Culture

St. Peter Street Cemetery: Where New Orleans First Buried Its Dead

St. Peter Street Cemetery: Where New Orleans First Buried Its DeadBefore there were cities of the dead, before the above-ground tombs became the signature of New Orleans burial culture, there was t...

Hebrew Rest Cemetery: On the High Ground of Gentilly Ridge

Hebrew Rest Cemetery: On the High Ground of Gentilly RidgeHebrew Rest Cemetery occupies some of the highest ground in New Orleans—Gentilly Ridge, a natural levee formation that runs through the Gen...

Lafayette Cemetery No. 2: The Forgotten Sister in the Garden District

Lafayette Cemetery No. 2: The Forgotten Sister in the Garden DistrictLafayette Cemetery No. 2 lives in the long shadow of its famous neighbor. While Lafayette No. 1 draws tourists, filmmakers, and ...

St. Louis Cemetery No. 3: The Peaceful One on the Bayou

St. Louis Cemetery No. 3: The Peaceful One on the BayouSt. Louis Cemetery No. 3 is the youngest and least visited of the three St. Louis cemeteries, and that is exactly what makes it special. Estab...

Chalmette National Cemetery: Hallowed Ground on a Battlefield

Chalmette National Cemetery: Hallowed Ground on a BattlefieldChalmette National Cemetery sits on one of the most historically significant pieces of land in the United States—the site of the Battle ...

Louis Moreau Gottschalk: America's First Rock Star Was a Creole Pianist

America's First Rock Star Was a Creole PianistLouis Moreau Gottschalk was born in New Orleans on May 8, 1829, into a Creole family that straddled the city's cultural lines — his father was a London...

Truman Capote: The New Orleans Boy Who Invented True Crime

Born in New Orleans, Raised by the WorldTruman Streckfus Persons was born on September 30, 1924, in Touro Infirmary on Prytania Street in the Garden District. His parents — Lillie Mae Faulk and Arc...

Tom Benson: The Man Who Kept the Saints in New Orleans

Tom Benson: The Man Who Kept the Saints in New OrleansTom Benson is the reason the New Orleans Saints still play in New Orleans. The auto dealer turned billionaire purchased the struggling franchis...

Anthony Mackie: From the Seventh Ward to Captain America

Anthony Mackie: From the Seventh Ward to Captain AmericaAnthony Mackie grew up in the Seventh Ward of New Orleans, went to NOCCA and then Juilliard, and became Captain America. That sentence alone ...

A. Baldwin Wood: The Engineer Who Made New Orleans Possible

A. Baldwin Wood: The Engineer Who Made New Orleans PossibleAlbert Baldwin Wood is the most important person in New Orleans history that most people have never heard of. Born in 1879, Wood was a mec...

Henriette DeLille: The Free Woman of Color on the Path to Sainthood

Henriette DeLille: The Free Woman of Color on the Path to SainthoodHenriette DeLille is on track to become the first African-American saint in the Catholic Church. Born in 1812 in New Orleans as a ...

Samuel Zemurray: The Banana Man Who Ran Central America from New Orleans

Samuel Zemurray: The Banana Man Who Ran Central America from New OrleansSamuel Zemurray was a Russian-Jewish immigrant who arrived in America with nothing and built one of the most powerful corpora...

Jelly Roll Morton: The Man Who Claimed He Invented Jazz

Jelly Roll Morton: The Man Who Claimed He Invented JazzFerdinand Joseph LaMothe—Jelly Roll Morton—was the most colorful, controversial, and consequential figure in the early history of jazz. Born i...

John Kennedy Toole: The Genius Who Died Before the World Found Out

John Kennedy Toole: The Genius Who Died Before the World Found OutJohn Kennedy Toole wrote one of the funniest and most New Orleans novels ever created, and he never lived to see it published. A Co...

Anne Rice: The Woman Who Made New Orleans the Vampire Capital of the World

Anne Rice: The Woman Who Made New Orleans the Vampire Capital of the WorldBefore Anne Rice, vampires lived in Transylvania. After Anne Rice, they lived on Prytania Street. The novelist who was born...

Mount Olivet Cemetery: The Multicultural Resting Place of Gentilly

Mount Olivet Cemetery: The Multicultural Resting Place of GentillyMount Olivet Cemetery in Gentilly is one of the most culturally diverse burial grounds in New Orleans. Established in 1918, it is y...

Carrollton Cemetery: The Small-Town Graveyard Inside a Big City

Carrollton Cemetery: The Small-Town Graveyard Inside a Big CityCarrollton Cemetery is one of the most charming and least known burial grounds in New Orleans. Established in 1849—when Carrollton was...

Odd Fellows Rest: The Secret Cemetery on Canal Street

Odd Fellows Rest: The Secret CemeteryOdd Fellows Rest is one of the most mysterious cemeteries in New Orleans—a walled burial ground that most people have driven past a thousand times without ever ...

Dispersed of Judah Cemetery: New Orleans’ Jewish Heritage in Stone

Dispersed of Judah Cemetery: New Orleans’ Jewish Heritage in StoneDispersed of Judah Cemetery is one of the most historically significant Jewish burial grounds in the American South. Established in...

Jim Garrison: The New Orleans DA Who Put the JFK Conspiracy on Trial

The DA Who Put the JFK Assassination on TrialEarling Carothers "Jim" Garrison was born in Denison, Iowa, in 1921, but he became a New Orleans man — the kind of larger-than-life, controversy-courtin...

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