The New Orleans Diaspora Gift Guide
Every New Orleanian who has ever left the city has a version of the same story. You're in a coffee shop in Denver, or a hardware store in Brooklyn, or an airport gate in Chicago, and you spot it ac...
Jazz Fest Outfit Ideas: What to Wear, What to Bring, and What to Leave Home
There’s a moment around late April when New Orleanians start doing the Jazz Fest calculus — checking which acts are on which stage, mapping out the food tent strategy, and staring into their closet...
Essence Festival: The Largest Celebration of Black Culture in America
The Party with a PurposeEvery Fourth of July weekend, New Orleans hosts the largest annual gathering of African American culture in the United States. The Essence Festival of Culture — originally t...
The St. Charles Streetcar: The Oldest Ride in America
The Oldest Continuously Operating Streetcar in the WorldThe St. Charles streetcar line has been running since 1835, making it the oldest continuously operating street railway system on Earth. The o...
The Times-Picayune and New Orleans Media: How a City Tells Its Own Story
The Picayune: Named After the Smallest CoinThe Times-Picayune has been the newspaper of record for New Orleans since 1837, when it launched as The Picayune — named after the Spanish half-real coin,...
Audubon Park and Zoo: New Orleans' Green Heart Uptown
340 Acres of Green in a City Below Sea LevelAudubon Park stretches across 340 acres of Uptown New Orleans, from St. Charles Avenue to the Mississippi River, and it is one of the great urban parks i...
Creole vs. Cajun: The Difference, the Overlap, and Why It Matters
The Question Every Visitor Gets Wrong"Is this Creole or Cajun?" It's the question tourists ask at every restaurant in New Orleans, and the answer is almost always more complicated than they want it...
New Orleans Square: When Disney Built a French Quarter in California
Walt Disney Fell in Love with New OrleansIn the early 1960s, Walt Disney visited New Orleans and was captivated. The wrought iron balconies, the hidden courtyards, the gas lamps, the sense that eve...
Jackson Square: Three Hundred Years at the Heart of New Orleans
The Heart of the City Since 1721Jackson Square is the living room of New Orleans. It has been the center of civic life since Adrien de Pauger laid out the original Place d'Armes in 1721, three year...
Preservation Hall: Where New Orleans Jazz Refuses to Die
No Drinks. No Food. No Air Conditioning. Just the Music.Preservation Hall sits at 726 St. Peter Street in the French Quarter, and from the outside, it looks like it might fall down. The paint is pe...
The Second Line: New Orleans' Moving Street Party That Never Stops
The Parade That Belongs to EveryoneIn New Orleans, a second line is not a backup plan. It's the most democratic form of celebration in American culture — a moving street party led by a brass band a...
Café du Monde: Beignets, Chicory Coffee, and 160 Years of New Orleans
Open Since 1862. Closed Only for Hurricanes.Café du Monde sits at the corner of Decatur and St. Ann streets, at the edge of Jackson Square, in the spot where the French Market has operated since th...
The New Orleans Saints: From Paper Bags to the Lombardi Trophy
The Team That Wore Paper BagsOn November 1, 1966 — All Saints' Day — the NFL awarded New Orleans its franchise. The name was inevitable. The New Orleans Saints kicked off their first season in 1967...
Congo Square: The Patch of Ground That Changed American Music Forever
The Most Important Piece of Ground in American MusicThere is a patch of open ground in the Tremé neighborhood, just outside the French Quarter, that changed the sound of the world. It doesn't look ...
The National WWII Museum: Why the World's Best War Museum Is in New Orleans
Why the Greatest War Museum in the World Is in New OrleansWhen people hear that the National World War II Museum is located in New Orleans, the first question is always "why?" The answer is a man n...
Voodoo in New Orleans: The Real Story Behind the Myths
The Most Misunderstood Religion in AmericaNew Orleans Voodoo is real. It is not a horror movie. It is not a tourist gimmick. It is not the stuff of dolls stuck with pins, despite what every souveni...
Southern Decadence: How a Going-Away Party Became a New Orleans Tradition
The Party That Started with a GoodbyeIn the summer of 1972, a group of friends in the French Quarter threw a going-away party for someone leaving town. They decided to make it a walking party — a p...
Jazz Fest: From 350 People to the Greatest Cultural Festival in America
The Festival That Almost Wasn'tThe first New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, in 1970, was held in Congo Square — now part of Louis Armstrong Park — and drew about 350 people. The lineup inclu...
The French Quarter: Three Centuries in Thirteen Blocks
The Oldest Neighborhood in the CityThe French Quarter — or the Vieux Carré, the Old Square — is where New Orleans began. Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville laid out the original grid in 1718, and ...
New Orleans Food: Why This City Eats Better Than Yours
The Only City in America Where Food Is a ReligionIn most American cities, people eat to live. In New Orleans, people live to eat. This is not an exaggeration. It's not a tourism slogan. It's the li...
