| More interesting stuff on our neighborhood |
[Jan. 4th, 2009|07:50 am] |
Faubourg Marigny
An Eclectic Neighborhood
BY: BY ANGELA MEQUET CARLL, New Orleans Homes & Lifestyles: January 2009
The elderly Creole gentleman dragged his desk and chair out of his apartment onto the banquette and began to answer his correspondence. Neighbors complained vehemently to the son that his father was sitting outdoors in his nightclothes.
“I cannot see anymore, and this is, after all, a cashmere robe,” sniffed the old Creole with appropriate hauteur, “and besides, I am Bernard de Marigny.”
Indeed, the Marquis Antoine Xavier Bernard Phillippe de Marigny de Mandeville (1785-1868) has been described as “the last Creole gentleman.” By the mid-1800s, he had lived life large and managed to lose most of the vast fortune left to him when he was just a teenager. In order to pay his gambling debts, Marigny began to divide his vast plantation into the neighborhood we know today as Faubourg (the word means “suburb” in French) Marigny.
Faubourg Marigny begins at Elysian Fields Avenue at the site of Bernard’s original plantation, the power station at the river, and extends downriver to Press Street, where it segues into Bywater. Esplanade Avenue, bordering the French Quarter, and St. Claude Avenue make up its other two boundaries.
Faubourg Marigny is composed of probably the most eclectic neighbors in the city. Frenchmen Street, lined with an over-abundance of restaurants, music clubs and coffee shops, is its main thoroughfare and Washington Square its playground.
An architecture class could take just one field trip here and marvel at examples of every architectural style built in the city during the 1800s –– plus the place just reeks with history.
In one block of Burgundy Street alone –– which Bernard originally named “Rue Craps” to pay homage to one of his great passions –– you can see a Greek Revival-galleried Creole cottage at 2020 Burgundy. One of the most authentically restored houses in the neighborhood, Sun Oak, as it’s called, is the home and studio of architect Eugene Cizek and artist/tour guide Lloyd Sensat, who personifies Bernard’s restless ghost during the neighborhood’s annual walking tour.
Farther down this same street, at 2031, is an example of the quintessential New Orleans home style: the shotgun. Built in New Orleans between 1830 and1940, shotguns are thought to have originated in Haiti. They were tailor-made for the long, thin lots of the city because the rooms are arranged in single file from front to back. The term is said to have originated from the fact that a gun can be fired the entire length of the house without hitting anything.
At 2001 Burgundy is the former Canal Commercial Trust & Savings Bank, one of several robbed by the infamous duo Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. More recently, it was used in a chase scene in the K-Ville television series.
And on the corner of Burgundy and Touro sits another of the city’s indigenous structures: an excellent example of a two-story corner store. The corner lot was used for commercial purposes because it attracted customers from all directions, and usually the Creole shopkeeper’s family lived on the second floor. Built around 1850, this commercial structure boasts a cast-iron wraparound gallery and is eerily familiar because it was photographed over and over during the international television coverage of Hurricane Katrina.
Faubourg Marigny today is chic and sophisticated. Many of its grand homes have been meticulously restored. Residents dress stylishly for Sunday brunch at one of the many cafes and then glide over to the Nickel-A-Dance soiree on Frenchmen Street. But, like many older sections of the city, it has lived through its own share of hard times.
After World War II, veterans took advantage of the Veterans Housing Act and bought homes in the suburbs while inner city neighborhoods such as the Marigny became run-down. Yet by the early 1970s, young professionals saw the charm of street after street of 19th-century dwellings, and the Faubourg Marigny Improvement Association was created as they moved in and began to renovate.
The latest addition is The Studio at Colton, a showcase for the creative arts, which opened at the former Colton Middle School on St. Claude Avenue. Today, the Marigny is flourishing again as a neighborhood where whites and blacks, gays and straights, young and old live in harmony as they enjoy their little piece of the past. |
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| Winter Update |
[Dec. 31st, 2008|08:03 am] |
Well, this year finished up with a whirlwind of fun stuff in our part of the city. New Orleans’ first Fringe Fest that took place this November brought a hundred cutting edge performances to our Faubourg Marigny neighborhood. We had a huge open studio weekend for our local artists, and extra art markets in the nearby Markey Park. The holidays were filled with more great events and great food. And now it’s on to the New Year.
There’s just half a month left to take in the 30 million dollars in contemporary art that has been installed all over the city as part of the Prospect.1 exhibition. Not to mention that, in many locations, the installations by artists from all over the world are accompanied by equally impressive exhibitions by local artists.
Two of the installations are steps from our front door, and one of the huge advantages to our guests is that the free shuttle bus for Prospect.1 stops a block from us, and provides what amounts to a free bus tour of the city. From our stop the shuttle goes to a site in the 9th ward, where you can take in both the art and the still astonishing aftereffects of one of the areas worst hit by Katrina.
The shuttle then loops back around with stops at the Mint (A chance to see not only the art installation, but also other exhibits in this state museum for free. Then you can walk over to the French Market next door).
From there it’s on to the Contemporary Arts Museum in the Warehouse District (which is also a short stroll from the WWII Museum, and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art). Then the bus heads down past the mansions on St. Charles Avenue for the exhibition at Tulane (From there you can walk through Audubon Park to the zoo).
The shuttle also has a stop at the New Orleans Museum of Art, where once again, you get free admission to not only the Prospect.1 stuff, but also the museum’s entire collection, including the beautiful adjacent sculpture garden.
All free, Wednesdays through Sundays. But hurry, it ends January 18.
But by that time Mardi Gras season will be in full swing and we’ll have parades to look forward to, including our favorite, the Krewe du Vieux Parade. This wildly eccentric parade passes just three blocks from us. Each year it has some sort of satirical theme, usually political in nature. Each of the “sub-krewes” does their own, often bawdy, take on the theme as they march by appropriately costumed, pulling illuminated mini-floats. This year the parade rolls on February 7. Great fun. See what they did last year at http://www.kreweduvieux.org.
The volume of parades grows with each weekend after that, so while we are sold out for Mardi Gras on February 24 and the weekend immediately before, there are several parade packed weekends earlier in February. You can see the complete list at http://www.mardigrasparadeschedule.com. Dave, our Mardi Gras expert (and former king of the Endymion Mardi Gras parade) will be happy to share his pick hits with you.
We’ll continue to make sure that we provide an excellent value for your travel dollars next year. Stay four nights and our special that gives you one of them free, will extend at least through January. We’ll also be offering lower rates mid-week in January.
We’ve had our busiest December ever, and we want to thank all of you again who’ve stayed with us over the years. You’ve made our decision to buy the Sweet Olive and become innkeepers five years ago, more fun than we could have possibly imagined.
Hope to see you again in the New Year!
Dale, Dave, Clara, and Happy
http://www.sweetolive.com |
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| The Amazing Prospect.1 Art Explosion |
[Nov. 24th, 2008|12:58 pm] |
It’s not quite time for our winter update, but the amazing experience Dave and I had last weekend has motivated me to write a quick prequel.
I knew it was going to be cool, but I had no idea what a profound impact the newly opened Prospect.1 Biennial contemporary art exposition would have on our neighborhood. Suddenly, just around the corner, this THING appeared, half pre-historic aquatic creature, half Viking ship, assembled from driftwood. It’s amazingly cool.
The transformation of the old furniture store across the street into its future function as a center for various healing, spiritual, and knowledge endeavors made a bold leap forward as much of it huge interior space was transformed into gallery space for an expansive exhibition of local and international arts.
The beautiful old building that was once a school down the block, but has been empty and silent since Katrina, was once again teaming with life last night as we walked through three floors of classrooms that have now been transformed into gallery spaces, all to the accompaniment of dozens of incredible New Orleans muscians, some of whom once again brought music to the old band room, while others were scattered all throughout the building. The art on exhibit was amazing, but I think what impressed me even more were the faces of the hundreds of teenagers that were engaged in facilitating the exhibition. Nowhere did I see a trace of the ennui that seems to have become a dishearteningly standardized facial expression for so many young people. Instead these were the radiant faces of folks truly excited about what they were accomplishing. (Okay that did sound a little like grandpa-in-his-rocking-chair-speak, but it was a great feeling.)
Just a few blocks away, the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts plays host to the elaborate installation by another international artist, with a tasty side helping of a screening of the work from that institution’s talented young documentarians. And from there, by the way, it’s a short stroll down to Elizabeth’s for side helpings that feed both body and soul.
There must be more than a hundred art spaces in play for Prospect.1 all across the city, from now till the middle of January. And what’s nice for us, is that there is a free shuttle bus that connects many of them, that stops just down the street.
So if you’re a fan of contemporary conceptual art, I can’t imagine a better time to come visit. (And we have special holiday rates for much of December.) Email or give us a call if you have questions about Prospect.1 or about the host of celebratory activities planned for the upcoming holidays! http://www.sweetolive.com.
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| Fall on the Fringe |
[Oct. 7th, 2008|11:12 am] |
As I write this, the Okra Man, as he’s been dubbed by the neighborhood, is slowly driving by outside. I know he’s passing because he has a loudspeaker mounted on his pickup to broadcast a litany of the offerings crammed into a camper-top over the bed of his old pickup, each one listed in bright hand-painted letters all across the vehicle. “I have OKRA…I have RADISHES…I have WATERMELON,” he sings into a microphone with a lilting Caribbean cadence, each phrase sliding up in pitch at the end to give emphasis to a particular fruit or vegetable. Yet another moment that just isn’t a part of everyday life in most other places.
I was walking through the neighborhood the other day, trying hard to work off the poboy from Elizabeth’s I’d had for lunch, when I came to a corner that I’ve passed before a hundred times. Except this time if had been transformed. Now, where once there had been nothing more than a bit of cracked concrete with a weed or two poking through, was a little shrine. I’m not sure to what, but it included a stature of the Virgin Mary and a bit of salvaged wrought iron. And let me be clear here, this was not intended as a transient art installation, this stuff was all cemented in place. (Legal? No. And with surprising swiftness in a city not known for its bureaucratic efficiency, the “perpetrator” was cited and the corner reverted to its previous flat, monochromatic landscape, albeit minus the cracks and weeds. But another act of civil art disobedience will soon spring up elsewhere. Which is why this is such a fascinating place.) The walk continued, and now that my antennae were up, suddenly the many things that I’ve come to take for granted on these strolls, once again came into focus. The house with the elaborate Christmas decorations in the window that never go away. The bright blue neon GUMBO sign in the window of the corner store. That’s just not a word that appears in the signage of convenience stores everywhere. I wave hi to the guy in dreadlocks and a striped leotard who ambles by walking his dog, and around the corner at another neighbor on a unicycle.
In the months ahead the particularly eclectic flavor of our neighborhood will become even more so, as New Orleans stages its first Fringe Festival in mid-November, inspired by the original such event in Edinburgh, Scotland just after WWII. The blocks around us will be filled with all manner of performance art and artists that refuse to be easily categorized—just like our neighborhood. Read what I wrote about it for my day job HERE:http://www.countryroadsmagazine.com/ViewArticle.php?articleid=748
Also beginning November 1 is purportedly the largest biennial of international contemporary art ever organized in the United States. Prospect.1 will infuse bold contemporary art into museums, historic buildings, and found sites throughout New Orleans for public view. One of the “found sites” is right across the street from the Sweet Olive. A major exhibit will be staged at The New Orleans Healing Center, now being developed in a former furniture store. The building is currently undergoing rehabilitation, during which its historic façade from 1923 will be uncovered and restored. The center will ultimately include facilities for yoga, various practitioners of the healing arts along with a “street university”-offering offering array of non-traditional learning opportunities. You can read more about the biennial at http://www.prospectneworleans.org.
Propect.1 will continue into January, adding yet one more reason to visit New Orleans during the holidays, while the convention crowds are smaller, and it’s easy to get a reservation for one of the amazing “Reveillon” holiday meals offered by the city’s best restaurants. There are also tours of some of the city’s most amazing historic homes dressed up in their holiday finery, and free concerts nearly every night by our best musicians in the beautiful St. Louis Cathedral.
I could go on, and I will I’m sure over muffins in the kitchen when you visit. |
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| From Spring into Summer |
[Jun. 4th, 2008|10:26 am] |
“And whenever you smell Sweet Olive, you’ll remember this moment,” said Reverend Jerry Schwehm, as he pronounced the radiant couple man and wife, then hopped on his Harley and headed out into the fragrant evening.
A particularly memorable moment from the exchange of vows that took place under the canopy of our sweet olive tree this spring. A couple living in Ireland had decided that New Orleans’ accommodating marriage regulations would make this a simpler place to tie the knot than back home.
And so John and Anna did, the only objection coming from the mockingbird in the tree, who was not at all pleased that we had chosen her territory for the ceremony.
Each time I’ve stepped out the door these last few months I’ve tried to sort out the scents of sweet olive, gardenia, ligustrum, trumpet flowers, confederate jasmine, and many blooms whose scent and beauty I celebrate despite their anonymity.
It’s been a particularly beautiful spring. Our part of city has been abuzz these last few months—well as abuzz as New Orleans gets. It’s a good feeling. We’ve had an amazing assortment of guests, and breakfast conversations fuelled by discussions about music and food and history and politics. We walk away from each of these delightful exchanges reminded of why we decided to become innkeepers.
And now we’re looking ahead to that time in the city that is the definition of the word “languor.”
For me summer is about getting up early and walking through quiet streets into the French Quarter, then maybe a stop for breakfast at La Peniche on the way back. I have a long list of museum exhibits I haven’t made yet including the Treasures of Napoleon collection on display at the old Mint Museum just a few blocks from us. I still haven’t made it to the retrospective at the New Orleans Museum of Art of the work of George Rodrigue, famed for his Blue Dog. And the World War II museum has a cool sounding exhibition at the moment called Reel to Real, about Hollywood and the war. There’s also a brand spanking new museum that’s all about food and beverage in the South. Then, duly inspired, it’s off to try one of the dozens of new restaurants that keep popping up.
Nap. Repeat.
Our tourism folks on the other hand haven’t been all that languid and are busily conjuring up stuff to entice people here in the summer. They’ve rolled three terrific festivals into one on the weekend of June 13: The Creole Tomato Festival, Cajun/Zydeco Music Festival, and Seafood Festival all go down around The Mint and French Market. Hard to imagine that won’t be fun.
And coming up later in the summer will be two more personal favorites: The COOLinary Festival that lets you dine from July into September at places like Emeril’s for around $30 or less. The list of participating restaurants this year hasn’t been announced yet, but as soon as it is, we’ll be making our calendar of dining days.
And then there’s the Satchmo Fest the first weekend in August put on by the same folks that do the French Quarter Fest, with a weekend of awesome music just a few blocks from us.
We of course will once again be offering special summer rates: $75 in June and $65 in July and August, with the Courtyard Suite slightly more. Our 4th night free special will also continue through the summer.
So if a little heat and humidity won’t keep you away from a good time, give us a holler and we’ll keep you posted on everything that’s going on this summer in the city.
All our best,
Dave, Dale, Clara, and Happy
http://www.sweetolive.com |
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| Carnival Season! |
[Dec. 26th, 2007|10:44 am] |
Dave is going to be spending a lot of time on the ladder come the first of the year. Mardi Gras for 2008 is extra early this year, which means that the minute the Christmas decorations come down, the Purple, Green and Gold stuff goes up.
We’ve had several people tell us over the years, that while they are intrigued by Mardi Gras, they just don’t think they could handle all the hubbub. And we always offer the same advice. What many folks don’t realize is that the Carnival Season actually starts January 6, with fun stuff happening all the way until the big day. There are more than two dozen parades that take place BEFORE that last weekend leading up to Mardi Gras. With floats that are just as magical. And we think, somewhat more generous bead throwers.
A personal favorite is one of the earliest of all. The Krewe du Vieux www.kreweduvieux.org is a highly satirical parade that passes just three blocks from us, this year on January 19. It’s composed of “sub-krewes” created by groups of friends who costume according to some sort of loose theme (always funny, sometimes bawdy) and traipse along with hysterical floats pulled by mule or people power. There’s always a nice crowd to receive them, but not so huge that you can’t get up close for a good look, and lots of beads.
Other personal favorites in the weeks leading up to Mardi Gras include Sparta with flambeaux bearers, the flickering wands that were first used to illuminate night parades. And King Arthur, just because we have lots of friends in that parade. And of course the Krewe of Barkus, where dozens of pooches parade to the delight of both their owners and onlookers.
We are full beginning February 1, but still have room for all the earlier festivities. Please call us if you’d like to know more about our favorites of Carnival season at 504.947.4332. As many of you know, Dave was King of Endymion some years ago, and there aren’t many around who know more about the season than he does.
And for a bit of detail on what else is new in the city, you can read my recent piece for the New York Times here:
http://travel.nytimes.com/2007/11/30/travel/escapes/30orleans.html |
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| Winter Update |
[Nov. 17th, 2007|08:22 am] |
When people ask me what the best time of year is to visit New Orleans, I usually suggest December. The weather varies from T-Shirt and shorts days, to those just nippy enough to feel appropriate for the holidays. Many of the city’s beautiful historic homes are decked out and on tour. And the already amazing food gets kicked up another notch with special “Reveillon” menus at lots of restaurants.
During the mid-1800s, New Orleans' Creole families celebrated the "Reveillon" (French for "awakening") after Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, when families returned from St. Louis Cathedral to break a daylong fast with an elaborate meal.
You don’t have to eat that late to enjoy today’s version of that meal.
Here’s what one of our nearby favorite places will be serving:
The Marigny Brasserie
Jumbo Gulf Shrimp Cocktail Amuse-Bouche
Choice of:
Grilled Hearts of Baby Romaine & Crispy Gulf Coast Oysters with Rémoulade-Caesar Dressing • Wild Mushroom Soup
Choice of:
Beef Tenderloin Wellington with Moulard Foie Gras & Portobello Duxcelle • Roasted Maple Leaf Farms Duck with Oyster-Cornbread Dressing
Choice of:
Velvet Chocolate Mousse • Bûche de Noël
Chef's Homemade Eggnog
There are lots of other choices and we’ll be glad to share our other favorites with you if you visit.
Another of our favorite holiday events is a series of free concerts at the Cathedral with some of our most talented local music folk. Here’s that schedule:
∑ December 4 : Rachel Van Voorhees and Friends
∑ December 5: Aubry Bryan, Tenor
∑ December 11 : John Fohl, Theresa Andersson and David Doucet
∑ December 12: Tyrone Foster and The Arc Singers
∑ December 18: Phillip Manuel and Leah Chase
∑ December 19: Rev. Lois J. DeJean, Gospel Diva and Friends
And there are free cooking demonstrations, horse drawn carriage tours of the millions of tiny lights that fill the oak trees in City Park, and lots more stuff we’ll be happy to share. Just call us or send us an email.
And one last piece of news before we go. We have terrific new neighbors. The huge former furniture store across the street from us is being converted into an exciting new development for our neighborhood. It will house the New Orleans Healing Center, envisioned as a facility that will provide space for yoga classes, massage therapists, natural food restaurants, and a co-op food store. It will offer short courses on a wide variety of subjects that are expected to range from astrology to language classes. The facility will also house a police substation, and our friends in law enforcement have already begun to move in. I’m sure it’s a welcome change from the trailers they’ve been working from since Katrina. |
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| Fall Update |
[Oct. 17th, 2007|08:19 am] |
We've been walking our Marigny neighborhood in the early mornings, camera in hand, and we've decided to put together some of our favorite moments from those walks and create a mini-poster that our guests can take home with them. Our thanks to our designer friend Francelle Theriot for creating such a beautiful environment for our pictures.
In other news, our new Courtyard Suite has been well received. It's about twice the size of our other rooms, and features a big walk in shower and whirllpool tub, as well as a kitchenette. Not surprisingly we've had lots of couples celebrating special occasions.
And speaking of celebrations, this spring we had our first Voodoo Commitment Ceremony under the shade of our Sweet Olive tree. It was a colorful, joyful, and spiritual afternoon for all of us. Our friend and Voodoo Priestess Reverand Severina Sigh has also performed a wedding and vow renewal ceremony in this very same, very atmospheric spot. Let us know if you have a special upcoming moment, you'd like to commemorate in a special way. |
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| Summer at The Sweet Olive |
[Jul. 6th, 2007|03:22 pm] |
It’s been a terrific spring at the Sweet Olive. the perfect convergence of awesome weather and spectacular festivals. And now we settle in as the city slows to a more languorous pace for the summer. This is the season when we rise early to enjoy a cool morning, then take a long nap in the heat of the day and awake ready to party well into the night.
As usual the city tourism folks are working hard to make it well worthwhile to perspire a bit on a visit to New Orleans this summer. There are discounts on everything from admission to Mardi Gras World, to cooking classes, to Swamp Tours.
The city’s plethora of festivals continue through the summer as well. In July there’s Tales of the Cocktail—a weekend-long celebration of cuisine and cocktails, and for those of you who missed Jazz Fest—the Satchmo Fest, the first weekend in August, which takes the already remarkable music scene on nearby Frenchmen street to a whole new level.
And by far the BEST incentive of all, the annual COOLinary Festival, during which you can dine at many of the city’s most acclaimed restaurants (including Emeril’s, Antoine’s and Arnaud’s) for $30.07 or less. (And the number of fine restaurants in New Orleans has now actually surpassed what was available before Katrina.)
And one final note, we’re delighted to announce that our new Courtyard Suite is now available. It features a whirlpool tub, large walk in tiled shower, king sized bed, and mini-kitchen. The perfect spot for that afternoon nap.
If you’re pondering a visit to the Big Easy this summer and haven’t been for awhile, please give us a call and let us give you our first hand account of what’s going on in the city. We think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
P.S. I almost forgot. Our summer rates start at $65. And we’re still running our 4th night free special! |
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| Spring in the Marigny |
[Mar. 16th, 2007|02:34 pm] |
The jasmine is in full bloom, a wave of yellow washing over our fence. I love it.
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| Tax Time in New Orleans |
[Mar. 7th, 2007|03:25 pm] |
It's tax prep time at the Sweet Olive and even that gets a bit of a New Orleans spin. We've discovered that bobblehead dolls caught at Mardi Gras parades make great paperweights when you're sorting receipts! |
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| Mardi Gras is off and running! |
[Jan. 31st, 2007|04:13 pm] |
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So Dave has now swapped out all the decorations from Christmas to Mardi Gras and the place is a vision of purple, green, and gold. Our favorite Mardi Gras parade is up first...Krewe du Vieux...wildly satiric, and it passes just a few blocks from us this Saturday night. We're so pumped! |
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| Andrei Codrescu |
[Jan. 5th, 2007|02:07 pm] |
I'm reading Andrei Codrescu's "New Orleans Mon Amour" right now. It's a month overdue at the library but I refuse to let go of it just yet. My jaw drops at what a brilliant writer he is even more remarkably in a second language, and how he so "gets" New Orleans, the good and the bad and why the bad and the good are sometimes hard to distinguish. Here he writes about the St. Roch Cemetary a few blocks from our B&B.
"The graves of New Orleans follow social standing, just as their residents had. I have not looked rigorously into the distribution of angels, but I assume that they were commissioned by the wealthy. Marching past St. Roch Cemetery one time around twilight, with a group of antifascist protesters, I was struck by the proliferation of angels massed in the sky. They were in flight, taking off toward each other, as animated as large winged creatures ever get. Their milky white flesh glowed, their robes came undone, the flowers they held glistened, their hair was on fire. David Duke, the racist against whom we were marching, was defeated the next day. Miracles are very much part of St. Roch: Look at the prosthetic limbs left by the faithful in the St. Roch chapel. They were healed and made strong enough to march against racists. Well, maybe. Faith may have no politics, but it does seem to belong disproportionatley to the poor. Which makes it all the more fair to employ the angels of the rich to the purposes of justice." |
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| The Perfect Segue |
[Jan. 4th, 2007|04:03 pm] |
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One of the things that I LOVE about New Orleans is that there is no first of the year after holiday let down. Because on Twelfth Night, as the Christmas season ends, Carnival season begins. So Dave will soon be up on the ladder swapping out the swags from red and green...to purple, green, and gold. And one of our favorite Carnival parades is just a few weeks away. The wild and wackily satiric Krewe du Vieux marches through the neighborhood just a couple blocks from us on February 3. This year's theme is Habitat for Insanity and the amazing local writer Chris Rose will be king this year. Check out their plans at www.kreweduvieux.org. |
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| Mr. Holiday Spirit Himself Goes to New Heights |
[Nov. 28th, 2006|07:37 am] |
At this moment Dave is high up on a ladder, staple gun in hand, transforming the Sweet Olive into a Holiday Wonderland.
I have chosen to stay at a safe altitude and do my part by writing this update instead.
We both like the holiday season, but Dave puts me to shame. Each day from now through the end of the year will need to be carefully scheduled to squeeze in all the stuff we both want to do.
There are candlelight tours of historic French Quarter homes, the Preservation Resource Center’s tours of gorgeous uptown homes, the Marigny Open Studio Tour (great gift shopping opportunity), the Festivus celebration at the New Orleans Farmer’s Market, jazz concerts at St. Louis Cathedral, lights almost as festive as Dave’s at Celebration in the Oaks at City Park, bonfires on the levee, caroling in Jackson Square and our own neighborhood caroling in Washington Square (perhaps the ONLY caroling in the world accompanied by the Thermin, an electric musical instrument invented in 1919 by a Russian physicist, and familiar to many as the source of that creepy music associated with 1950s science fiction movies. But somehow it’s not creepy at all when playing carols.) Every year we pick one of the traditional Reveillon Dinners, usually at one of the many New Orleans restaurants where we still haven’t eaten. Traditionally this was the meal New Orleans Creoles enjoyed after Christmas Eve Mass. But today they are offered up by the city’s best restaurants all month. We’ll be happy to send you a list.
And our holiday gift to all of you is an extraordinary deal. Our weekend rate through December 28 is $65 and if you buy one night at that rate, you can stay a second for half off.
Where else can you spend the weekend in a world-class city, and spend so little? |
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| Halloween Highlights |
[Nov. 9th, 2006|04:14 pm] |
In many parts of the country Halloween is strictly for kids. In New Orleans, you need only to still be in touch with your inner child. This year the city's gigantic costume party on the Saturday before was back, with thousands of costumed revelers filling the Sports Arena next to the Superdome. My personal "best of" costume award goes to the group wearing overalls over T-shirts silk-screened with "E-coli Farms: Spinach to Die For."
Halloween night we headed into the French Quarter for dinner at Muriel's, next door to the St. Louis Cathedral, chosen in equal parts for its amazing cuisine and for its strategic location in the heart of costume clad celebrants filling the streets.
There were folks of all ages, some in costumes that they'd obviously worked on for weeks, and some that had just thrown on anything that could be remotely called a costume—an orange wig, a rubber nose, a recycled Mardi Gras mask—just so they could be there and feel like a part of the scene.
A good time was had by all. |
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