Love_NewOrleans - BBC Destination Management

Fa l l i n g i n l o v e w i t h …
New
Orleans
The Crescent City’s
charms are irresistible
— and everywhere.
Sara Roahen explores
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Emily Delamater
I
I’ve only been in New Orleans as a tourist once —
in 1998, for a wedding. My most vivid memory
from that trip is of a brisk, dark drive along a
stretch of pavement that seemed to be the end
of civilization even though we were within city
limits. I know now that it was a river road. We
were headed to dinner, and as we proceeded
north, railroad tracks and the Mississippi River
levee followed us on the left, while a residential
neighborhood whizzed by on our right.
Eventually, a well-lighted 150-year-old shotgun
house loomed, and our hosts parked. At Mat &
Naddie’s Restaurant, I encountered the city’s
penchant for savory first-course cheesecakes and
the cozy restaurant-in-a-house design model of
some superb Uptown eateries — Brigtsen’s, Dick
& Jenny’s, and Bistro Daisy among them.
It’s a subtler New Orleans memory than the
others I’ve carried from that life-altering trip of
firsts — the deep-fried pork chop at the rehearsal
dinner; the warm, oozy Brie and sugary pecans
encased in pastry at the reception; the sherrybrightened turtle soup at Commander’s Palace
Restaurant; the grab-and-go daiquiris in the
French Quarter; the soundtrack of brass bands
that seemed to follow us everywhere; the heavy
heat; the stiff juleps. I realize that this list reads
like your typical guidebook’s description of Big
Easy highlights, but even now as a seasoned
local, I still get warmhearted at the prospect of
experiencing any/all of the above (except that I
now prefer a rye-based Sazerac cocktail from the
Roosevelt Hotel’s Sazerac Bar in my “go-cup”).
T he be at goes on
Musicians outside
Cafe Beignet on
Royal Street in the
French Quarter.
t h e r i t z - c a r lt o n m a g a z i n e
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That’s because some of the city’s most obvious
charms can also be the best portals for accessing
its deeper spirit, its grounding principles, its
contagious, cautiously reckless and welldocumented joie de vivre.
I was living in, and loving, Jackson, Wyo., in
1998, but I knew after that whirlwind wedding
weekend that I wanted to know this place more
thoroughly. It was pure luck — or, if you believe in
it, fate — that my then-boyfriend, now-husband
moved to New Orleans for medical school the
following year and invited me to join him. Matt
and I chose a rental house located close enough
to the river to hear the tugboat horns bellowing
in foggy weather and to feel the ground tremble
when containers were dropped en route from
water to rail. New Orleans has been a locus of
international trade since its founding in 1718,
and I loved the audible connection to unseen
commerce and serious work. We eventually purchased a home in the same neighborhood. While
we’re only three blocks from the Mississippi
riverfront, we can neither walk to the river nor
see it from any nearby vantage point — a vast
network of warehouses, rail cars, long-distance
trucks, container terminals, and docked boats
separate us from it. The river is ever-present, but
it remains as much a visual mystery now as it was
on that first, dark river-road drive.
I once told my mom that I had chosen Matt
as a mate because life with him would never
be boring, as if that would comfor t a mother. I
had a similar intuition about New Orleans. It’s
over years of predictability — breakfast-table
grumbles and pillow postmor tems — that you
slowly peel back a spouse’s infinite layers to
reveal new dimensions of personality and spirit.
Similarly, it’s through discovering and rediscovering some of the city’s most predictable
attractions — jazz, crawfish, Mardi Gras — that
I’ve managed to keep my love af fair with New
Orleans strong. When our relationship is feeling
stale (perhaps I’m reminded that other cities
recycle glass and have daily newspapers), I get
out my roux spoon and star t on a gumbo. Or
I hop on the St. Charles Avenue streetcar, the
world’s oldest continuously operated electric
railway line. Or I stroll around the rooker y at
Audubon Park, which was designed by the
landscape architect John Charles Olmsted and
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from top: Cedric Angeles; Krista Rossow; Caroline Tran. previous page: Emily Delamater
Fa l l i n g i n l o v e w i t h …
Urban legends
From top: A trolley
along St. Charles
Avenue in the Garden
District; the Secret
Society of Saint Anne
parade on Mardi Gras;
a mule-drawn carriage
in the French Quarter.
Experience
the city’s
contagious,
cautiously
reckless joie
de vivre.
Fa l l i n g i n l o v e w i t h …
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Square de al s
From top: Lunch
at Cafe Pontalba;
beignets and cafe au
lait at Cafe Du Monde;
and horse-drawn
carriages — all in
Jackson Square.
“The past
doesn’t pass
away so
quickly here.”
— Bob Dylan
from top: Cedric Angeles; Walter Bibikow/JAI/Corbis; Owaki/Kulla/Corbis
named in honor of the naturalist illustrator John
James Audubon, who painted much of his “Birds
in America” series here.
Or, I take my 3-year-old son on what used to
be a favorite single-gal outing when I was fighting
writer’s block or the medical widow blues. We
drive down Tchoupitoulas Street (the river road)
in the late afternoon to the Westin Hotel, where
the 11th floor lobby offers perfect views of the
French Quarter and of the great river at work
and at play. Cruise ships and the old-fashioned
Steamboat Natchez with its beloved calliope
dock alongside fire boats and rescue boats, while
just beyond the docks, hard-concentrating men
navigate massive barges around the Mississippi’s
curves. It’s so obvious, this defining river. It
shapes and, largely, finances our “Crescent City.”
And yet, even when the veil is lifted and I can see
as well as hear it, I only begin to grasp its strength
and significance.
Next, we descend to terra firma and make
our way downriver along the Moonwalk, a
bricked walkway that’s par t of the larger 16-acre
Woldenberg Park, lined with trees and benches
and public ar t on one side; the Mississippi River,
and all that we just viewed from above, on
the other. With the Crescent City Connection
Bridge spanning the river to our backs and the
Gulf of Mexico 100 miles ahead, I always feel
on the verge of something big and eternal. This
is meaningful in a town where, especially since
Hurricane Katrina, perpetuity is never assumed.
As soon as we spot Jackson Square on our
lef t, we angle down into the French Quar ter,
landing precisely at Café du Monde. If I didn’t
know better, I would assume that locals find
their beignets and chicor y-lengthened café au
laits at a less touristy spot than this 150-year-old,
supremely busy landmark. But, for me, the joy of
Café du Monde comes not from fried dough or
cof fee but rather its historic location, its quirky
multigenerational wait staf f, and the street
musicians who per form just beyond the café’s
green awnings. It’s here, while blowing on hot
beignets and dusting himself in powdered sugar,
that my son learned to sing the gospel song
“Down by the Riverside” and developed “French
Quar ter,” a game we play at home that involves
his snare drum and a cup, in which I deposit
coins and marshmallows at a song’s end.
Fa l l i n g i n l o v e w i t h …
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T he Art of t he Ci ty
From left: The
Preservation Hall Jazz
Band’s Ben Jaffe on tuba
and Charlie Gabriel on
clarinet warming up in
the hall’s back garden;
the Contemporary Arts
Center downtown.
Ico n ic n ew o rlea n s :
What Not to M iss
Enjoy one of the truly original American cuisines by
having dinner at one of New Orleans’ grand old French
Creole restaurants, which have been serving guests for
generations. Try Commander’s Palace, which dates
back to 1880 and is located in the Garden District.
Reserve space for a tour of New Orleans’ cemeteries,
known as “Cities of the Dead.” These tours depart from
the old French Quarter, the original city filled with historic French and Spanish colonial architecture.
Board the St. Charles Avenue streetcar for a ride on the
oldest continually operating railway system in the world.
You will ride past the stately mansions of the American
section of the city, the Garden District’s architectural
beauties, Loyola and Tulane universities, and Audubon
Park, home to one of the top zoos in the United States.
Spend an evening at The Davenport Lounge at The
Ritz-Carlton, New Orleans, where you can dance the
night away to the jazz stylings of Mr. Jeremy Davenport,
the hotel’s headline entertainer.
Rudy R a smussen
Concierge
The Ritz-carlton, New Orleans
Cedric Angeles (2)
Ideally it’s sunset when we exit Café du
Monde, and there’s just enough time for a walk
up and over to the corner of Bourbon and Canal
streets, where for as long as I’ve been here,
school-aged musicians have organized outside
a Foot Locker store for brass-and-drum jam sessions. They play for practice, they play for tourists, they play for money, and they blow so hard
on those horns you wonder how lungs of any
age can produce so much air. Bourbon Street
at night might not be the most conventional
playground for small children, but it’s a harmless
corner. And the cultural cred of such outdoor
concer ts — common in New Orleans — is a value
I gif t my son like you might bestow a ski-lif t pass
in, say, Wyoming.
Then, we walk down Canal Street to our
car, drive back up Tchoupitoulas Street past
warehouses and impassable por t entrances,
and listen to the train whistles as we brush
powdered sugar from our teeth.
River views, beignets, Bourbon Street, brass
bands. I blush a little at how typical this reads. I
could mention other favorite destinations, like
the tranquil Besthof f Sculpture Garden, located
within City Park’s 1300 acres of green space and
diverse recreation. Or my favorite sections of
Magazine Street, a commercial thoroughfare
that runs from Downtown through Uptown.
Or Thursday evenings at the Ogden Museum
of Southern Ar t, when musicians per form and
talk about their craf t. Or later on Thursday
evenings, at the classic hole-in-the-wall
Vaughan’s Lounge, when legendar y musician
Kermit Ruf fins wields his trumpet, sometimes
while wearing pajamas. Or the French Quar ter’s
collection of independent bookstores. Or the
panoply of Saturday markets. Or the catfish
po-boys at Guy’s.
I can recommend it all. But 14 years into my
domestic par tnership with New Orleans, river
views, beignets, Bourbon Street and brass bands
still get to the dynamic hear t of it, to all the
reasons I continue to choose this city over any
other. New Orleans’ most obvious charms also
encompass its greatest mysteries, and that is
never, ever boring.