I spent this weekend in New Orleans (my first visit) and I had a blast wandering around the French Quarter and surrounding communities....and an even better time eating....
The sidewalk outside a (former) bank near Canal Street
A unique fixer upper opportunity just outside the French Quarter
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Evidently, when Benjamin Butler occupied the city during the Civil War, he ordered some troops to go chisel the words "The Union Must And Shall Be Preserved" on the Andrew Jackson monument--just to piss off the Confederates. Good for him!
Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop, said to be the oldest building in America used as a bar. I think that's what they said--something other than it being the oldest bar in America. Either way, it was built in the 1770s by a pirate, so that's still cool.
The first of eventually eight bowls of gumbo.... This one at the Desire Oyster Bar on Bourbon Street. (5 out of 10 stars).
Bowls three, four, and five, at the Gumbo Shop. Six and seven and eight out of ten stars. The seafood gumbo was a little bland. The best I had was actually at the hotel where I stayed, Le Pavillon. Second best was at Drago's: the chicken gumbo was particularly good.
The chocolate brownie at Drago's. It's in there, somewhere. But actually, I thought the best thing at Drago's was the etouffe.
The Palace Cafe on Canal Street. Fantastic jambalaya.
In case you're still hungry, Le Pavillon serves peanut butter & jelly sandwiches and hot chocolate in the lobby at 10 pm.
An example of the unique architecture--long and slender. Like the women.
A float being moved into place for the Superbowl parade. Fortunately, I narrowly avoided that.
But the best part by far was our trip to The Spotted Cat on Frenchmen Street. I stayed till 2 in the morning listening to some of the old gutbucket played by this fantastic band. (The trumpter is 79 years old!) I wish very much I'd learned their name. They swung like hell.
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Now here's something pretty unusual: New Orleans' monument to white supremacy. This is a controversial monument erected to the whites who died in a race riot in 1874. Details here. Bascially, during Reconstruction, a group of white supremacists briefly took over the city government, and in 1891 (the year before the state enacted the segregation law made famous in Plessy v. Ferguson) the city erected a monument in honor of those who "recognized white supremecy and gave us our state." Since then, the city's tried to figure out what to do with the monument, which aside from being incredibly offensive, is often a target of vandalism. The City's tried covering up the most offensive stuff with really ugly patches, as you can see, and changing the base to honor those "on both sides of the conflict." But the names at the top of the monument are still the names of only the whites who were killed. The City has also moved the monument to a parking lot behind a hotel so that people won't see it--but it's still there. I don't see why they don't just sell it to a Civil Rights Museum or something. Or just dump it in the river. Who needs a monument to a bunch of racist dickwads laying around the city of New Orleans?
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Before I left town, I walked over to the corner of Royal and Press Streets to see the site where Homer Plessy was arrested, leading to the case of Plessy v. Ferguson. Photos and thoughts over at PLF Liberty Blog.
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