New Orleans
Approached from the north-east, on the dead-straight I-10 that runs across the inlet to Lake Pontchartrain, the central business district skyline of New Orleans rises from the swamp, nearly forty miles away. It looks like any other big American city, with no clue as to the French Quarter that lurks in its shadow, and the reason most people visit.
It’s my first time and the city has a bad reputation for shocking roads, abysmal driving and epic levels of congestion. In addition, my learned experience of motorcycle touring is it’s best to avoid fighting city centre traffic when arriving late afternoon and departing early morning respectively. So I’ve booked the Motel 6, just off the freeway, about four miles out.
It’s generally a bad sign when your motel costs more for one night than most of the cars parked outside are worth, and this is sadly true of this one. Here, the other guests are mainly pimps, prostitutes and their clients so too absorbed in their world to pay me any attention.
Other guests are mainly wretched, but kind people who appear to have all their worldly possessions stuffed into their clapped-out cars. The complete down-and-outs that mill around outside on the street are all too zonked to cause any trouble.
So I check in and quickly catch an Uber to go to meet my friends, Suzie & Gary. They are staying in the French Quarter in the more elegant, Richelieu Hotel.
It’s dusk: the neon signs glow, there’s jazz and sin in the air and dinner at Mr. B’s Bistro later. But first, there are Sazeracs, the cocktail of New Orleans, to be drunk in the bar of the Hotel Monteleone. Created in 1838, Creole apothecary Antoine Peychaud invented the drink in his shop at 437 Royal Street.
The name of it comes from Peychaud’s favourite French brandy, Sazerac-de-Forge et fils but somewhere along the line, American Rye-whiskey was substituted for the cognac. In 1873, bartender Leon Lamothe added a dash of Absinthe, the ‘Green Fairy’ for its colour or ‘Black Death’ for its liquorice flavour, As Absinthe was banned in 1912 for allegedly causing hallucinations, Peychaud’s special bitters were substituted in its place.
Mr. B’s Bistro is elegant and expensive, serving local staples such as Shrimp Gumbo and Blackened Redfish. We get tempted by some truly excellent desserts so walk it off down Bourbon Street. A tidal wave of music gushes out of each bar, drenching the destitute, drunk and drugged hordes. A tight three-piece is thrashing out Tom Petty’s ‘Even the Losers (Get Lucky Sometime)' as we step gingerly through the carnage.
08 March 2024
Next morning, I take a sightseeing bus trip, a figure-of-eight around the city centre and the two other distinct regions it comprises. The business district is bland and corporate, the charming Canal Street with its trams marking the boundary with the French Quarter.
This central region also features the Superdome, a sleekly impressive modern structure that dates back to 1975. Usually a venue for sports events and rock concerts where it can seat 85,000, it was deployed as a ‘shelter of last resort" for those unable to evacuate from Hurricane Katrina when it struck on 29 August 2005.
The National World War II Museum comprises six enormous buildings. Two days later writing this, it’s a source of regret I didn’t plan to go. The tour guide recommended spending at least a day to get the best of it as it’s expensive with a $60 entrance fee.
Outside though, are various public exhibits. A section of the ‘Atlantic Wall’ built by the Germans that went from the Spanish-French border to Norway is on display, complete with shell marks. Alongside is a life-size likeness of Anne Frank and an extraordinary sculpture of twelve US airmen being briefed for a mission.
An explanation by the artist explains each figure embodies an archetype of those who served. The postures and facial expressions evoke precisely the personas described: ‘Speed’ is studying his watch, indicating the importance of timing in missions; ‘Lucky Strike’ represents the older, more experienced pilot and has his arms folded, sceptically, as many crews were, on the poor information they had to work with.
The faces of the lighter-coloured figures are ghostly, obscured by masks, and represent how they perished. ‘Lonesome’ was shot down and feels he failed his comrades, clipping ‘Stud’ on his descent, who comforts him that such accidents are common in war.
The bus continues into the ‘Garden District’. Once the separate city of Lafayette, in most ways it still is, with exquisite mansions and oak-lined streets. The grandest properties are on Saint Charles Avenue which has its own tram running up the central reservation. A sort of Park Avenue for the ‘Gone with the Wind’ era. In the slightly less enviable area of the ‘Lower’ Garden District, there’s a selection of tempting cafes and bars, mixed in with an evidently more diverse neighbourhood.
Jumping off the bus in the French Quarter, I walk Bourbon Street and what a grisly sight it is in daylight. Filthy and drab: a hangover from hell after the nightmare orgy of the American Dream… Tourists quaff endless, luminous buckets of cocktails and lurch around wearing mirthless expressions.
The lost and mad souls that make up the indigenous population cling to one another in a deadly embrace or bicker animatedly while a sweet, sickly stench of weed hangs all around like smog. Two cops sitting on Harleys, guns on their hips, try to exude some sense of authority over the mayhem, but they just look faintly ridiculous.
But an hour later, dusk falls and with it, the magic returns. There’s time for a couple more Sazerac’s before dinner at Brennan’s, one of the city’s most famous restaurants and the home of the ‘Bananas Foster’ a desert flambeed table-side, named after Richard Foster, a local civic and business leader.
In 1946 Brennan’s owner Owen, had challenged his chef, Paul Blange, to include bananas in a new dessert as a way of promoting the imported fruit, and this pyrotechnical display was the result.
On leaving the next morning, a lady in her seventies, I think, is bundling her possessions into the back of a battered Datsun. She’s seen my bike with its UK number plate and asks me about my trip.
Without preamble, she asks if she might say a prayer for me, and makes one up impromptu. Elegiac and heartfelt, she clutches my gloved hand and wishes me great adventures and safe travels.
“The Blood of Jesus” she assures me “is the best insurance cover you can get”. She wears the look of one for whom life has not been kind, but her optimism and faith are undimmed. I do hope she gets lucky sometime.
