09 SEP 2010

New Orleans – I have heard so much about this city and here we are. Last night we walked around Bourbon Street and enjoyed the energy and life displayed. Needless to say, we did not get a chance to really experience the excitement, only observe.


Today we want to do a City Tour of some sort, but with all the plans in place for the free concert, the parade and the hype around the NFL kickoff we were assured that some areas of the city would not be available. The best tour available to us was offered through Cajun Encounters. Our timing was good since we had to walk down to the French Quarter to get the tickets, then walk over to the edge of the French Quarter to wait for the bus. We had to wait a total of 45 minutes for the bus, but we did enjoy looking at the Louis Armstrong Park and a few buildings under re-construction.

We caught the bus and toured the following areas, the French Quarter (limited due to road closures for the concert and parade), Frenchman’s Street (to view the local Jazz Clubs and hear about jazz history), the historical Above Ground Cemetery, tour the Garden District, and St. Charles Avenue and touring Hurricane Katrina devastation and the Ninth Ward where recovery work is well on the way.

The French Quarter, is the oldest and most famous neighbourhood in the city of New Orleans. The city was originally centered on the French Quarter, or the Vieux Carré ("Old Square" in French) as it was known then. The district as a whole is a National Historic Landmark, and contains numerous individual historic buildings. It was affected relatively lightly by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, as compared to other areas of the city and the region as a whole.

As we drove through the center of the French Quarter we learned alot about the house designs and the reasons for the aged design. I learned about the ‘shotgun’ houses – which is a usually a duplex of a total width of approximately 24 feet to single shotgun houses which are about 12 feet wide and single dwelling. The shotgun house is a narrow rectangular domestic residence, usually no more than 12 feet wide, with doors at each end. Although there maybe multiple rooms, you move from room to room without any hallways. Alternate names include shotgun shack, shotgun hut, and shotgun cottage. A railroad apartment is somewhat similar, but has a side hallway from which rooms are entered (by analogy to compartments in passenger rail cars). What is very distinctive is that the doors and windows are of the same size and height. Windows and doors at each end of the house assured good air movement for dealing with the heat (no air conditioning remember).

Frenchmen Street is the street noted for the Jazz venues. This street is a compact musical enclave where the “locals” hang out. A two-block-long entertainment district where, on any given night of the week – including normally dead Mondays – you can hear live sounds and a wide variety of music as only New Orleans musicians can perform.

We took a tour of one of the above ground cemeteries. Saint Louis Cemetery is the name of three Roman Catholic cemeteries in New Orleans. All of these graves are above ground vaults; most were constructed in the 18th century and 19th century. Since New Orlean’s is below sea level and prone to flooding, in-ground burials was not practical or wise. We learned a great deal about the continued use of these crypts and other methods of dealing with burial. Included in the cemeteries are many historical artefacts and Catholic icons.

We then toured the area of the city hit the most with Hurricane Katrina. The devastation is hard to describe. I talked to several in the city and they all agree that the government has responded quickly and contrary to the news reports, no one can think of how they could have responded faster. When you see the magnitude of the devastation you start to understand the complexity and amount of work needed. There are many houses still not touched or repaired. The primary reason is that the owners have not returned to New Orleans and no work is being done on those abandoned houses. I took a picture of one fence where you can see the white stain indicating the height of the water in that area. We also toured the area called Ninth Ward where restoration is well under way. Much is needed to be done, but it will take years to get things back. I did note that the areas with the greatest amount of damage were lower income areas.

One of the streets we traveled on is the Saint Charles Avenue which is a wide avenue with a wide boulevard down the center. It was not uncommon to find people sitting under the trees on lawn chairs visiting or even setting up horse shoe pits to play horse shoes. However what this street is really noted for is having the longest of New Orleans' streetcar lines and the oldest continuously operating street railway system in the world.

Then we headed to the Garden District (the “American Sector).  It is called the garden district because they set the houses back from the street and had front gardens, unlike the French design of having the front of the house on the street and court yards at the back. The Garden District is a neighbourhood of the city of New Orleans. The area was originally developed between 1832 to 1900. It may be one of the best preserved collections of historic southern mansions in the United States. The 19th century origins of the Garden District illustrate wealthy newcomers building opulent structures based upon the prosperity of New Orleans in that era. The development of New Orleans after the British took possession from France, was defined by “English vs French” Canal Street defined the development with the south side being developed by the French Creole and the northern side developed by the British.

Another interesting trivia we learned was that if a house has a double stair case at the front door, it was a social statement.  Women went up one saide and men the other.  This way the women did not need to be concerned about men seeing up her skirt as she climbed up the stairs.

After we got dropped off by the tour company we headed into the French Quarter to check out the concert and parade preparation. We lucked out by finding a spot to stand near the announcer’s booth to watch the parade. We actually got to stand right by the fence. From our angle we also had a side view of the concert stage. The stage faced across the street unto the park which is where everyone was going to watch. However, I did not get a perfect view, but at least I could see David Matthews and Taylor Swift better than many in the park near the back. What a blast. I so enjoyed watching the parade and catching the beaded necklaces being tossed (I caught 11) and taking pictures. There were floats and marching bands.

They started the evening with David Mathews Band opening. Then came some floats. Then they stopped the floats and Taylor Swift did a song, back to floats, back to Taylor and back to parade and closing with David.

We ended the evening by watching the football game on TV like the majority of those in New Orleans.