.25) and head to where St. Charles ends and the street car is about to abruptly, severely turn right, 2 minutes later I find myself in Cooter Browns, home of my favorite muffalata (yes, New Orleans is all about architecture, ghosts, vampires and food for me). Its a sports bar, but don’t be fooled, absolutely fabulous muffalata in all its Italian cold cutty, olive tapenady goodness. Yum Yum Yum. I know Central Grocery in the French Quarter is supposed to be the authority, but I beg to differ. Yum Yum Yum. I feel almost sick. Way too much.
Things I did:
Columns Hotel, 3811 St. Charles Ave. Great cocktail bar, nice porch too.
Cooter Browns Tavern & Oyster Bar. 509 S. Carollton Ave. Muffallata goodness.
Prytania Park Hotel. 1525 Prytania St. 504-524-0427. Inexpensive, and a bargain for what you get, like a streamlined bed and breakfast without the lace doilies, and without the breakfast.
Tags: Cafe du Monde, Columns Hotel, Deep South USA, French Quarter, Garden District., New Orleans, Road trip, Street car, USA, Tag Index
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