The Frenchtowner

 

This story was originally posted on the Frenchtown NJ Blog/Jaunt Blog on February 6, 2005.

A Journey from Frenchtown NJ to Newark NJ to New Orleans LA, to Dothan AL, to Panama City FL, to St. Augustine FL and back to Newark and Frenchtown NJ

There is something true about the old saying: “You can never go home again”. Anytime that I consider a trip back to LA, “Lower Alabama”, where I was born, my heart fills with dread, as I am reminded of all of the things that I experienced in the south growing up too poor and too smart and too white that made we want to leave it. The photoblog documentary that follows documents my trip back home, or Down Home as it is referred to in Northern Alabama and Central Georgia. My trip starts in New Orleans, that is a city that keeps calling me back again and again in my life somehow.

New Orleans, Louisiana

My photoblog of New Orleans starts out with architecture, which turned into my focus for the entire time I was there. The photo above shows a hidden courtyard that was tucked away in the back of a contemporary art gallery selling shaped mural fragment paintings by a contemporary artist.

Yes, I photographed the sidewalk! I have always loved the abstract visual power of cracks, surfaces and textures that sidewalks offer to the eye. Actually as much as we walked over these streets and sidewalks of New Orleans on our 4 day trip there, this photograph captures I think, the only level sidewalk spot in the entire city of New Orleans, which has I can safely say, the worst system of broken and neglected sidewalks in the nation. Maybe that’s the reason everyone walks in the street.

Another project during my trip was documenting the abundance and variety of fleur de lis images in New Orleans. My hometown of Frenchtown NJ also uses the symbol as New Orleans does. This photograph shows a fleur de lis made up of palm leaves. This graphic logo was by far, the most elegant fleur de lis icon that we found during the trip. This little sign was done for the New Orleans Metropolitan Convention and Visitors Bureau and appears in store windows all over town.

Facade in the French Quarter

One of the best things about New Orleans is that it is so “en deshabille” (French for partially dressed). The photo above illustrates this beautifully. In the spirit of a town something is lost when everything gets restored or over-restored. New Orleans is a city that lets you see her age. She comes out for the day with scraggly hair, no make up, and shabbily, partially dressed. That is her beauty. New Orleans is not a Disney resort that is always putting on a show. It is raw, it is dirty, It Is Real.

[photography note: The large version of this photo does not have the vibration distortion that this smaller version does. I had to present these photos in a smaller format, or this page would have taken hours to download.]

Now, away from the French Quarter, we took a walk downtown to the Aquarium and Convention Center and found an incredible public square down by the river. The entire surface was covered with these bricks that each were donated by a New Orleans resident to complete the space. It is an incredible concept for funding expensive public works projects.

Garden Courtyard New Orleans

This is not a good photograph, but I include it because it documents another of New Orleans charms, hidden private courtyards and gardens.

The Colors of New Orleans

This title could easily be an entire coffee table book about New Orleans, and probably already is. As you walk the streets of New Orleans, (and it is one of the best walking cities in the world), you are constantly encountering new colors. If anyone is considering a study of architecture and color, New Orleans should be your first stop. The combinations of colors are as numerous as the number of streets in New Orleans with French names.

The Flags of New Orleans

American, French, and others (maybe the flag of the city itself)

Hotel Monteleone and Garden District Sacred Sculpture

I present these two photographs together because of the strange way they blend with each other visually and the discordant contrast they present in terms of subject matter representing the grand buildings of men and the grand religious concepts of men, and the worlds of commerce and religion. The Monteleone’s awning seems to be sheltering the Virgin Mary and Christ Child sculpture.

This imposing facade is from our favorite large hotel in New Orleans. Looking at the structure, you feel like you are in Paris. The hotel is the oldest hotel in New Orleans, and has been a family owned and operated business since 1886. It is also the home of the famous Carousel Bar, which is a must see in New Orleans regardless of whether you’re a drink martinis or not.

The sacred sculpture is in the Garden District.

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The architecture of New Orleans is another reason to visit there. When I was telling everyone before we left on our vacation that we were going to New Orleans, they all thought that I was going there to “engage in debauchery”. This is a common misconception about New Orleans: New Orleans=Debauchery. It is true, if that is what you choose to get out of this incredible place, well then, have a good time! There is probably not a better Party City in the entire United States, but that is not even 10% of this city’s heart. For me, New Orleans is Art. For me, New Orleans is like walking into a painting, a Fellini movie, or an avant-Garde Theater piece. New Orleans is an Experience unlike any other. For me: New Orleans=Art (It is a masterpiece itself, but you don’t sit back and observe it passively, it pulls you into it, surrounds you, and you become not yourself, but part of the art itself — I do not mean simply that New Orleans has artists, art and art galleries in it. New Orleans is art itself)

This home is behind wrought iron gates that only make it more irresistible and attractive. Once again, we see the beauty of refined gentle restoration and maintenance with the allowance and preservation of “dirty paint”, a bloom of algae and mildew that gives this coral, light terra cotta stucco such a fabulous patina.

Bird of Paradise, Front Yard Garden in the Garden District, New Orleans

Southern Mansion, Garden District, New Orleans Louisiana

If scale is everything, well then this one has a problem: where is the rest of the Temple that goes with those columns? Don’t you just love electrical, phone lines in photography? I know I can edit these things out, but then I would never finish this story and photo-documentary.

The Wrought Iron of New Orleans

Another charming entranceway in the Garden District

Ann Rice, The Garden District, and the “Great Society of the South”

Reading our Frommer’s Walking Tour Book, we discovered this was the home of the Vampire Gothic writer, Ann Rice. The place was abuzz the day we were there, with Real Estate “For Sale: Sold” signs, and workmen who apparently were hard at work readying the home for it’s new owner.

From local sources we learned that the Grand Society Ladies of the Garden District have never been too kind to Ann, and they have been fighting for years so much so that the rumor was that The Beloved Ann Rice was leaving the Garden District altogether to live in an unhaunted home in the suburbs. Read the story on “Right Thinking Girl” Blog.

Lord knows I understand the heart of this issue. My comment about being too poor, too smart and too white in the south growing up is in reference to my own experience with the culture of the American South. There is a lot that is bad about race relations in the South, but what has not been written about nearly as much as it should, is the pervasive, demeaning and strict class structure of the South that is based on money and heritage. As a young far too creative and sensitive young child growing up in South Alabama, I was seen as Poor White Trash because we lived in the “Project Houses”, built by the Federal Government to allow families like my own to have decent, safe and respectable homes. My classmates mothers would not let my friends come over to our house late in the afternoon because our innocent little poor neighborhood with absolutely no crime statistics was renowned in their heads for being dangerous after sundown, with “strange things happening all night long”. Besides this incident of concrete prejudice, there was always the feeling that we did not fit in and did not belong because we had no money. We were not good enough to associate with these stalwarts of Middle Class examples of Grand Society Southern Good Ole Boy and Junior League Woman Aristocracy. What made it worse, was that I and all of my sisters and brothers were blessed by both of our parents with incredible drive and smarts that poor people are not supposed to have. This made us peers with our richer school classmates and superiors often in our grades. Not only I, but my entire family had committed the unpardonable sin of being Too Smart to be So Poor.

Ann Rice offended The Ladies for one reason. She had committed another unpardonable sin of Southern Culture: Being Too New To Be So Rich And Powerful. Ann was not from an old New Orleans family. How dare she come into the city and make herself known and become a benefactor for the city and the Garden District, just who did this writer woman think she was? She should have “Stayed in Her Place”. Didn’t she know that she was the servant of The Society, not a force in it or even a part of it.

How dare us Far Too Creatives dare think that we are part of The South, we are it’s Slaves.

Garden District Botanicals:

Oh good, a thing of beauty, I promise I won’t rant on now for a few photos. My life partner has always been in love with botany and used to make his living doing fine ceramic painting of flowers for Lenox. He still makes me stop and look at these wonders of nature in their never ending diversity. I do not know what these flowers were but the color and form were magnificent.

New Orleans Mansion still decked out for Christmas in early January when I was there. I was blessed on my trip to the Big Easy with temperatures in the 60’s to high 70’s on all four days.

Lafayette Cemetery, Garden District, New Orleans Louisianna

I had been warned about going into the cemeteries in New Orleans because they were the sites of preditory crime. Just the image of that gives you the image of dark strangers hiding behind gravestones lurking there to stab you and take all your money and credit cards. When I approached Lafayette, it was the middle of the afternoon without a cloud in the sky and delightful spring weather in early January. How could I not go in. Somehow the real experience of the graveyard was not what I had imagined. It was a true dissapointment. I did not get the feeling of delightful deshabille here, I got the feeling of abused and neglected history. It seemed that no one cared for these souls that have passed on to another world, and the monuments were simply there to be defaced or rented out the next-dead highest bidder.

Parlor of the Parkview Marigny on Washington Square in the Marigny Historic District, New Orleans, LA

The Parkview was my home for the four days I was in New Orleans. As shown in the photograph above, the Inn is incredibly sophisticated and refined. Walking in the front door feels like walking into an Architectural Digest feature story. The tallness of the ceilings, the richness of the fabrics and textures, the classical and fine furniture and accessories scream luxury and elegance. The Parkview is located just outside of the French Quarter bordering a large public park called Washington Square.

The Marigny gets my highest recommendation for elegant high end Bed and Breakfast accommodations, and one of our Best of New Orleans Awards for my trip. The B&B currently is in the process of being sold, but the new owners were looking to continue it’s operation as a luxury bed and breakfast. The inn can be found online with incredible 360 degree virtual tours of the rooms at: The Best New Orleans Luxury Bed and Breakfast Inn: Parkview Marigny

The Colors of New Orleans 2

Passing down one of the streets near the Parkview, I came across this impromptu stoop garden that embodied once again what I love about this city, it’s color and it’s age.

Shuttered Windows:

This architectural photograph was taken a few steps from the stoop photo. It presents simply a window with the shutters closed, with subtle greys and greens. The patina on this shutter made me want to rip it off the building, take it home and hang it on the wall. Architectural fragments are an artform that I have always loved.

Being an Old Display Queen like I am, I could not pass up recording this fabulous pink and silver Christmas Tree outside a dress shop bordering Jackson Square.

Traditional Cliched Tourist Shot of Jackson Square and the Incredible Church of the Archdiocese of New Orleans St. Louis Cathedral in the background. No, this is not Disney World, this is real.

The Fleur de Lis in Advertising in a French Town

Back to our documentary on the varied forms that the Fleur de Lis takes in New Orleans graphics. This one is split down the middle to accomodate the “For Rent” ad and sign text.

Classic Spiky Fleur de Lis Sign for Olivier’s Restaurant New Orleans Lousianna

Perverted/Converted Fleur de Lis Graphic for a Cigar Store: The Cigar Factory sign features a fleur de lis formed by tobacco leaves. This was one of my favorite Fleur de Lis images. The absolute best one is one I missed however which was a fleur de lis made up of two staffs of wheat in the middle surrounded by two croissants.

The Colors of New Orleans # 3

This delightful and wacky paint job was found on a little house on a back street near the inn where we stayed.

Washington Square across from the Parkview Marigny.

Exterior view of the Parkview Marigny, 2 blocks from the French Quarter, New Orleans Lousianna. Photo taken from the park. Don’t let the exterior simplicity fool you, it is incredibly elegant.

Frenchmen

Frenchmen is the name of a street in New Orleans, and my temporary address for my short stay in New Orleans. It is with It is a fitting symbol for my little journey as I started in a town in New Jersey that somehow got named incorrectly a “French Town” because the local residents thought that the French speaking man that had just moved there and bought all the land there was one of a class of men called Frenchmen. He wasn’t. (He was Swiss) You can read more about this man: Paul Henri Mallet-Prevost on Frenchtowner.com’s History of Frenchtown NJ Page: The Malletian Era.

This photo closes out the New Orleans Trip Photo Blog. What follows next is a restaurant and dining review for my trip there with no photos (It is hard to take your camera out and do food photographs and still enjoy your meal). The photoblog feature will pick back up in a few blog posts to document the Alabama and Florida portions of my trip.