There is always magic everywhere in New Orleans. I tell my tours how lucky, privileged, honored I feel to get to live in this special place, surrounded by the fractals of ironwork, lush greenery and happy people. I repeated this gushing refrain near the Pontalba building on my first night tour that almost canceled because it gushed like five inches of rain while they were arriving from the airport. Thankfully, the streets were sparkling and the mood was enchanting as we wandered around the French Quarter.
I was explaining the adrinkasymbols in the ironwork on the Pontalba building in the milky midnight. A lady leaned over the balcony we were straining to see in the low light as I failed to point out even the monogram, “Hi!”
“Oh hi!!!” I did notice someone was up there, but I didn’t bother them.
“Y’all want to come up?? No one ever looks up here!”
With that, my new friend Heidi whisked us up to her amazing view over Jackson Square. The stairs are covered in 170ish years of paint, layers and layers warping the shapes.
“Y’all don’t seem like serial killers,” she quipped as we ambled up. And…neither did she.
She toured us around the one bedroom sublet and we spilled out onto the balcony.
I was able to touch the iron symbol I struggled to point out.
The Night of the Pontalba
Side note: I assume the tour guides are simply not pointing straight at Heidi’s balcony when admiring the ironwork, not neglecting to point to it entirely.
We giggled about the mayor’s exploits on those balconies, talked about where we’re from, scoffed at the nutty tales they hear tour guides telling, and then traipsed back into the night, greeting my new friend Heidi again when we passed back through.
A little bit of magic that some might say could only happen in New Orleans. I think it can only happen because humans are generally kind and social animals. New Orleans just embraces the risk a little easier than most places, with a few scars to show for it. And has ancient symbolism embedded in the iron balconies to show off.
Few places that have existed for hundreds of years do not have the souls of past humans tied to their history. While researching May Baily’s Place, I learned about these people who lived, loved, hurt, and sometimes died at 423 Dauphine Street. Interestingly, 423 Dauphine was the location of or home to several suicides or attempted suicides. All could be the restless spirits lingering at the address, and all deserve our attention to remember them, even briefly.
If you are interested in my help figuring out who your ghost is, the history of your home, or mysteries in your family, reach out! I’d love to find the answers together.
The New Orleans Item October 16, 1917 page 12The New Orleans States July 21, 1919 page 10The New Orleans Item March 29, 1928 page 14
The New Orleans States December 29, 1936 page 2The Times Picayune July 11, 1942 page 11
“There are only three cities in America — New York, San Francisco and New Orleans. Everywhere else is Cleveland.” — Who said it?
I never thought to question the attribution of this famous quote. I’m not sure why because I have certainly sought out the original sources for other quotes. With this one, though, I did not question that Tennessee Williams was snarky enough to say this. But did he?
The attribution seems to come from a profile written about Tennessee in a 1984 book by Mel Leavitt called Great Characters of New Orleans. This was one year after Tennessee died. The profile begins:
“There are only three great cities in the United States,” Tennessee Williams once said. “New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans. All the rest are Cleveland.”
The New Orleans Item. Friday, February 9, 1934, p. 7.
This completely derailed my research. 1934 is certainly before Tennessee Williams could have said this as he didn’t make it to New Orleans until 1938-39. Tennessee was born in 1911. Who said it?
O. Henry started his 1904 short story, “A Municipal Report,” with the quote, attributing it to Frank Norris:
Fancy a novel about Chicago or Buffalo, let us say, or Nashville, Tennessee! There are just three big cities in the United States that are “story cities”—New York, of course, New Orleans, and, best of the lot, San Francisco. —Frank Norris
A post I created and shared before I learned the truth.
But the story is about Nashville. O. Henry wanted to prove that there were other great American cities beyond these oft-repeated three2. It seems that Herbert kind of missed O.’s point with his giddy predictions.
“I expect to find more glamour and less sordidness in New Orleans than I did in San Francisco,” Asbury said, a particularly hilarious premonition in hindsight.
The Times Picayune, Sunday, March 10, 1935, p. 16.
Frank Norris was a newspaper man, who wrote primarily about San Francisco. Samuel Dickson included the quote in a chapter about Frank in his 1947 book called Tales of San Francisco, but I cannot find this book to see what it says beyond the Google preview. The chapter is available for purchase for $423, so maybe my next big tip will fund this curiosity. My sister’s public library in the Bay Area has eight copies available, so maybe she will be inclined to help her sister out. 🙂 Update November 2024: During a visit to my sister and her new baby, I insisted on a trip to the library to get the new baby a library card, of course. I took the opportunity to look up the chapter on Frank Norris. I’m certainly glad I did not spend that $42 because the quote is a total throwaway line. It’s a section about his early life, talking about his parents, and it implies that Frank was not the first to say this either.
Of course, the parents did the worst possible thing parents of an overimaginative child could do. When the boy was fourteen years old they were established in Oakland, and from Oakland soon moved with him to San Francisco. They stayed for a short time at the old Palace Hotel, and then Norris purchased the Henry Scott residence on Sacramento Street near Octavia. Life became a living story for the boy. In fact, it was only a very few years later that he was to be one of the first to say, “There are just three cities in the United States that are ‘story cities’ — New York, New Orleans, and best of all, San Francisco.”
In 2015, the website Quote Investigator published an article about the quote, finding similar references all the way back to 18954. New Orleans does not become involved in the mix until 1936 in this timeline though, and O. Henry published his story in 1904. However, the timeline makes it evident that there are plenty of other references to the three cities much earlier than our beloved playwright could have said it. And that there are many other cities that are considered irreplaceable in this massive country.
I have no doubts that Tennessee did say this once, long after the original source was forgotten. Mark Twain, another source sometimes cited for the three cities quote, wrote in his autobiography:
“There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations. We keep on turning and making new combinations indefinitely; but they are the same old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages.”
I wonder what Tennessee would think about the quote and how his name has become lastingly attached to it.
