The New Orleans French Quarter is like the bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks that you know you shouldn’t love. Everything about it is wrong if you pick it apart, but from a distance, as a romantic idea, well, you just can’t help yourself.
But isn’t that how it always goes with love? And I can admit now, unabashedly, I love the French Quarter. Maybe it’s something I shouldn’t confess, but I never was good at loving the right things anyway.
The locals say they never go into the French Quarter. “Oh, I just avoid it like the plague,” I overheard a local woman tell a visitor while in line for a piece of King Cake at Haydel’s Bakery on Magazine Street. “Especially at this time of year (Carnival), it’s just out of control.”
The woman she spoke to nodded in agreement, and I, internally, did the same, knowing full well, that I was heading there that night. This was my third trip to New Orleans and now, being a “seasoned” visitor, I fully intended to avoid the area. But oh, those bad boys, they do have their charms.
Still, I didn’t plan to go into the quarter more than once or twice, as needed. As it turns out, during my month in New Orleans, I’d find myself returning, again and again, pulled by some mystery I couldn’t at first define. Despite its bad reputation, here’s what I love about the New Orleans French Quarter.
1 French Quarter Architecture in the light of day
Anyone with eyes and any sense of beauty will understand love at first sight once they see the French Quarter in New Orleans. Like a pretty lover, it’s often the exterior that draws you in before you discover their other mysteries.
In between breaks from work – sitting on my couch writing – I’d taken to spending mornings or early afternoons walking the French Quarter streets. I’ve never witnessed a place so transformed by the placement of the sun and moon as the French Quarter in New Orleans. It is true what they say, the freaks really do come out at night. But the details come out in the daytime.
During the day the red, yellow, blue, and coral Spanish colonial architecture pops off the sidewalk like party decorations. The two-story townhouses mix in with the shotgun houses and Creole cottages as charismatic as they’ve ever been. Wrought-iron balconies hang from above with ferns and palm fronds while history peeks out through wavy floor-to-ceiling windowpanes.
Despite the chaos in the streets, these buildings are timeless and unchanged for hundreds of years. No matter what happens between the curbs, or the storefronts of some, these buildings maintain their grandeur and grace. This is what I think architects mean when they say a place has beautiful bones. I wonder idly about the people who live here.
2 The Big Old Beauregard Keyes House
Someone who used to live here was Francis Parkinson Keyes. Her old, raised Creole Cottage is the biggest and oldest in the French Quarter. It stands across the street from the Ursuline Convent – which incidentally is the only French building for miles.
Keyes wrote 50 books, including the famed “Dinner at Antoine’s.” Not to get off topic – and I’m not – let’s talk about vampires. During a tour, a guide told me the house was recently used to film scenes for the upcoming “Interview with the Vampire” TV series. I stumbled upon sites of their filming near a local “vampire bar” that sells deep-red drinks in blood bags on Royal Street. Vampires are the ultimate bad boys, and if they exist anywhere, it’d be in the French Quarter, as Anne Rice knew. How can anyone resist a place like that?
3 Marie Laveau Voodoo priestess
One Saturday morning down on Bourbon Street, I stopped at Marie Laveau’s shop. Still, as it ever was, untouched by what goes on outside; exactly as I recall it from over 15 years ago the first time I visited. There’s still the same dusty old altar, filled with gems, candles and coins. The incense burned thickly, and the workers’ voices were jumbles of slur and creole. They sold t-shirts, tarot cards, voodoo dolls, herbs, books, and trinkets. Someone gives readings in the back, and there is a waitlist to receive one. It was the busiest shop of all though most people walked in, looked around and left without buying anything.
“Curiosity killed the cat,” the woman at the door mumbled as people walked out without purchasing. I bought a few postcards and a sticker that read, “Voodoo unto others before they voodoo unto you.”
Marie Laveau lived a few blocks away and her grave is nearby in St. Louis Cemetery #1. The city has had to close the cemetery to protect it from over-tourism, and modern-day plagues. There’s a guard that stands at the entrance now. I’ve been to her grave before and seen it marked with XXXs. There are dozens of voodoo shops in New Orleans; I’ve been around most of this country, but there aren’t many more haunted than New Orleans.
4 Café du Monde is still there
Like many things about the French Quarter, the café has changed since I first came here. It used to be an almost stately, fine place to see and be seen alongside the river and Jackson Square, where you could have a leisurely time of the best coffee and beignets in New Orleans. Now, it’s more of an assembly line of chaos than a place to linger, and people watch, but I try not to think of it. Instead, I think about how I can’t get benights almost anywhere else in the US except New Orleans. And even if it’s an assembly line, it’s an institution and a damn fine one at that.
One morning, I stood out front, leaning on rail, sipping my tepid café au lait and chewing my benights while facing Jackson Square and St. Louis Cathedral. I listened to a brass band play “When the saints go marching in.” This is by far their favorite song to play. When we received our music class recorders, in the north, we learned to play “Hot Cross Buns,” but here in New Orleans, I’m sure they learned to play this.
I watched a woman dressed in neon stretch pants wearing a purple, green and gold feather boa dancing manically in the street. Her sunglasses were oversized and covered in gold glitter, her lipstick an incandescent pink. She epitomized the essence of dance like nobody is watching. I dropped a few dollars in the bucket and walked toward the French Market.
5 At the French Market where the music always plays
Further down along the riverside, the jazz bands are playing loud to draw you in and I follow the music to the French Market. You can’t go too many blocks in the French Quarter without some brass instruments, or several, playing a spirited tune. It’s a happy place, like Neverland, or where New Year’s Eve never ends, if you can imagine it. Even in the daytime, it’s like we’ve just received news that we’ve won the war.
Vendors in the open-air market have sold food and goods in the same stalls since 1791 and still do nearly every day. Like everywhere, it’s not like it used to be, but that’s what makes memories so sweet. Like the times, this little market changes, but the magnificence is that it survives at all. That’s the beauty of much of the French Quarter. Though what you love changes, the best parts, unfathomably, have stayed the same for hundreds of years.
I stroll in and out of the shops browsing and stand the corners, looking at the details of the buildings. There’s so much to see. I stop for lunch and coffee; I stop a lot to admire this beautiful place.
6 Dinner in the French Quarter Even if you’re Local
Despite what the locals say, they do come into the French Quarter – it’s where some of the best restaurants are located. Once the restaurants open at night, the windows glow and you can see inside. There, the diners are pristine and dine to the nines despite the debauchery just outside. It’s an interesting juxtaposition. Of course, the best dining happens in hidden, mirror-filled rooms off unsuspecting sides streets, or so I’ve heard. But it’s more than that because dinner isn’t an individual affair, it’s a collective experience where you’re part of the party, dining in one big, or several small rooms in a festive atmosphere.
My friend Mary came to visit, and we went to dinner at Galitores. It’s one of those “old New Orleans” places that Anne Rice and Frances Parkinson Keyes wrote about. Classic, old money service with too many linens and dinner is an elaborate event in a big, loud room. Of course, I forgot my ballgown, but here, in the French Quarter, nowadays anyway, just about anything goes.
7 When All that’s Good is Gone, Art Never Dies
One of my favorite parts about the French Quarter that hasn’t changed is the art. It’s as stable as the jazz bands on the corners. Some of the exact same people selling the same art from when I first visited are still on the same corners. These guys have been out here since I was a kid, maybe longer.
There’s even some Banksy art a few blocks down near Rampart and Esplanade in the Vieux Carre of the Umbrella Girl. But there she stands, umbrella in hand, waiting for the rain to fall. Around her, the Banksy monkeys and rats gather; one rat holds a sign that says, “Everybody wants to post up next to a Banksy.” Or take pictures.
8 The New Orleans French Quarter at Night
At night, the New Orleans French Quarter changes into something else. The streets fill, and the houses and buildings that I thought might be vacant come to life. Lights, music, and bubble machines awaken. This happens every night, but if you’re there during Carnival or Mardi Gras, it’s not like any other thing, but you know the image: the balconies, the beads, the revelry.
At night, I walked around the square, watching my shadow cast on the old church walls next to the statue of Jesus, arms raised. In front of the cathedral, the only lights come from the candles on the tables of the tarot card readers, they beckon to me, but I keep moving, the bells of church going with me, as they peal into the night, Jesus’ shadow following.
It’s dark and the people hoot and holler and catcall as they stumble past. Hours before the parade comes through, the streets are filled. I watch from a distance, lingering in a doorway while a lone trumpeter plays a sad song outside of the gates of Jackson Square. In the darkness, much of this place looks like it would have been hundreds of years ago.
9 The Feeling on the street
I’m dressed like I always am, a single woman alone, I try to blend in, but right away I see my choice of plain dark pants, plain shirt and non-descript jacket and shoes makes me stand out among the revelers. Nearly everyone except me is dressed in Carnival ensembles that glow with beads, feathers, glitter and enough neon and nudity to blind.
I make my way through the crowd, watching as people on the street beg for beads from those on the balconies. Bubbles float past and beads sail over my head as I walk through the crowds. I never stand too long in one spot. In between floats and throws, there are brass bands and music and the crowd bounces with joy, umbrellas raised high. I even raise my arms, jump and sway with the upbeat jazz.
In between parades in the New Orleans French Quarter, people flow in and out of bars, here you can drink your alcohol where you please. A man, looking like an aged Willy Wonka drives by in a white convertible. He’s wearing purple, green and gold including a beaded top hat. He’s blasting “Dancing in the Dark,” by Bruce Springsteen as loud as his car will play it. Oh man, I love this place.
10 The Way Things Used to Be
I was making my way back to the Canal Street streetcar when I passed “The Three-Legged Dog.” It’s an old bar that the girls and I went into when we were in New Orleans over 10 years ago. I was happy to see it exactly as I remember. Some good things never change. Those were the days. But these are too.
I caught the tail end of another parade on my way to the streetcar and inadvertently joined the second line. The second line is maybe my favorite New Orleans-only thing. It’s the followers of regular people not in the parade who tag along behind extending it. Letting go, I allowed myself to be bounced and carried along to the rhythm of the big sousaphone. How can you not?
The New Orleans French Quarter isn’t something I intended to love. But I think J. Geils described it best in his song, so I’ll let him do it, he said, “I just don’t understand it … I musta got lost, somewhere down the line!”
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