French Quarter Fest New Orleans
New Orleans is home to rich culture and traditions, delicious foods, and exciting festivals the whole family can enjoy! The French Quarter is section of New Orleans that contains renowned historic sites, famous restaurants and bars, and unique entertainment.
For the past 3 decades, each spring New Orleans has been hosting an exciting music, food, and culture festival in the French Quarter called French Quarter Fest! This year French Quarter Fest boasts popular musicians, great food, and tours all with free admission yet again.
French Quarter Festival in New Orleans
Get a taste of the great city of New Orleans by attending the French Quarter Festival April 12-15th! Stages will be deliberately placed throughout the French Quarter for the four days that the festival takes place, and these stages will be home to hundreds of musical performances!
There is music for all tastes and preferences in music at the French Quarter Fest; Genres will include everything, from jazz, rhythm and blues, Cajun and zydeco, classical, New Orleans funk, swing, rock, to international sounds that will delight all lovers of music! View this year’s schedule.
French Quarter Festival Food and Drink Vendors
In addition to great music that will get your feet moving, French Quarter Fest features some truly delectable food. Over sixty food and beverage booths will be located throughout the historic French Quarter, providing you with tons of delicious options for food while you are walking around and enjoying the music or sipping on a drink.
There are food items ranging in prices from $3-$11, so you can even sample a few different foods without breaking the bank. Pat O’Brien’s Hurricanes, jambalaya, crawfish etouffee and other class New Orleans dishes and beverages will be available for purchase! In addition to great food and music, this year’s French Quarter Fest will host a few special events, including dance lessons, exciting parades, art shows and even talks with local music legends.
Finding a Place to Stay during French Quarter Fest
Finding a Place to Stay during French Quarter FestOnce you have decided on coming to New Orleans for French Quarter Fest, the only issue you have to deal with is finding a beautiful place to stay that is close to all of the excitement.
Thankfully, there are beautiful and historic places to stay in New Orleans that are in a prime location close to all of the entertainment and action in the French Quarter; the French Market Inn, Hotel St. Marie, Place d’Armes, the Prince Conti Hotel, and the Lafayette Hotel!
When you plan on booking a hotel, you want to ensure that you do not have to walk great distances or face expensive cab fares to get to the places you want to visit. That’s where Frenchquarter.com shines as your easy place to find hotel options!
Not only are many of these hotels located right in the heart of the French Quarter of New Orleans, but each is in prime location for French Quarter Fest, like the French Market Inn which is also located within six blocks of Jackson Square, the French Market, Aquarium of the Americas, Bourbon Street, Harrah’s New Orleans Casino, and more!
Book your stay at the at one of these great French Quarter hotels.
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Year-Round Christmas Shopping in New Orleans at Santa’s Quarters
Even on the muggiest of Louisiana days, it’s always Christmas inside Santa’s Quarters in the French Quarter.
Those who have never ventured into the store can’t help but wonder, How do they stay in business year-round? What is it a front for?
But Santa’s Quarters (1025 Dectatur St) owner David Erath, who also lives upstairs, assures NewOrleans.me, “Even though it’s Christmas stuff, it sells all year. Because a lot of tourists want to collect stuff, and this is collectible stuff. Even in June and July they’ll buy Christmas ornaments as mementos—a New Orleans themed Christmas ornament, that they put it on their tree in December to remember their trip.”
A French Quarter resident for 20 years, Erath purchased Santa’s Quarters from longtime friend Nel Leveque (from whom Erath and his wife also purchased the Head to Toe women’s boutique) in January 2005, just before Katrina came to town.
“For three or four years there was almost no business,” recalls Erath. “We reopened on October 15, as soon as the power came back on. There were some government state programs that helped with payroll. And I worked the shop myself some, and we managed to trickle out an existence. The landlord reduced the rent and everybody cooperated and we managed to keep it afloat until the city came back and the tourists started to come back.”
Erath says that any time tourists are in town, Santa’s Quarters is jingle bell rocking. “This weekend is our biggest weekend of the year, of course,” he says. “It’s the second weekend of the high school play offs, and that brings a lot of people into town. But any time the weather is nice, business is good.”
The trick, Erath says, is to sell quality merchandise that people can’t get anywhere else—not even on the shop’s companion website, run by Erath’s son. “What we do in our store that is different is there is virtually nothing here you could find in a big box store,” Erath attests. “There is virtually nothing they sell that we sell. This is all collectables and higher end stuff—like Christopher Radko hand blown glass stuff, that’s $60 to $80 per ornament. The cheap stuff doesn’t work; people are gonna buy that at WalMart. We might sell a $150 doll, but it’s special.”
The other trick, he says, is diversity of merchandise. Alongside Santa’s Quarters’ unique items like Dr. Who Tardis ornaments (“We’ve sold about 1,000 of those this year,” Erath says), he’s hosted a food and wine area, Halloween gifts, and a hunting and fishing room.
But Erath relies heavily on his large, well-curated Mardi Gras room. “A lot of people who do still decorate—especially in the French Quarter—they will take the Christmas stuff of their tree and decorate it as a Mardi Gras tree. That’s pretty common. And that helps after Christmas. The biggest sellers in the store are anything that screams New Orleans,” he says. “The New Orleans stuff and Mardi Gras stuff is 50-percent of our business.”
Erath also attributes his continued success to his exceedingly loyal, knowledgeable employees. “We acquired the employees with the business—they really knew how to run it,” he says. “I just go to the market in Atlanta in January and buy all the stuff and just stay out of my employees’ way.”
Cheryl Hingle (“Like Chris Kringle,” she laughs, “Or J with a jingle.”) has worked at Santa’s Quarters for 30 years. “I just love Xmas,” she announces when asked why she’s so loyal. “And I love that we get to meet all different kind of people. I like meeting all the tourists; we learn a lot from different countries and states. We see a lot of repeat customers come back.”
Erath though, says there aren’t as many repeat customers these days, nor as many locals. “When I moved into the Quarter 20 years there were 4,000 registered voters, now there are 1,200,” he claims. “So we don’t have the local business that we used to have. We used to sell tons of ribbon, and picks to make arrangements, and that’s pretty much gone. We have very few locals living in the Quarter now—most of them live in condos on the weekend and they don’t do a lot of decorating. “
When asked what it does to one’s mind to be surrounded by Christmas every day, Erath says that the holiday season does not invade him dreams. He does, however, laconically admit, “You do gotta like Christmas.”
Santa’s Quarters is located at 1025 Decatur St, near the corner of Decatur & Ursulines Ave. It is open seven days a week, from 10am-6pm.
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The True History and Faith Behind Voodoo
Every year now, The Voodoo Experience, with its taglines “join the ritual,” and “worship the music,” pegs its calendar to Halloween. This has become a tradition in New Orleans, much like All Saints’ Day, when families head to the graveyards of the French Quarter and beyond to whitewash and sweep the tombs clean and decorate them with fresh flowers.
Jerry Gandolfo, a native New Orleanian whose family has run the Voodoo Museum in the French Quarter since the 1970s, has seen oodles of products and places that take the name voodoo. Sometimes the term is used derogatorily, in terms like voodoo economics and voodoo science. But at a festival held outdoors, under the live oaks, the drums and music could summon the spirits and echo the past, living up to its name Voodoo. “If done right, the music should take possession of you. You won’t be able to stand still. And if that happens, you are doing voodoo,” he said. “There is a continuity.”
Photo provided by Cheryl Gerber
Voodoo’s New Orleans Roots
Voodoo came to New Orleans in the early 1700s, through slaves brought from Africa’s western “slave coast.” Like so many things New Orleans, Voodoo was then infused with the city’s dominant religion, Catholicism, and became a Voodoo-Catholicism hybrid sometimes referred to as New Orleans Voodoo. In New Orleans, for instance, Legba, the Voodoo deity who controls the gates to the spirit world, becomes St. Peter, who holds the keys to the gates of heaven.
The hybrid was evident in Marie Laveau, a devout Catholic who attended Mass at St. Louis Cathedral and was a close friend of the cathedral’s priest, Pere Antoine.
Today, Voodoo lives on in New Orleans through people who see it as part of their culture, through error-prone rumor, and through the long shadow of Laveau, the city’s best-known voodooeinne.
In front of Laveau’s brick-and-mortar tomb in St. Louis No. 1 cemetery on the outskirts of the French Quarter, fans lay out stacks of nickels, paper flowers, and other offerings. Visiting cemeteries such as this one is one of the most popular things to do in the French Quarter and beyond.
When Laveau was alive and living on St. Ann Street, people used to knock on her door at all hours, looking for legal help, food, or advice about a straying husband. Her death in 1881 didn’t stop that. “In Voodoo, an ancestor is as much alive as a living person,” Gandolfo said. “You just go to her new home now.”
Laveau, who was also known as the Widow Paris after the death of her first husband Jacques Paris, was a striking spiritual figure, a do-gooder and a free woman of color. She adopted orphans, fed the hungry, visited prisoners, and nursed countless patients back to health during the yellow-fever epidemic. She also was a skilled naturopath, treating patients with massage, teas, herbs, salves and tinctures, which likely was more successful with yellow-fever parents than bloodletting and other medical techniques of the day.
Some of the books cite first-hand accounts of neighbors recalling how Laveau had flowers, candles, images of saints, and altars throughout her house, how the front steps were scrubbed every morning with brick dust, to protect the house, and how she had a statue of St Anthony of Padua, the patron saint of finding lost items, that she would turn upside down when she was “working.”
Photo provided by Cheryl Gerber
Voodoo In New Orleans Today
Hoodoo is a non-religious belief in the objects of Voodoo, or gris gris. Gandolfo likens it to a belief that a four-leaf clover is lucky. New Orleans has had a long line of famous hoodoo practitioners and shops, and people here still talk about spells that use images of saints, chicken feet, graveyard dust, brick dust, gunpowder, pins and needles, candles and incense.
Want to learn more? Read the Know NOLA Guide to Voodoo from our friends at New Orleans & Me.
Photo provided by Cheryl Gerber
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French Quarter Fun at Downriver Festival
The Mississippi River and the city of New Orleans have always been tied together, joined in a marriage of geography and history. It’s a tie worth celebrating, and if you’re looking for things to do in New Orleans this weekend, you may want to explore the relationship between the city and the river at the 4th annual Downriver Festival, held on September 10.
The Downriver Festival is a free day of music, arts, crafts and activities related to the Mississippi River. The event centers in the French Quarter, spilling over between the French Market, stuffed with food and vendors, into the Old U.S. Mint, a home of the Louisiana State Museum.
Downriver Things To Do in New Orleans
This year’s theme is “Oysters & The Future of our Coast,” so expect a full slate of culinary options that utilize local Gulf Coast bivalves. Shucking competitions will appear side by side with lectures of the history of the oyster, and its importance as a food stuff to the people of New Orleans.
As with most New Orleans events, there will be music including performances by local favorites like Pepe Coloma and the Honey Island Swamp Band. Throughout the day, live shows will play on the edge of the French Quarter inside the courtyard of the Old U.S. Mint, which itself lies near a nexus of excellent dining and drinking options. Even in the early September heat, people will be dancing the day away in front of the festival’s live music lineup.
Past the music and food, there are other great options for things to do in New Orleans during the fest. Local photographer Zack Smith will be leading a workshop on how to take festival photography, and there will be 40-minute walking tours that explore the Crescent Park, which now links the edge of the French Quarter to historic neighborhoods like Faubourg Marigny and the Bywater. Within the Crescent Park, you’ll also find excellent views that look out over the Mississippi River.
Visiting this French Quarter Festival
The 4th annual Downriver Festival lasts from 11am-6:30pm on Sep 10th. If you need to get to the party (and want to learn more about the city on your way), hop a ride with City Sightseeing New Orleans. Those big red buses are manned by local New Orleanians who do a fantastic job of introducing visitors to their hometown.
Those looking to stay within walking distance of the festival can book a room in one of the many beautiful boutique French Quarter hotels, located within the historic, easily walkable French Quarter.
Images courtesy of Downriver Festival’s Facebook page.
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Things to Do in New Orleans: Jazz in the Park
The shoulder seasons in New Orleans – that is to say, spring and autumn – are the generally agreed upon to be the most pleasant months to be in the city. Or more specifically, to be outside when you’re in the city. And in this vein, People United for Armstrong Park is making music a la carte via Jazz in the Park.
This New Orleans music tradition brings local legends to the historic Louis Armstrong Park, right on the border of the French Quarter and the historic Treme neighborhood. These free, family friendly concerts happen from 4-8pm on Thursdays, starting on March 30th and lasting until June 1st. Expect food, beer, arts and crafts and more to be present in force, along with a variety of New Orleans music. Although the concert series is Jazz in the Park, the Crescent City’s most celebrated genres such as soul, funk, brass, and zydeco are all represented.
French Quarter Fun before the Fest
With its location so close to the French Quarter, there are many different options for things to do before this free New Orleans festival. Basin St. Station, New Orleans’ visitor center, is a proud sponsor of Jazz in the Park. A great stopping point to learn more about the city, Basin St. Station houses an authentic New Orleans souvenir shop and train museum, along with information about some of the best things to do in the French Quarter and beyond. The station also serves as a great public parking option for those driving in for Jazz in the Park. A part from being a museum, Basin St. Station is also one of the stops for City Sightseeing New Orleans, the city’s Hop-On Hop-Off tour. Their red, double decker buses run daily from 9:30AM to 5:30PM with live guided narration about New Orleans’ top attractions. After spending the day learning more about the French Quarter and other neighborhoods, riders can Hop-Off in the Treme or at Basin St. Station and boogie a few blocks over to Jazz in the Park!
New Orleans Music at Jazz in the Park
If you’re into brass, the May 18th show features Brassaholics and the May 25th show features Hot 8 Brass Band, while local legend (and internationally acclaimed show-stoppers) Kermit Ruffins take the stage on April 27th. Funkmasters Jon Cleary and the Absolute Monster Gentlemen will be playing their New Orleans hard-hitting R&B on June 1st. With that said, the entire lineup throughout the season is going to be great; you can find out more information here and watch the videos below to get ready for the fun.
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French Quarter One-of-a-Kind Series: Uncommon Scents
Top to bottom: Hové Parfumeurs Owner Amy van Calsem Wendel, Perfumed strips each featuring hand-blended Hové scents, Hové room scents and scented candles.
When visiting Hové Parfumeurs in the heart of the French Quarter there are two things you can be sure of – the word “change” is spoken in hushed tones, and what’s old is always new again.
“This is a truly original New Orleans family business,” says Amy van Calsem Wendel, fourth generation owner of Hové. “We are not big on change around here. Of course we have grown with the times, such as installing computers and streamlining mail orders, but we like the way things have worked for the past seventy years.” At Hové, paperwork takes on new meaning. Van Calsem Wendel and her family have transferred decades of index cards with customers’ preferences and orders into their computer system. “We keep everything. We remember people and traditions,” she says, “And we think that is what keeps people coming back to us.”
History is important not only in the traditions the shop carries on but also in the fragrances Hové creates, and in the family business itself. “Hové has always been a part of my family, and now we are so proud to continue with that tradition,” says van Calsem Wendel. Located in the home of a family member since its opening, Hové Parfumeurs gives new meaning to bringing your work home with you. “We live above the shop, its third location, and now our children have the opportunity to grow up in the Hové tradition. We create all of our fragrances right here, and they can see it all happening first hand. It’s a wonderful experience.”
Classic scents with a personal touch keep customers coming back for more. Opened in 1931 by Mrs. Alvin Hovey-King, Hové Parfumeur focuses on providing the finest fragrances for men and women. Now offering more than 53 fragrances, van Calsem Wendel learned the trade secrets from watching and studying family traditions. “Learning this business is an ongoing process, because we are always creating new fragrances, improving old fragrances, and providing custom blends for customers,” she says. “It’s also very important to get those favorite old fragrances just right, the ones our customers remember from childhood.”
It’s those old favorites that continue to enchant New Orleanians and visitors alike. These traditional Creole concoctions, with names like tea olive, or sweet olive, spanish moss, and vetivert, have been used throughout New Orleans for generations. According to van Calsem Wendel the histories of each blend are unique. “Tea olive, for example, was used for its aromatic properties and was often steeped like black tea. Vetivert root, on the other hand, had a stronger quality that was used throughout the home, in armoirs and dresses, pillowcases and bedlinens, as well as a scent to be carried throughout town as a fan.” To many the unique woodsy and naturally sweet smells of vetivert and tea olive are as much a part of their own history and it is of the city of New Orleans. “These fragrances are a piece of history. Generations grew up with them in their home. It’s a unique gift from the past that we are fortunate to be able to pass on to the next generation.”
Stepping through the 18th century doors of Hové Parfumeur is at once a lesson in aromatherapy, New Orleans history, and French Quarter customs. “We often get asked, what’s unique about living and working in the French Quarter? There’s never one answer to that question,” says van Calsem Wendel. “It’s a truly unique experience, from the history to the beautiful courtyards, and of course, the food. We like to see ourselves as an integral part of that experience, right up there with Dixie Beer and the Central Grocery.” Around here, some things never change. And maybe, in Hové Parfumeur’s case, that’s a good thing.
Hové® Parfumeur
824 Royal Street
New Orleans, Louisiana
504-525-7827
Hours of Operation: Mon – Sat. 10AM- 5PM
Tara McLellan, a freelance writer, book author, and columnist, has been featured in Metropolitan Home Magazine, New Orleans Magazine, New Orleans Homes and Lifestyles, and St. Charles Avenue Magazine. She lives and works in the New Orleans area.
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Quarter Top Hats: Kabuki Design Studio
A Small Selection of Designs from Kabuki Design Studios’ Owner & Designer Tracy Thomson
For milliner and accessories designer Tracy Thomson, her artistic career has truly come full circle in New Orleans. “Hats basically start out as circles. Circles to me represent eternity and continuance, and much more,” says Thomson. To her, circles’ many meanings are demonstrated by her interaction with customers all over the world. “My hats always seem to come back to me,” she says. “I see them on the street and instantly have a connection to the people that buy and wear them. The circle brings together a community. I love the whole idea of that.”
The history of Kabuki Design Studios starts with a theatrical journey from New York and ends up in the French Quarter. “I was working with a performing arts group that traveled from New York to New Orleans for a performance at the Contemporary Arts Center,” says Thomson. “I started a studio there and began making hats and costumes. One thing led to Mardi Gras and then to Jazz Fest and then before I knew it I had my Design Studio in the French Quarter.”
It’s Just Fun To Say Kabuki
For a people person like Thomson, creating hats has become more than an artistic venture. For her, it’s a way to interact with her customers and the community. “This is the best job in the world,” she says. “I get to see my artwork walking around and people from all over the world tell me that they have connected with others simply because they recognize my hats.” People connections are at the root of all of Thomson’s creations. The name Kabuki alone popped into her head because it reminded her of her own parents meeting and falling in love in Japan. “It reminds me of travelling and all those wonderful art objects they brought back with them,” says Thomson. “And, even, more, it’s just fun to say Kabuki.”
Kabuki hats come in all shapes and sizes, and for all kinds of people. “We’ve got something for those people that come in and say ‘I’m such a hat person,’ and we’ve also got something for those people that come in and say the opposite,” says Thomson. From colorful fabric hats bought on shopping expeditions to New York City, to dramatic velvet evening hats, to twisted paper straw hats that love to travel (they collapse to fit a suitcase or bag!), and playful tablecloth vinyl rain hats, each hat is made from simple materials used in a unique way. According to Thomson, “All of my hats are one of a kind. I like it that way, and so do my customers.” Large or small, these hats make a definite statement that collectors can’t seem to get enough of. “I have collectors that visit whenever they are in town, whether it’s Mardi Gras or Jazz Fest or simply a vacation, as well as locals that come in to see what’s new. I buy only a few yards of each fabric, so after it’s used up, that series is finished. It’s fun to always be working with new materials.”
The Famous Water Meter Hat
Perhaps one of the most popular of her creations is the New Orleans water meter hat. “New Orleans artists have been using the water meter image for a while now because it’s just plain cool. The design, with its crescent moon and stars, really captures the imagination,” says Thomson. “I decided to take a rubbing and create a line of hats from that iconic image so that people would have a little bit of New Orleans to bring home with them. It’s a much better alternative than being nabbed at the airport for stealing the original!”
Since Thomson moved to New Orleans 18 years ago, the French Quarter has become more than just a place to work. For her, and most of the other Royal Street merchants who surround her, it’s home. “We all have such a great rapport, especially on Royal Street,” says Thomson. “We are all unique. I’m blessed to be in the French Quarter.” For her, the romance of the Quarter is inescapable. “I see something new every day, whether it’s the light on a building or noticing a little corner. It’s truly a charming place.”
Warning: Once you see a Kabuki Design Studio hat, you may start to see them everywhere. But it’s not a trick of the eyes. Tracy Thomson’s distinctive style has become a chapeau phenomenon, with fans logging in from the great Northwest of the United States, from camel rides in the desert, and from Mardi Gras right here in New Orleans. So, what’s all the fuss? It’s more than just style. For most customers, both first time and returning, it’s a feeling. “People tell me they recognize my hats all over, and that’s so great,” she says. “It’s so wonderful to create a product that simply makes people happy.”
Kabuki Design Studio
1036 Royal Street
504-523-8004
www.kabukihats.com
Tara McLellan, a freelance writer, book author, and columnist, has been featured in Metropolitan Home Magazine, New Orleans Magazine, New Orleans Homes and Lifestyles, and St. Charles Avenue Magazine. She lives and works in the New Orleans area.
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Gardens of the French Quarter – St. Anthony’s Garden
Detail, Ignace Broutin, Plan de la Nouvelle Orléans telle qu’elle estoit le premier janvier mil sept cent trente-deux. French Centre des archives d’outre-mer 04DFC 90A. Broutin’s plan of the garden and the Capuchin complex in 1732. Several drainage features seem to be included. The potager was planted in rows. A decorative feature was at the center. The larger building in the courtyard was the kitchen and refectory. It had a door leading to the garden. One of the other structures was a poultry house. The small brick-between-posts building nearest to the church in the garden was the residence of the Capuchin superior. In later years, Pere Antoine would reside in a small house close to this location.
Bourgerol’s 1838 plan of cathedral properties is the first known official plan showing Place St. Antoine in the center. Joseph Cuvillier, N. P., 10/9/1838, New Orleans Notarial Archives.
St. Anthony’s Garden, August 30, 2005. Photograph by Judy Andry. Courtesy Judy Andry.
Secluded behind the stately towers of St. Louis Cathedral and enclosed by its sturdy old fence, St. Anthony’s Garden is a welcome oasis of calm amid the noisy surroundings of the French Quarter. It is named for St. Anthony but dedicated to the memory of his namesake, longtime Spanish curate Antonio de Sedella, also known as “Pere Antoine.” The melodic notes of the drab grey mockingbird and the clarion whistle of the red crested cardinal offer few interruptions to the garden’s monastic spirit. High above, the tower of the old cathedral shields the garden from the rays of the rising sun, the delicate clangs of its half-hour bells marking time faithfully. Alongside, a pair of strangely-allied alleys hems in the sidelines, one quite agreeably named for the saintly curate, and the other more curiously named for a band of pirates.
Early each morning, artists of the community arrive at the garden’s western exposure, easels and paints in hand. For nearly a century, they have had the privilege of the sturdy bars of the cast iron fence to display their portraits and landscapes in oils and watercolors for passers-by and shoppers. The scene is timeless, reminiscent of Old New Orleans.
Since the founding of the city, there has been a garden here in various forms. The open space is as old as Jackson Square, laid out by the French engineer de Pauger in 1721 as a permanent public plaza for the city. Like the square, the Cathedral garden, used for nearly a century as a potager or formal space for growing vegetables divided by walkways, has evolved over the years. It was initially situated directly behind an earlier version of the Presbytere adjacent to the Church of St. Louis. Formal but practical in purpose, it served the monks both as a place to supply the dinner table and for meditation and the recitation of prayers. After the city’s two disastrous fires of the later Eighteenth Century, the wardens of the cathedral partly filled the garden with rental property to cover the expenses of the parish.
After the death of the revered Pere Antoine in 1829, New Orleans officials moved to convert the old Capuchin space into a public garden for the city. At that time, the bed of Orleans Street entered the square from Royal, extending in to the rear of the old colonial cathedral.
During the 1830s the city closed the Orleans street bed in the square, purchased some land from the wardens, and shifted the garden to the center. The city then built a pavilion and green house, added a fountain, planted flower beds, and leased the space to a vendor. For thirty years in the ante bellum period, Place Antoine was a resort for lovers, the elderly, and families with children. From spring to fall, they repaired to the garden to promenade along its walkways while enjoying an ice cream or a lemonade under a canopy of flowering magnolias.
In 1849, the Wardens of St. Louis Cathedral commenced the building project that replaced the old Spanish cathedral with the present building and fence. Finished in the early 1850s, the cathedral now had a deeper footprint. This made the garden smaller but did not put it out of business. By 1860, it was operating as “Bellanger’s Garden,” open in the spring and summer.
The Civil War put an end to the economic viability of a public garden in the French Quarter. Abandoned, the space grew up into a jungle. Owned partly by the church and partly by the city, its legal status became cloudy. During the 1880s, the first known photographic evidence of St. Anthony’s Garden appeared as a print in a local guidebook. The garden was intact! A fountain splashed in the center. Banana trees and shrubbery flourished. A vine-covered arbor led somewhere, disappearing into the distance. Sinuous walkways led from the gate at Royal to the cathedral. They went perfectly with architect de Pouilly’s signature, scroll-shaped consoles and sightless arches on the rear of the cathedral. Fashionable ladies and gentlemen strolled on the Royal St. sidewalks. Alas, not a soul was inside the fencing. Was the garden public or private?
The first known positive evidence that the church owned the garden dates to the 1890s, when the cathedral budget provided for a gardener. For over a century after that, it has continued in use as a private green space, a visual oasis locked behind its fence. Even so, French Quarter residents and visitors have taken ownership of its presence, feeling entitled to the view. Just looking at the garden brings peace in a hurried atmosphere.
Hurricane Katrina did her best to destroy the tranquil space that had brought so much solace to residents and visitors. But the removal of trees by hurricane forces opened the space to redevelopment. With a newly-opened, sunny exposure, the garden could spring to life in a brand new fashion. Armed with a planning grant from the J. Paul Getty Foundation, the Archdiocesan Catholic Cultural Heritage Center brought in historians, archaeologists, landscape architects and administrators to map out a future for the garden. Funds must still be raised to implement a masterful plan by Parisian landscape architect Louis Benech and associates. Success will bring a certain future as the garden springs to life again in the 21st century.
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Grand Chorus Without End at the Old Cathedral in Jackson Square
Every quarter-hour, the thin peal of bells at St. Louis Cathedral calls saints and sinners, mostly the latter. They clang out a slightly off-key sound, as if they well know the offbeat rhythms of the neighborhood below them. The pulse of a circus atmosphere around the church pounds from hour to hour, as if to compete with the timbre of the sounds from the tower. The church stands sentinel, nether judging nor joining.
Inside, the aroma of ancient brick masonry greets the visitor. One thinks at once of an old French monastery, although stone is nowhere. The darkened entry gives way to a bright interior with painted surfaces everywhere. The eye is drawn to the great high Rococo altar, where gilded and fluted columns of the Corinthian order support a busy entablature. Two rows of wooden columns divide the church into nave and side aisles, with a mute upper gallery where, one imagines, crowds overflowed before Vatican II put an end to crowded churches.
Along the walls, St. Louis lives through stages in multicolored shards of artist’s glass and lead. Here he receives a blessing from St Blanche, his mother; there he marries. He builds a chapel, receives the crown of France, and departs for his first crusade across a wooden plank. Further on he visits a leper with lesions of hollow glass, and in the great lunette over the high altar Louis announces the Seventh Crusade. Overhead, St. Peter receives his shepherd’s staff from the Savior, surrounded by apostles, as the Father oversees the mission.
St. Louis Cathedral Gallery
Pere Antoine, Bishops’ Bones, Unending Restoration
History, harmony, legend, and tradition preserve the mystique of this cathedral. By most counts it is the third substantial church of St. Louis on the square. The French built the first one in 1727, following the town plan. It stood, weathered, until the Great Fire of 1788, when Spanish dons were ruling. Rebuilt with funds from local notary and real estate developer Andres Almonester y Rojas, the second church barely escaped the flames of yet another general fire in 1794. It was mainly in that second church that the memorable Spanish Capuchin Pere Antonio of Sedella served from 1783 until his much-lamented death in 1829. Here lay the bones of old Don Almonster, and of the said Friar Antonio, for whom the people named Pere Antoine’s Alley alongside the church. Here was sung the Te Deum thanking God for the Victory of the Battle of New Orleans in 1815.
The Spanish church got its stripes when the city received its first bishop in 1793. Sixty years later, New Orleans became an archbishopric, elevating the cathedral further. The present building rose then, incorporating a few bricks and lines of mortar from its predecessor. The marguilliers or church wardens had it built from plans drawn in 1849 by French-born architect Jacques N. B. de Pouilly. Its iconic, multi-stage, tapering, slate-covered triple towers are better than any that preceded it.
Today the church contains the remains of eight New Orleans bishops. Their lives reflect the story of the Church and the city. Renovated, decorated and restored over and again, repainted inside and out, waterproofed, strengthened with steel, buttresses added, foundations fixed, the church stands. Today the St. Louis Cathedral is a symbol of New Orleans and a tribute to the people and clergy who have struggled to preserve it. Most of all it is a haven of serenity from the soul-splitting life of the world outside.
Sally Reeves is a noted writer and historian who co-authored the award winning series New Orleans Architecture. She also has written Jacques-Felix Lelièvre’s New Louisiana Gardener and Grand Isle of the Gulf – An Early History. She is currently working on a social and architectural history of New Orleans public markets and on a book on the contributions of free persons of color to vernacular architecture in antebellum New Orleans.
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The Courts are Home Again on Royal Street
It took two years to build and two decades to renovate. To some it was an elegant City Beautiful triumph of slum clearance, to others an out-of-scale offense to an historic neighborhood. Home to landmark legal decisions and antique documents, it gave way to stuffed birds, mounted fish and rock displays. Increasingly beleaguered, empty and abandoned, it fell “tumbling into ruin.” Proposed as an opera house, casino parlor, tourist center, movie set, or better yet, for demolition, it soon housed live birds and real animals, nesting in the nooks of its ornate spaces. But now–with restoration costs approaching forty million – the “New Court House” on Royal St. is new again.
New in 1910, abandoned in 1958 for more modern quarters
Opening in 1910, it was the “New Courthouse Building” for most of its life in the rousing world of jurisprudence. Its purpose was to “clear slums” while replacing the Cabildo and Presbytere as the seat of local justice. For fifty years the Louisiana Supreme Court and a spate of lower courts and offices drew swarms of glad-handed politicians, judges and lawyers, plaintiffs and defendants, juries and commissioners, clerks and secretaries, librarians, and even an occasional historian through its sculpted hallways. But in 1958 the Supreme Court departed for newer quarters and others soon followed. The halls that had rung with homegrown political wisdom, argument and judgment, now fell silent.
But today the courts are home again. Marble floors gleam again, plastered walls are clean again, and tech-savvy secretaries have settled in the nooks of its cavernous and newly scrubbed spaces. Meanwhile, residents, glad to see the courthouse live again, remember what was lost to history to accommodate its construction.
Built on two squares heavy with history
In 1831 the fourth block of Exchange Alley cut the site into two small squares with numerous stores and houses. A trim row of granite-columned stores lined the Alley from Canal to St. Louis Street. Cafés, studios, and the offices of architects and surveyors filled the row with conversation, art and engineering. At the end of the last block, facing the St. Louis Hotel, once stood the storied “Café des Colonnes,” planned by the talented architect de Pouilly. On Royal St. the “Grand Old Creole” Bernard Marigny had the polished Henry S. Bonneval Latrobe design a pair of elegant houses. On the same block General Jackson met with advisors to plan the Battle of New Orleans. Here later was the home of Mollie Moore Davis, wife of the Confederate president.
By the turn of the twentieth century this was all ancient history. To the business class, the deteriorated Quarter was a hopeless slum in need of general razing. Meanwhile, the political class saw the dawn of a new day in the demolitions needed for the brand new courthouse. But even with a blank slate, architects Brown, Brown and Marya faced a challenge in the heart of the Quarter. The Court’s mass and pristine white Beaux Arts exterior would contrast sharply with the small-scale buildings and unpainted surfaces around it. The complex building footprint they designed addressed this issue by diminishing the mass and allowing for considerable buffering in the landscaping. In plan, a rectangle on the Royal Street side diminishes to a narrower passage, and then spreads out expansively as it approaches Chartres Street, its arms ending in graceful semi-circular apses.
Overall, the Supreme Court has been a friend to the Quarter. Its findings in landmark cases like Mayer and Pergament have confirmed the regulatory power of the Vieux Carré Commission repeatedly. With the Courts now home again, judges will see first hand what coming years will plead for in the Old French Quarter.
Sally Reeves is a noted writer and historian who co-authored the award winning series New Orleans Architecture. She also has written Jacques-Felix Lelièvre’s New Louisiana Gardener and Grand Isle of the Gulf – An Early History. She is currently working on a social and architectural history of New Orleans public markets and on a book on the contributions of free persons of color to vernacular architecture in antebellum New Orleans.
