What Goes On In The French Quarter When You're Not There?

When people think of the French Quarter, what do they think of? Mardi Gras. Bourbon Street. Bars and strip clubs, alcohol, women showing skin for plastic bead throws. Or maybe French Quarter Fest, Jazz bands playing on stages set up on the streets (Jazz bands, by the way, that are not the bands that play in the Quarter every day that is NOT French Quarter Fest; the one above, playing near the Courthouse, is a band that plays here when it is NOT French Quarter fest). Or maybe people have come here for a convention, or a cruise, and think of the Quarter as a stopping-off point to have a drink on their way to the next event.

I admit that when I used to winter in NOLA, I'd get a place to stay close to the Quarter. I'd play on Royal Street, and when the season was over I'd leave town and head off to Georgia or Texas for renaissance faires. I knew nothing of the rest of the city. It really never occurred to me that there was more of the city. Later, when I worked for Carnival Cruise Lines and we docked near the Riverwalk, I would leave the ship by nine AM and head to Bourbon Street for some French Quarter amusement. Even the Riverwalk seemed like a strange, foreign place, nearly a mile from the Quarter.

So when I got involved with a girl a few years back who lived Uptown, I eyed her with trepidation. “You live in New Orleans...Uptown? You don't live in the French Quarter?” My mind could not even grasp this concept!

Now I myself live Uptown, though I spend a lot of my time in the French Quarter. I know a lot about the whole city. But the French Quarter is, for many people, the gateway to New Orleans. When I speak to people who have come here for Mardi Gras or French Quarter Fest, they are often curious about what goes on in the Quarter when they're not there.

Let's take a little trip through the French Quarter on an average weekday, when no special event is going on. We'll start at Frenchmen Street and Decatur, where stands a French Quarter landmark, the Old U. S. Mint.

This amazing building was a branch of the United States Mint (the folks who bring you the coins in your pockets!) from 1838 to 1861. It closed during the Civil War, but reopened from 1879 to 1909. In the few years before the Civil War, the coins minted here were CSA, rather than USA coins. (Collectors love the New Orleans Morgan Dollars, marked with an "O" mint mark). The building is now part of the Louisiana State Museum. One of its functions is to have brass band concerts on its lawns.

 Down Decatur just a bit is the Old Ursulines Convent, which the Parks Department calls "the finest example of French Colonial architecture in America."

The Ursuline Nuns were some of the first French women to arrive in New Orleans, sent by King Louis XV in 1727. They ran a hospital, taught the daughters of Noble families, and ministered to the native women. They'd built a smaller convent when they arrived, but moved into this incredible building in 1751, and stayed there until the 1820s (the Ursuline Nuns now have a convent and a school Uptown close to where I live). The convent is still used by the Church, and houses Saint Mary Cathedral; the street it stands on is still called Ursulines Street.

Above is a detail of the Saint Mary Cathedral.

The nuns gained a bit of a reputation in the 1700s when they brought French women to New Orleans as brides for wealthy French colonists. The women would arrive after six weeks at sea in an awful state, pale and disheveled, carrying coffin-sized steamer trunks. Word soon got out that the nuns were bringing vampires to the city to drain the aristocratic blood of French nobles! The local bishop apparently led a mob to the convent, volunteered to go in alone, and came out a few hours later claiming he had destroyed the vampires. This story is how the city got its vampire reputation.

Across Charters Street from the convent is the Beauregard Mansion with its stately courtyard. Beauregard was a highly decorated Confederate Civil War general (down here we call it the War of Northern Aggression).

Our most spectacular cathedral is the Saint Louis Cathedral, right up Decatur Sreet in Jackson Square. It has the distinction of being the oldest operating cathedral in the United States.

Here is Saint Louis Cathedral as seen from Jackson Square.

Here are the grounds.

The cathedral is open daily to visitors. Let's peek inside.

Cool, huh?

When we cross Decatur, watch out for the insane drivers. There are plenty of F^#*ing cars driving at any moment up and down Decatur Street. The cabs are the worst. But there are also two other modes of transportation worth noting.

The first is bicycles. Most of my busker friends live farther downtown, in the Lower Ninth ward or the Saint Claude area. They come to work in the Quarter every day on their bicycles, an instrument strapped to their back.

"Wait a minute! I have a bicycle too," you say. "Doesn't everybody?" Well here there is an entire bike culture. In fact we call the downtown females "bicycle girls." We have a store called Plan B: they'll help you make your own bike. It's an identity as well as a mode of transportation here. On any day in the Quarter, every gate, fence and column has a dozen or so bikes chained to it. It's how we roll. Really!

But OK, you're still unimpressed. You have a bicycle too. Maybe you even ride it to work every morning. Maybe you even love your bike with a New Orleanean passion. But do you have one of these?

I didn't think so... Yes, we use mules, all over the city. They draw carriages for tourists. They draw candy vendor carts. They draw floats for parades. They've even been involved in a wedding or two. And they're damn cute! Look at that face... All over the Quarter you find troughs of water for these critters. We love our mules. Next time you come down take a mule carriage tour. The drivers are the best tour guides in the city (aside from moi).

By the way, a mule is male. Do you know what a female mule is called? Maybe I'll tell you some time...

On our way from Ursulines to Jackson Square we run into our first of many street performers. This one has what nearly all street performers around here have: a dog. And his dog has puppies. I made the mistake of calling my girlfriend over to see them. I highly recommend not doing this, by the way...

Stop staring at the puppies. Let's head over to Jackson Square.

We love our history here in New Orleans. This cannon was fired in the War of 1812, the War of Northern Aggression (that would be the Civil War), and the Mexican American War. It now guards the river.

Below the cannon is this cool sign. The first riverboat to navigate the Ohio-Mississippi weighed anchor right here! I knew you would be utterly impressed.

In Jackson Square is a "human statue" street performer. They're pretty much all over the Quarter. I just like this human statue best of them all. I imagine you can figure out why that is...

The day I was down here, there happened to be a Mardi Gras Indian showing off his mask for tips (mask, you may remember from my previous Blogs, is the word for the entire costume). These costumes cost a LOT of money to construct. Some indians show off their current mask to make money to create their next mask. If you read my previous Blog, you'll know that this is a Flag Boy.

Let's head up to Royal Street next, passing the statue of Saint Joan, patroness saint of New Orleans, which we call Joanie On A Pony...

She stands over the French Market. A lot of bands play here. It's the only place in the FQ where bands need a permit to set up and play. I passed this band as I crossed Decatur under Joanie.

By the way, a female mule is a jenny. Let's head up to Royal.

Royal Street is lined with art galleries. Here are my friends playing Old Timey Fiddle outside the Blue Dog Gallery, home of local-painter-done-good George Rodrigue.

The fiddle player, Lyle, is also in a band with myself and singer Stephanie Mitchell. A lot of musicians down here, myself included, play in several bands. That way we work as often as possible.

Royal Street is closed off every day to auto traffic, and becomes a pedestrian mall. For that reason, many busking bands play here, as you can play right in the street and gather a good crowd. Here are my friends the Yes Ma'am Band playing at Royal and Toulouse.

Dizzy is an awesome washboard player, and is in great demand by several local bands. Washboard is our preferred rhythm instrument: easy to carry, easy to play, and with a sound unique to Cajun, early Jazz, and to String Band music. Most bands down here have a washboard (few players are as good as Dizzy though). Note the requisite dog at Dizzy's feet...every busker has one.

Elena is every bit as good a fiddler as me, and I do NOT say things like that lightly. She also dresses to match her bow. Nick on the banjo is also in a band with my buddy Hank. They are about the funniest band I know. I wish I could be as funny as Nick and Hank when they play. Yes Ma'am, while really good, is not very funny.

One bock down from Yes Ma'am, at Royal and Saint Phillip, is the Royal J band. They play early Jazz, and they have professional dancers accompanying them. The male dancer is also their singer.

The banjo player is Joseph, and yea, we're in a couple of bands together. I also used to be in a band with the drummer.

The female dancer also teaches swing dance classes at a couple of clubs around town, including the Spotted Cat on Frenchmen. You should check it out!

Before we leave the Quarter, we should walk down to the river. Here is one of my favorite statues along the river, representing the immigrant spirit. My grandfather came to America in about 1910, at the age of nine. I think of him when I see this...

This is the other end of the statue, the spirit guiding the immigrants to American shores.

And finally, a dog, belonging to a busker friend of mine. Yes, they all have one.

From the French Quarter in New Orleans, this is Kenny Klein explaining it all.

New Orleans cemeteries: what your tour guide didn't tell you

Along with such institutions as Jazz, muffulettas, nutria, drunken vomiting and football fanaticism, New Orleans is known for its cemeteries. Ornate and Gothic, these resting places are unique among American cemeteries in their attraction of tourists and locals. I cannot think of any other American city where a cemetery is typically on a tour guide's agenda.

Our cemeteries are architectural and artistic marvels. NOLA corpses are usually entombed above ground rather than below, so they don't rise up and float away in floods. The work of the city's finest builders and sculptors make up our boneyards. Sadly, even above ground interment in splendid tombs doesn't always help the dead stay put, and in some of our cemeteries the deceased are nearly as present as the living, physically as well as spiritually.

The cemeteries most visitors to the city take the time to see are the very famous Saint Louis Cemeteries #1 and #2 (photo right). These are close to the French Quarter, and are some of the city's oldest. There are well known graves there: Marie Laveau, Jean LaFitte and other infamous and notable past New Orleaneans are interred in these locations. Their graves are a favorite destination of tour guides, mule carriage drivers and Goth chicks.

But most visitors never see the less than perfect cemeteries, or for that matter, the lovely ones that are a bit farther off the beaten track. I happened to acquire a new (to me) digital camera a few weeks ago, and decided to take it for a spin around some of the most obscure New Orleans cemeteries. I thought I'd share my little photographic tour with you, starting with the cemetery closest to my house, the Carrollton Cemetery.

Located in the neighborhood of Carrollton, at Green and Adams Streets, this graveyard was established in 1849. Unlike many of our other graveyards, it is a segregated cemetery: ornate, statuesque tombs comprise a Whites only section, while the Blacks or “Colored” section is made up of in-ground graves. Some of these in-ground graves are marked with wooden, hand painted markers, and because of flooding (especially after Katrina), many of the bodies are coming unearthed. Bones can be found lying on the ground throughout the cemetery. While that sounds pretty creepy, many things in this city are pretty creepy (that's why I love it here), and I find the cemetery has a very serene, ghoulish charm.

While some of the graves here are well kept, others are not. In this photo you can see that trees are growing out of some of the graves.

At right is a tomb whose front panel is fully open. I glanced inside and could not see remains... but it's still pretty eerie!

Even in the Whites section, you can see that graves are in disrepair; the earth is uneven, and gives the effect that the corpse has tried to crawl out. Still, like many NOLA cemeteries, this one is beautiful and the statuary is amazing.

Across Mid-City, at Esplanade and Bayou Saint John, is Saint Louis #3, another very beautiful cemetery with somber, splendid statuary. The cemetery was built on the site of an old leper colony, when graves were desperately needed after the yellow fever epidemic of 1853. This cemetery now houses some of New Orleans' most affluent dead. The New Orleans Dante Masonic Lodge has a tomb there, as does the Hellenic Orthodox community. The tombs are beautifully kept, and ordered in very neat, formal rows, different than many of our chaotically laid-out boneyards downtown.

The city's Catholic nuns are interred here as well, in a wall-style tomb.

Wall style tombs are something I'd never really seen before coming to NOLA. They are just what they sound like: the walls around the cemetery not only keep the dead inside, but in a case of form meeting function, are built wide enough to house the dead as well. Corpses are essentially stacked inside like cordwood, five or six high. A little flower receptacle is often affixed at each marker.

On to Holt Cemetery, or, now for something really depressing...

A mile or so down from Saint Louis #3 is Holt Cemetery. Set in a lot behind City Park and Delgado University, Holt is a potter's field, the final resting place of the poor and indigent. There are no tombs, and all graves are in-ground.

Photographing there was more depressing than I'd imagined it would be. No one has cared for this place in a long time. Most of the dead lie unremembered. Many were veterans of the two World Wars. Most were Black.

Many of the markers are hand written, and as you may imagine, many are broken or in serious disrepair. Some graves hold eight or ten bodies. Others seem to have been dug up and re-used several times. At right is a grave marker that names at least ten people. The grave is small even for one.

Here a tree seems to have grown through a grave marker. It may simply have grown in the grave, and have been cleverly decorated.

Here is something I'd never seen before: a crematorium furnace standing right amongst the graves at Holt. Apparently those too destitute to afford a monument of any kind would simply be cremated on-site. The door of the furnace stood slightly ajar. Parts of the machine perhaps used in cremations lay on the ground around the appliance.

Back to the pretty stuff....

Masonic Cemeteries #1 and #2 stand, ironically, just a few yards away from Holt. These are just as you would expect cemeteries built by Masons to be; all the tombs lined up perfectly and built square and even. There were a few notable statues and markers, though most were like any other nicely kept cemetery in the city, except for their Masonic symbols.

An engraved scroll of Masonic luminaries greets visitors to the Masonic cemetery.

Cemetery thoughts: NOLA is a city of paradoxes. Rich and poor, Black and White, subculture and status quo coexist here with apparent ease. The cemeteries are right in keeping with that blend of things that do not at first glance seem blend-able. Terrifying and beautiful, overwhelming and serene, fixed in time and yet right at the center of traffic and chaos, our cemeteries are one of the many elements that define the deep complexities of New Orleans life. And death.

I'll leave you with some of the amazing statues found in the city's other cemeteries.

From the New Orleans cemeteries, this is Kenny Klein, explaining it all.

All photos by Kenny Klein