In spring, they say, a young man’s fancy…etc. In winter, a New Yorker’s fancy turns to warm weather spots for getaways—although my winter spots have as often been places like Boston, Berlin or Iceland as they have Miami or Puerto Rico.
This year, I planned a Christmas week trip with one of my daughters to a place we were counting on to be warm—New Orleans—but we arrived in one of the area’s deepest cold snaps ever. The temperature on arrival was 21° while Berlin had 46 and Boston and Reykjavik had the same temperature as New Orleans. Only New York was colder, at 14.
But: Our bags were not caught up in that amazing bag-jam we found at the airport, and the temperature did rise day by day, reaching 75° by the day before we left, and we spent our days mostly wandering the city, seeing some attractions, and, in my case, as usual, taking too many pictures. A wanderer’s selection is here.
We stayed in an apartment in the Treme neighborhood, near the French Quarter but quite different, with small restaurants, small museums, and long family traditions. And the great piece of wall art above.
One of Treme’s churches is home to the Tomb of the Unknown Slave, honoring thousands of enslaved people who died over the centuries and whose final resting places are lost or destroyed.
On Bourbon Street, in the French Quarter and heart of tourist New Orleans, reminders that cheap public drinking is part of the image. It’s the only place I’ve ever seen people wandering down the street at 10 a.m. drinking wildly-colored margaritas and daiquiris.
You learn something new every trip. I’ve had dishes made with gumbo file and used it myself, but until this trip I never knew it was dried and powdered sassafras leaves. If you didn’t, now you do!
Surviving signs on building walls are always a pleasant reminder of the past…
But some people seem more concerned about the future than the past, including this dire warning that our 5G phones are out to kill us.
Some went over my head: I’m not at all sure that a fast burn rate is a good thing, but then I’m pretty sure that crypto itself isn’t, so…
But music… that’s good. In Music Legends Park, Fats Domino, Al Hirt and Pete Fountain all double in bronze, while a live band plays behind them for patrons of Cafe Beignet, at the back of the park. My apology to Fats for punning my headline from his song…
The music (and crumbs from the cafe) draw a feathered audience, too…
Also at the park, this giant saxophone is a memorial to Adolphe Saxe, a native of Wallonia, the French-speaking region of Belgium. His hometown, Namur, gave it to New Orleans in 2018 to celebrate New Orleans’ 300th birthday.
Lots of music in the streets, as well. Above, a brass band playing out loud next to a Quiet Zone sign in front of the cathedral, and below, an energetic sort-of-country-sort-of-jazz group playing a a corner on Royal Street.
With the band long gone at night, the cathedral takes on a greenish tinge behind the golden statue of Andrew Jackson.
We didn’t do a lot of museum this trip, but we did spend a morning at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art on a friend’s recommendation. It gives an interesting view of the work of contemporary and near-contemporary regional artists. And it has a pretty cool sculpture outside.
After the museum, snack time at Willa Jean, which also supplied a wonderful bread to take home. Not the only bakery bragging rights in town: Leidenheimer makes two claims of its own, as a supplier of traditional bread for po-boy sandwiches, and the intriguing slogan: “Good to the Last Crumb.” I guess it goes well with Maxwell House…
Some sights along Canal Street. A luxury hotel whose lobby used to be a five-and-dime store; the “moorish-style” towers of Immaculate Conception Church and a souped-up orange car that bounced on its springs, turned its wheels in and out and put on quite a show!
Stirring in a few items touching on water, or the lack of it: A fountain under renovation that’s waiting for water, an artifact from the months after Hurricane Katrina when clean drinking water was not easy in the Big Easy and a very New Orleans water meter cover.
Congratulations to George G, who recognized the unusual water bottle from the Historic New Orleans Collection, a wonderful (and fee-free) museum of local history.
And a last one, not very New Orleans at all, but collected there and passed on to the universe…
