Is there any other city like New Orleans? Manhattan (New York) is the only city that comes close, and even it can’t hold a candle to the Big Easy.
I don't think there is.
What is unique about New Orleans begins, of course, with the French Quarter. No other area in the country has maintained the look of its area for over 200 years. The French Quarter is not large, only about ½ mile square, but feels much larger. The houses and structures within it are usually over 200 years old, and good zoning has kept the entire area having the feel of the original, at least as much as is humanly possible.
It was the original site of New Orleans. In this area lived the people known as Creoles, a mixture of French (primarily), Spanish, African (from the Caribbean) and some native American. What is most interesting to me about this group is that they intermarried with slaves and freed slaves from the Caribbean, so had a significant African background.
They spoke a French dialect, and had close ties to France. Although the area is known as the French Quarter, almost all of the buildings in the area reflect a Spanish tradition--another of the more interesting features of the area. The reason is that the French Creoles built in wood, and fires destroyed virtually all of the French Quarter before the Spanish became owners of it in the late 1700s. So it was rebuilt using Spanish architecture and design. Somehow the French reacquired it in just enough time for Bonaparte to sell it to the U.S. as part of the Louisiana Purchase.
Boy, did we score.
The Creoles were upper class. They were the late 18th century 1%ers. From what I gather, they used money they earned in various ways to purchase plantations up the Mississippi River. So, all along the Mississippi, from New Orleans to about where Baton Rouge is today, were lined with plantations that were ½ to one mile in width (along the Mississippi) but many miles in depth.
On those plantations they grew sugar cane. Of course, what “they” is defined as is slaves. Each plantation owned hundreds of slaves which cost, even by today’s standards, a ton of money. Most of their wealth was tied up in slaves. Hard to fathom.
And they made huge amounts of money. Each year their slaves would spend about three months, working maybe 20 hours a day, cutting the sugar cane which would be loaded onto barges and shipped down river to New Orleans. Then, many of the owners would spend a few months at their homes in the French Quarter, celebrating Mardi Gras.
The French Creole world was slowly destroyed when the U.S. obtained ownership of the area, but much of the culture persevered until the civil war.
We visited two of the most well known Creole plantations that still remain along the Mississippi. One, Laura, was built in the standard Creole fashion. The other, Oak Alley, was built in the more familiar Gone-With-The-Wind Colonial fashion, although the owner was Creole.
Our bus driver and guide was very informative and interesting. However, as he drove, I kept thinking about a scene from, of all movies, Annie Hall. One night, Woody Allen is a passenger in a car driven by Annie Hall's brother, as her brother talks about a fantasy he has of just driving head-long into an on-coming car. The camera pans to Woody Allen, who has this terror-stricken look on his face. It is hilarious.
So why did I think of this scene?
Or driver was one of those people who talks with his hands. I can appreciate it, as I am one too. However, when he would remove both hands from the steering wheel to describe the shape of the plantations, for example, and the bus would meander across the median, I thought of Woody Allen.
Anyway, we made it,
Slavery made them all wealthy. It is a good thing the civil war came along and just beat the holly crap out of the South. Slavery was such an evil thing, and such a powerful institution, that it would have necessitated the deaths of half a million people to get rid of it.
Of course, the rich slave owners were not the ones leading the charge into a hail of musket fire. Instead, it was poor, ignorant farm boys whose arms and legs were torn off. They died for this institution? So the 1% could take their yearly trips to Europe and stay at their lavish mansions in New Orleans.
And southerners still can't let go of the Confederacy. Even though it was all about keeping the 1%, but not them, wealthy. Am I in the Twilight Zone?
Well, anyway, there is all of this rich Creole heritage, still available for the viewing in New Orleans. And it is fascinating.
And then, as if this isn’t enough, there is the Cajun influence, a completely different French-related group that arrived from Nova Scotia and related areas when the English forced the Acadians out of there in the late 1700s. They went to many places, but a large group settled in southern Louisiana. From them, we owe jazz, Cajun cuisine, and Zydeco (I can forgive them for this, actually).
So, there are these two interesting cultural groups, both having significant ties to France that created this amazing melting pot in Louisiana. And New Orleans reflects all of this vibrant, violent, beautiful, and brutal history.
When Storyville closed, much of the prostitution simply moved elsewhere, a lot into the French Quarter. Part of the French Quarter still reflects this bawdy history. There are girlie shows (Hustler has a big venue there), and Bourbon street, with its bars, loud music, and active night life.
However, when you walk about two blocks away from Bourbon street, you find quiet neighborhoods, with the houses still reflecting the old Spanish architecture. There is even a small school in the Quarter.
It is a trendy place, though, so ordinary rich people can’t live there—only rich rich people. And that is sort of a shame. Many of the original old homes are being refurbished. One can get hints that inside these old structures people have installed completely modern furnishings. The outsides have to maintain the original look, but not the insides. How boring.
If I wanted to live in one of these places, I would want it to look as much like the original as possible. Also, if I wanted to live in one of these places, I would need to win the lottery. So, what does that matter?
One other danger to the French Quarter is that even though there is strict zoning that structures have to be remodeled according to their original look, many of the ones that have been remodeled look more like they belong in Disneyworld than they do in the French Quarter. They look like the original, yes, but like they are new-original. They just don’t look “right,” in some significant way. They are too clean, too perfect, without the flaws that give them character or charm.
We spent a couple of days doing the tourist things here. We visited two of the more well-known plantations along the Mississippi, took a steam-boat cruise on the Mississippi and danced (not easy to do to Dixieland jazz, music that I’m not all that fond of anyway), walked around the French Quarter (and did the New Orleans thing of carrying my glass of wine with me to show I was cool), shopped in the French Market (a Pike’s Place Market lite), had Biegnets at Café du Monde, ate gumbo, red beans and rice, fried catfish, and jambalaya, rode the St. Charles street trolley, and walked around the Garden District to ooh and aah at the mansions.
I have loved New Orleans since I first visited in about 1974. Vicky took to it right away as well. We will be back some year.
River boat cruise:
Slave house. New Orleans is special, but it is necessary to reflect on the fact that it was built on the backs of slaves who spent their hard lives not living in splendor, but simply trying to survive and protect their families, usually unsuccessfully.
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