Area
What follows is a narrow selection of points of New Orleans interest, weird research and time-wasters to make your visit to our fair city that much better, plus some random stuff to add to the wonderful texture of this short life. Because the best defense to boredom is a good offense (comprised of a willingness to experience amazement and imbibe stiff drinks, naturally).
- History
- New Orleans might be one of the only cities in America where the locals actually KNOW some of the history of their locality. A cheerful sort of narcissism is a common trait in town, and it’s justified. If you don’t hate it here, you love it with a passion and you like telling folks about how special it really is. With that in mind, click on the links below to school yourself in the basic legends and history of New Orleans and its neighborhoods and its traditions. But remember: reading is no substitute for on the ground experience. No one likes a know-it-all pedant.
New Orleans History: There will be a test.The Marigny: Our humble neighborhood.
Bywater: The humble neighborhood next to our humble neighborhood.
The French Quarter: The not-so humble neighborhood on the other side of our humble neighborhood.
Royal Street: The thoroughfare we take our name from.
Mardi Gras: You’ve heard of it, but you probably know nothing about how awesome it really is.
Famous Streets in New Orleans: Learn how to correctly mispronounce “Burgundy,” “Chartres” and sundry other street names before you get here.
- Bars
- Spending your life in one bar would be idiotic when you’ve got so many awesome ones to choose from. The R Bar is, of course, our favorite bar, but it can’t be all things at all times to everybody. We like to make the rounds and see our favorite bartenders all over the city and revel in the differences: Drink specials! Different jukeboxes! New ladies and gentlemen who don’t know our exes! Strange new bathroom graffiti! All of which make life amusing. And it’s not like we have to remind you, but we’d be remiss if we didn’t: Always tip your server.
Snake and Jake’s Christmas Lounge
Ernie K-Doe’s Mother-in-Law Lounge
The Abbey: If you end up here, you’re probably out too late or too early and hanging out with the wrong people but, you know, that’s cool.
- Eating & Drinking Coffee
- Venues
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Lots of Jazz Clubs: If we tried to list ‘em all, this would just turn into a long and messy page of links to jazz clubs, and who wants that?
- Lagniappe
- News