From the Deep

  • The Night of the Pontalba

    The Night of the Pontalba

    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 adrinka symbols 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.

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  • Museum Review: World War II Museum

    Museum Review: World War II Museum

    After more than 10 years, I revisited the World War II Museum again recently. My first visit was likely around when it opened in 2000 as the D-Day Museum. My grandmother is a charter member, and I know she insisted we visit. But I didn’t save that ticket. I visited again in 2004, while I was in college. It was still the D-Day Museum then. The museum is in New Orleans because of the Higgins Boats, which were manufactured and tested in New Orleans and were essential to the D-Day landing at Normandy. Stephen Ambrose is also often given a lot of credit for the location of the museum.

    Tickets from 2004, 2013 and 2024

    I visited again in 2013 (after the Freedom Pavilion was opened) with my husband’s grandfather. He was a World War II veteran with an amazing story of his time in Europe. From a tiny town in Mississippi, Grandad did not hesitate to tell us that he was drafted and did not want to leave for the war. But he loved to tell us stories of the things he wanted to remember. Like the time he coincidentally met up with his brother on the battlefield in Europe.

    Enterprise-Journal Fri, Mar 08, 2019 Page P76

    For this visit, I used the Culture Pass from the library. In the decade since my last visit, the museum has expanded considerably. I raced through the first part, the old part, so that I could see what’s new. The most notable expansion is the Liberation Pavilion where the Holocaust and the Monuments Men are remembered.

    Holocaust

    A major criticism of the World War II Museum before was that there was little to no mention of the Holocaust. This does feel like trying to discuss the Civil War without slavery. The latest expansion, opened in November 2023, aims to solve this omission.

    Replica of the attic where Anne Frank, her family, and others hid from the Nazis in Amsterdam

    There is now a replica of the attic where Anne Frank and her family lived in hiding in the museum, personal testimonies from Holocaust survivors, replicas of the bunks in concentration camps, and an interfaith chapel in the museum, among many other moving artifacts to remind us that the world we live in was fundamentally shaped by World War II.

    Monuments Men and Women

    The area dedicated to the Monuments Men has replicas of priceless works of art to tell the story of the special people who worked to return to their rightful owners the art and objects that were stolen by the Nazis. This work is now done by a foundation as many works have never been located. Update 2024: Another piece found and returned.

    The World War 2 Museum is an essential stop for anyone interested in that era.
    Display in the Monuments Men exhibit

    Conclusion

    I spent two and a half hours in the museum, and I basically ran through the first part that I’ve been to several times without reading anything. There is almost no way to do the National World War II Museum quickly. However, it covers all aspects of World War II now, so you could easily go to only the exhibits that interest you most. All are very in depth and well done. Many are interactive. The explanations are nuanced. War is messy, and this museum tries to make sense of the strategic efforts of the military leaders while constantly reminding us how much life was lost and how much was the result of luck. The personal stories alongside the hand drawn military maps and mass printed propaganda posters are all important details to remember.

    I’m grateful that I have the opportunity to visit whenever I want because I could never take it all in at once. If you’re interested in anything related to World War II, this museum is an essential stop.

    Read more museum reviews.

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  • 423 Dauphine Street

    423 Dauphine Street

    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.

    Olaf Nelson committed suicide while residing at 423 Dauphine St
    The New Orleans Item October 16, 1917 page 12
    Lutgarda Ferrero committed suicide while residing at 423 Dauphine
    The New Orleans States July 21, 1919 page 10
    Sobbing girl tells police she took poison at 423 Dauphine
    The New Orleans Item March 29, 1928 page 14
    Marine Engineer Charged with Threats on his Wife while living at 423 Dauphine
    The New Orleans States December 29, 1936 page 2
    Henry J. Langhauser drowned in Lake near Milneburg while residing at 423 Dauphine St
    The Times Picayune July 11, 1942 page 11
    Woman Recovering from Wrist Slashes while residing at 423 Dauphine
    The New Orleans States June 12, 1946 page 9
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  • Everywhere else is Cleveland: Who said it?

    Everywhere else is Cleveland: Who said it?

    “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.”

    While researching something else entirely, I came across a reference from 1934 of Herbert Asbury attributing the quote to O. Henry. Asbury had already written about New York (The Gangs of New York ©1928) and San Francisco (The Barbary Coast ©1933); he was working on his next book about New Orleans, which became The French Quarter: An Informal History of the New Orleans Underworld published in 1936.

    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

    “The Municipal Report” by O. Henry1

    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.

    Sources

    1. Henry, O. “The Municipal Report,” © 1904 http://fullreads.com/literature/a-municipal-report/ ↩︎
    2. Marshall, Alexis. “Curious Nashville: Why Did O. Henry Choose The City For His Famous 1904 Short Story?” WPLN News Nashville, December 28, 2018. https://wpln.org/post/curious-nashville-why-did-o-henry-choose-the-city-for-his-famous-1904-short-story/# ↩︎
    3. Dickson, Samuel. Tales of San Francisco, Chapter XXIV Frank Norris, Stanford University Press ©1947. https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9781503621039-056/pdf?licenseType=restricted ↩︎
    4. “There Are Only Three Great Cities in the U.S.: New York, San Francisco, and Washington. All the Rest Are Cleveland,” June 18, 2015. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/06/18/cleveland/ ↩︎
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  • Lesbians in 19th Century New Orleans

    Lesbians in 19th Century New Orleans

    I recently completed the LGBT History of New Orleans course at Loyola University, taught by Frank Perez. This class was an amazing telling of the recent history of some of the most influential people in this city’s history from the first hand perspective of Frank who was either there for the stories he told or heard them first hand from the people who were.

    He made an observation in one of the classes about memory and how fallible it is. How we know eye witness accounts are not reliable and memory is even less so. How hard it is to discern the Truth from the myth in a world where humans are reporting the “facts”…As a journalist by training, I ponder the idea of Truth a lot.

    When Herbert Asbury was writing The French Quarter: An Informal History of the New Orleans Underworld, he made a similar observation on his research. “…Asbury preferred to use the files of old papers because he had learned from experience that people do not remember accurately, and will usually substitute imagination for facts in the weak spots.” Tour guides are certainly known to claim that we shouldn’t let facts get in the way of a good story…

    January 15, 1936, New Orleans States, New Orleans, Louisiana, Page 22

    Frank also mentioned a book called The Mysteries of New Orleans in one of the lectures1. It’s a compilation of newspaper articles written in German by Baron Ludwig von Reizenstein in the 1850s while he was living in New Orleans. One is provocatively titled “Lesbian Love” in which he describes a colony of lesbians living near the lake and along the New Basin Canal. At the time, the use of the word lesbian would have referred to someone from the island of Lesbos. However, his articles were translated to English in 2002, well after the use of lesbian as a homosexual woman was part of our parlance.

    I learned in my studies of Voodoo near the lake and New Basin Canal is also commonly reported as the location where the Voodoo queens resided. I’ve learned since that “lewd and abandoned women” were relegated to The Swamp, an area near the New Basin Canal in the Lorette Laws of 1857. Is this all a coincidence or were these the same colonies of women fulfilling all of these roles for the imaginations of male writers?

    Of course, I immediately got in line to borrow The Mysteries of New Orleans from the library. It’s about 700 pages long, so I’m working through it. In his review just after Hurricane Katrina, Christopher Capozzola writes2:

    “A tender romance between Claudine and Orleana makes up one of the novel’s many subplots. The love scenes are tame by modern standards–“How sweet and supple your waist is!” is about as sultry as the pillow talk gets–but the author’s sympathetic portrayal of their love is striking. “Lesbian ladies,” he noted, “are not as bad as most, and they are as decent and well mannered as the rest of the world of women, after their fashion.” Equally astonishing is his insistence that their love was common in New Orleans in the 1850’s. “We find them,” he writes, “in clubs of twelve to fifteen on the Hercules Quay, along the Pensacola Landing, and all along the entire left side of the New Basin.” In the rest of the novel, Von Reizenstein depicted real people and locations to give his work credibility; it’s not out of the question to think that these same-sex communities existed too.”

    So maybe New Orleans is the birthplace of lesbian romance along with so many other things. Maybe this is yet another layer of the matriarchy of New Orleans. Maybe it was just a made up rumor like so many tour guides have perpetuated.

    Did you know that sometimes the Court of Two Sisters is reported as a cover for lesbians in tour guide stories? Here’s the true story of the two sisters.

    I hope you’re having a wonderful Southern Decadence!

    Sources

    1. Perez, Frank, “Queer Arts and Letters.” LGBT+ History of New Orleans, Loyola University of New Orleans, June 12, 2024. ↩︎
    2. Capozzola, Christopher. “New Orleans: birthplace of lesbian romance?” The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide, vol. 13, no. 1, Jan.-Feb. 2006, p. 40. Gale Literature Resource Center, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A140547843/LitRC?u=tulane&sid=googleScholar&xid=1ac5d4f3. Accessed 13 June 2024. ↩︎

    Klotz, Sarah. “Black, White, and Yellow Fever: Contagious Race in The Mysteries of New Orleans.” The Mississippi Quarterly, vol. 65, no. 2, 2012, pp. 231–60. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/26467184. Accessed 13 June 2024.

  • Museum Review: Flooded House Museum

    Museum Review: Flooded House Museum

    That annual ritual of acknowledging the disaster and flood of Hurricane Katrina. Here we are. I spent the first 18 years after Katrina avoiding any media related to it. Now, guests regularly ask me about it on tours. It’s always a different question, but Katrina is the still one of most significant events in New Orleans history, especially recent memory. My recommendation for paying homage is the Flooded House Museum in Gentilly.

    I live in Gentilly, one of the neighborhoods that the levee failure completely destroyed. We bought our home in 2013, eight years after Katrina flooded the neighborhood. It felt like a lifetime ago already then, but half the houses on our block were either still blighted or were just empty lots. We still have never repaired our garage, so it still has the the rust mark showing us exactly how high the water was. Our house only flooded once in its nearly 100 years of history.

    In Gentilly, levees.org converted one of the destroyed homes into the Flooded House Museum and Levee Exhibit. It sits at the site of the one of the levee failures, the one that flooded my home. You look through the windows of the house to see the scene a family would have returned to after the disaster. There is also an exhibit that explains exactly what happened, why it happened, and what’s been done to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

    This museum is quite literally in the middle of a middle class New Orleans neighborhood, and it’s an extremely heavy topic. So it’s a different kind of experience than I typically recommend in New Orleans. A deep New Orleans experience. If you’re interested in learning more about both the human impact and the science behind the levees, I highly recommend the free Flooded House Museum in Gentilly.

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  • Museum Review: Historic New Orleans Collection – Captive State

    Museum Review: Historic New Orleans Collection – Captive State

    If you only have time for one museum in New Orleans, my recommendation will always be the Historic New Orleans Collection. In the center of the French Quarter, in a historic location with a public courtyard, well-curated, free, and most importantly air conditioned, it is a necessary New Orleans experience. If you want to understand Louisiana on a deeper level, do not miss the current exhibit Captive State: Louisiana and the Making of Mass Incarceration running until January 19, 2025.

    They offer a guided tour of the exhibit a few times a week. I did the tour on a Friday. My guide, Kurt, was thoughtful, calm, and engaging. Our group of five included two New Orleanians, one person from Montreal, another from Toronto via London, and a fifth who was late and didn’t introduce himself. Kurt pointed out some of the finer points the exhibit is trying to make.

    Incarceration Rates: Louisiana Compared to Major Countries
    The exhibit opens with this startling graph.

    The central thesis is clear: mass incarceration and slavery are linked, intrinsically. Using laws, the state constitution, and data about the prison and jail populations, the historians have painted a very clear and irrefutable picture of how we got to be the most incarcerated place on earth through regulations around leasing enslaved people for profit which evolved into leasing incarcerated people for profit. The incarcerated people in Louisiana and New Orleans are disproportionately Black; there is a higher percentage of Black people in prison or jail than make up the population. This fact isn’t just true in Louisiana as the Federal Bureau of Prisons reports that 38.8 percent of the prison population is Black while the Census Bureau reports that only 13.7 percent of the population is Black.

    Enslaved people and incarcerated people have built and maintained every aspect of New Orleans since the 1700s, including levee repair, city waste and drainage, street cleaning and maintenance, pothole repair, building the Carondelet canal, and cemetery maintenance.

    New Orleans is the most American city for many reasons, in my opinion, and one of them is the prominent role of the American institution of race-based slavery. Another is that Louisiana is the most incarcerated place in the most incarcerated nation. We are in a Captive State. We are the Captive State. The America we know was shaped by hundreds of years of oppression, and New Orleans sits at the epicenter of that oppression to this day. The most American city is not necessarily a good title to hold.

    We look in horror on the truths of slavery in the United States from centuries ago, yet tend to look away from the horror happening in front of us now. This is largely because incarceration has been increasingly hidden from public view even as they build and maintain the infrastructure we rely on. Everyone who drove into New Orleans from the airport passed the notorious Orleans Parish Prison on the interstate. Yet, very few realize what they see.

    The historians at the Historic New Orleans Collection are working to shine a bright, glaring light on the American problem of mass incarceration in Louisiana in particular, and how easily we draw a direct line from slavery to mass incarceration. The tour guide expressly stated his objective was to get more people talking about this problem in a respectful way. I hope to expand the scope of their bright light by encouraging as many people as possible to see the exhibit for yourself.

    Truth in advertising alert: I had to return for a second visit about a week later to see the second floor. Here you’ll find images of people in hospice care while incarcerated. It was too much to take in at once. Every room of the exhibit includes a content warning before you begin. I hope you will take the time to see this exhibit and share what you learn with those you love.

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  • Good Bones: The Fascinating History of 1331 First Street

    Good Bones: The Fascinating History of 1331 First Street

    To some it is known as the Morris-Israel House because of its previous owners. In 2020, Zion Williamson famously purchased the mansion at 1331 First Street for his mother, Sharonda Anderson, giving it a new era in history.

    Front elevation in 2024
    From First and Coliseum in 2024
    View with the new roof in 2024
    New roof and addition in 2024
    Front elevation with view of side in 2024
    Proposed renovations to 1331 First via Uptown Messenger https://uptownmessenger.com/zion-williamsons-mom-receives-city-council-approval-for-addition-to-garden-district-mansion/

    The home has been undergoing somewhat controversial renovations since. The controversy is primarily because it has been there since 1869. The longevity of some buildings seems to be so mind boggling to some humans that we insist they remain the same forever.

    Apparently the Irish architectect, Samuel Jamison, who designed this particular roof ensured that you can’t see it from the street. This is the reason for originally denying approval for the renovations. I do not think one single tour guide or tourist has noticed in any of the 15.5 decades since Jamison built that roof that it disappeared from sight. I have yet to understand why this was such a good feature of the old mansion at First and Coliseum that had to remain indefinitely.

    This home was built by a racist man, as best I can tell, and was the seat of the queen of the most exclusive carnival society for several decades after that. It seems that this home might need to be rid of some of its buried bones.

    The Times-Picayune November 30, 1869 p. 1.

    Speaking of bones…

    After a mention of actual bones found in the house by some lovely folks on a recent tour, I went down a rabbit hole. The newspaper was surprisingly fruitful with information about the address. There have been four eras of this home before Zion bought it, and one of them did involve found bones. Shall we?

    Part 1: The Beginning 1860-1924

    It took nine years to build1, which was greatly delayed by the Civil War, for Joseph Chandler Morris2 and his family. They were residents of New Orleans for 53 years, according to his obituary in 1903.

    The Times-Democrat
    Tue, Aug 04, 1903 · Page 5
    The Times-Picayune. August 6, 1903 p. 6.
    The Times-Picayune July 17, 1921 p. 42
    The Times-Picayune January 8, 1922 p. 4.

    The first newspaper references I could find for the address are want ads for house staff in 1895, all of which specify the race of the staff they prefer. Morris’s biographical section of his obituary begins, “Born in Massachusetts and coming here when a young man, Mr. Morris became thoroughly Southernized in his sympathies.” I recently described my own father as a natural Southerner, but I was referring to his love of the outdoors, hunting and fishing. Since Morris lived in a mansion in the Garden District instead of a raised home in the swamp, like my father, I assume his sympathies were not for wild game.

    The home remained in J. C. Morris’s family for two more decades with many more racially specific want ads piled up. It became known as the Chassaignac residence because of Morris’s daughter, Jennie, who married Dr. Charles Chassaignac. In 1921, it was listed for sale. The sale ads continued for a couple of years before the contents of the home were finally put up for auction in 1924. Before the auction happened, the home sold privately. The home’s first era lasted 55 years.

    Part 2: The de Monte Leone Era 1924

    New Orleans Item March 8, 1924 p. 36.

    In 1924, for about six months, Dr. Paul de Monte Leone lived in the home. He hosted weekly free lectures about psychology and the occult. He claimed to be a psychologist who trained in Tibet. I have not figured out if he owned the home or just lived there. I haven’t found a real estate transfer with his name. His departure from the home coincides with the auction in 1924.

    I did find that Dr. de Monte Leone was arrested for “operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of liquor” in September 1924, during Prohibition. He was also sued by Mrs. Anna Dann for $1,000. She had invested into his Leonic Institute, a proposed school for “mental defectives”. Anna worked without pay with the promise of a share of the profits. She claimed the suit grew out of dissatisfaction with the project, and he refused to return her money. The lawsuit in October 1924 is the last I found Dr. Paul de Monte Leone in New Orleans. I went to the City Archives to try to find the civil case docket, but I only found a handwritten note about how a bunch of missing pages were in the clerk’s desk drawer. Dr. Monte Leone made the same type of impact in St. Louis and Texas3.

    The Times-Picayune November 23, 1924 p. 38.
    The New Orleans States November 23, 1924 p. 15.
    The Times-Picayune November 26, 1924 p. 32.
    The Times Picayune January 31, 1926 p. 31.

    Between 1924 and 1926 the home was let as apartments with the owner living on the first floor, Mrs. Paul/Pearl McCain/McCranie.

    Part 3: The Hopkins Era 1926-1966

    The New Orleans Item September 8, 1926 p. 11.

    It became a single family home again in 1926 when the Hopkins family became residents. Dr. Ralph Hopkins4 was a physician who trained at Tulane and served as director of the Louisiana Leper Home in Carville, Louisiana, from 1902-1920. He was also a Confederate and a member of the Boston Club. His daughters were queens of the most prominent Carnival krewes.

    New Orleans States January 15, 1935 p. 17.

    Many queens reigned over the property, as this mansion became known as the location for the queens’ dinners after the Comus balls for many years. They hosted many debutante teas within the walls of 1331 First during the 41 years the Hopkinses owned the home. Dr. Hopkins died in 1945, and Mrs. Hopkins continued hosting for several years. She didn’t die until 1982, but the house passed out of the family in 1967.

    Part 4: The Israel-Aron Era 1967-2015

    The Times Picayune April 9, 1967 p. 114.
    The Times Picayune October 18,1967 p. 11.

    Mrs. Marian Hopkins sold the house to Merryl Silverstein Israel Aron5 and her first husband, Sam Israel, Jr., in 1967. Merryl was a golf champion and a New Orleans native6. The couple immediately began renovating, as many people who take up residence in the Garden District do. The renovations became news when human bones were bizarrely found in the floor of the second story. “The bones and the top portion of a skull, with a crop of reddish brown hair still clinging to it, were found beneath second-story floor boards that were pulled up in a unoccupied three-story brick and wood residence at 1331 First,” The Times-Picayune March 9, 1968 p. 22.

    The Times Picayune March 9, 1968 p. 22.

    The homicide detective on the case estimated that the “remains may be as much as 60 years old,” which would put the remains in the home with the Hopkins family the entire time but safely outside the bounds of suspects. George Hopkins explained that the home was used as a “boarding house” before his parents bought it for the news article. It seems to me that of the eras of this home’s history, the era of many tenants sharing space is the least likely to have hosted a secret like bones in the ceiling.

    The next article with the address is April 11, 1969, when Sam Israel, Jr., a member of the Tulane Board, held a reception there. They opened it to the public a few weeks later as a stop on a walking tour of historic mansions to benefit the Louisiana Landmarks Society. The Times Picayune wrote up the renovation on September 14, 1969, with no mention of the bones.

    The later articles about the home occasionally mention the bones with the story becoming more embellished. Eventually, the bones are found in a secret room, not the floor of the second story, and blamed on a Voodoo ritual performed by the servants, according to legend. Sometimes an entire skeleton is found7. Sometimes the home is referred to as the “house of the Voodoo ritual”. I submitted a public records request to see how the homicide investigation ended. The response was quick.

    Record request #24-11633 has been closed. The closure reason supplied was:

    You may wish to inquire with the City Archives which are housed at the Main Branch of the New Orleans Public Library. Here is a link to the archives website: http://archives.nolalibrary.org/~nopl/spec/speclist.htm.

    On behalf of the custodial department(s), our office has responded to your request and considers this request closed.

    Law Department
    City of New Orleans
    1300 Perdido St., Ste. 5E03
    New Orleans, LA 70112
    504-658-9800

    So I submitted a request at the Archives.

    Thank you for reaching out to the City Archives. I will work on researching this request in the next few days. Because there is no name/ case number/ or date connected to the original incident, it may take some time to uncover information.

    In the meantime, you can take a look at our website regarding the police records in our collection here: https://nolacityarchives.org/new-orleans-police-department/

    The information at that link is the reason I submitted a public records request in the first place. It doesn’t appear that an investigation from 1968 is archived yet, which is exactly what the City Archives said when they told me to ask NOPD:

    I haven’t been able to find any more information about the Homicide Investigation that you requested. As you mentioned, the homicide report is outside of the scope of our collection. You can try contacting NOPD directly, but I am unsure of their record holdings from that time period.

    The public records request I made is asking NOPD. So NOPD told me to ask the City Archives and the City Archives told me to ask NOPD…

    At age 84 in 1997, Merryl chose to donate her home to Tulane University with the condition that she lived there until she died. She died in 2015 at age 102, effectively ending the 48 year era for her family. Tulane sold the house back to her family in 2016, but it sat empty until 20208.

    Part 5: The New Era

    In 2020, Zion and his mother gained ownership of the mansion, a fitting next chapter in the life of this old house. His aim seems to be to remove everything but the bones of the house thereby ensuring that no skeletons remain in these closets or walls or even ceilings. Of course, the Garden District geezers tried to stop his renovations…because they would be able to see the roof. He received approval to move forward with his modified plan in 2021, so Zion will make his mark on this house with his mom as the reigning queen of 1331 First9. I hope you’ll join me in rebranding it the Williamson-Anderson House.

    Sources:

    1. Property Listing 1331 First Street, New Orleans, LA. The McEnery Co. https://www.mceneryco.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/1331-First-Street_OM.pdf ↩︎
    2. Find A Grave “Joseph Chandler Morris” https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/71466485/joseph-chandler-morris ↩︎
    3. Richardson, Bill. “Grief, Memory, Three O’Clock in the Morning,” Oh, MG: My Mavis Gallant Centennial Diaries sub stack, April 24, 2024. https://billrichardson.substack.com/p/grief-memory-three-oclock-in-the-73b ↩︎
    4. Find A Grave “Dr. Ralph Hopkins, Sr.” https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/8584388/ralph-hopkins ↩︎
    5. Find A Grave “Merryl Silverstein Israel Aron” https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/155880023/merryl-israel_aron ↩︎
    6. “Merryl Israel Aron: New Orleans, Louisiana” New Orleans Auction Galleries Catalog for May 21-22, 2016. ↩︎
    7. “Morris Israel House” by Exploring Nola Tours, March 1, 2021. https://exploringnolatours.com/blog/f/morris-israel-house  ↩︎
    8. “A Gift to Tulane Provides a Home for a Lifetime” Fall 2016 Seasons: A Lifetime of Giving Newsletter https://giving.tulane.edu/s/1586/Giving/16/interior.aspx?sid=1586&gid=2&pgid=4636 ↩︎
    9. Hart, Katherine. “Zion Williamson’s mom receives City Council approval for addition to Garden District mansion” Uptown Messenger September 24, 2021. https://uptownmessenger.com/zion-williamsons-mom-receives-city-council-approval-for-addition-to-garden-district-mansion/ ↩︎
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  • On Authenticity

    On Authenticity

    New Orleans is deeply authentic. New Orleanians cherish authenticity to the point that individualism is elevated to art. Outsiders often immediately feel this authenticity. I believe this feeling is a large reason why so many people instantly identify with New Orleans and feel it is home.

    Nothing annoys me more than a poser. Someone who is trying to be something that they aren’t reeks of insecurity. Keeping up the façade is impossible, so it never feels real.

    Always an important port city, New Orleanians have come from around the world for more than three hundred years. My family roots in New Orleans are about 175 years deep, but each of the men who married into the New Orleans line of my family came from elsewhere. My original Louisiana ancestors joined the Creoles from Ireland. My great grandfather came from Finland and never left. My grandfather came from Pennsylvania, a merchant marine, who never left. And my father came from New York and never left. I still have family in all of those places.

    But my ancestors came to this city. They were not forced to settle here, but became some of the many transplants who decided that New Orleans was their home.

    New Orleans doesn’t hide the bad, and bad shit has always been a prominent part of life here since the Europeans arrived. From storms to plagues to murders and duels, lots of death and and destruction has always surrounded those who choose their home in the swamp. The swamp is decay, the beautiful decay described inadequately by so many writers, including this one.

    In 2016, I went to Jean Lafitte National Park each season to capture the swamp transforming dead stuff into flowers.

    As you walk around the prominent tourist sites, you’ll find prominent plaques about the wonderful things that happened and the amazing people who lived here right alongside plaques noting horrific events in history. New Orleans doesn’t hide the bad. This authenticity is one reason why so many people have such a visceral connection to the Crescent City. The country flushes its pollution down the Mississippi, and so many people rejoin the trash to leave their cares behind. 

    This year I’ve been ruminating on a theory that New Orleans is the most American city. Still the most European, African, Caribbean, unique, interesting city but also the most American city. My theory stems from the fact that so much American culture comes from the mouth of the Mississippi River. Of course, I had to leave Louisiana to realize this.

    While traveling the world almost 20 years ago, a common refrain of Europeans from “older” countries was that America had no culture. This baffled me. Europeans seem to equate culture with age. Their culture is apparently contained in the stones of buildings that have lasted several hundreds of years. Louisiana, New Orleans in particular, seethes with culture from the people. Creativity and flavor ooze and leak from those who mix here, the leftovers sopped up and regurgitated by the rest of the world. I started forming my theory that the culture of my home is the culture of my country, not some other foreign culture like I’ve so often repeated.

    But why does the othering of New Orleans matter? Things like the devastation of Katrina are why it matters, where you see newscasters sharing with the world, “How could this happen in America?” Or an open fire hydrant flooding the street with no one paying attention to it. Two hundred year old buildings that fall down in the middle of the most preserved district. Or trees that critically injure tourists in Jackson Square. Or another year as the murder capital of the world. Losing power three times a week without rain or regularly having to boil your water before you can use it. Things you simply wouldn’t see in other great American cities but we accept regularly, are why it matters.

    From the Revolt of 1768, cementing the historical place of New Orleans at the forefront of what it means to be American (before we even were American), New Orleans has been defining our culture and transporting our goods. Without trying to be anything else. Authentically. Allowing everyone else to follow our parade. I hope that my role as a tour guide helps more people repeat a new refrain about New Orleans. We’re not just a haunted party town, but a great American city to be proud of and to preserve.

  • Lalaurie’s Bricked Up Window

    Lalaurie’s Bricked Up Window
    Lalaurie Mansion 1831

    The Lalaurie mansion went back on the market for over $10 million this week. As soon as the images for the real estate listing posted, I started trying to figure out the floor plan to solve the mystery of the bricked up window.1 2

    In the legend of Madame Lalaurie, they (not sure who) bricked up the window because of the tragic death of an enslaved girl named Leah. Leah snagged Delphine’s hair while brushing it, enraging the enslaver. The girl jumped from the window to avoid punishment, dying in the process.

    Rebuilt home before 1895

    The truth is that the story is impossible. This home was not built until 1837-38, after Delphine left New Orleans, by Pierre Trastour. The home she lived in burned, both in the legend and in reality, and it was only two stories. The rebuilt home was also originally two stories. Fortunato Greco owned the building from 1893-1916 and added the third story and rear addition where the bricked up window is, according to the Historic New Orleans Collection.3 Watch my video for the true story of Delphine and the haunted house and why it’s far worse than the ghost stories that are retold. Fortunato Greco features prominently in the history of the ghosts.

    From the 2024 listing with my labeling

    In some photos of the home, you can find two bricked up windows. But currently one bricked window on the Gov. Nicholls elevation on the third floor second from the left tantalizes tourists and tour guides. I have spent entirely too long looking at the real estate photos and video to try to determine what the heck that bricked up window is. This home has a speakeasy hidden in a bathroom and an observatory on the roof, but neither of those seem to contain the secret of the bricked up window.

    As far as I can tell, the real estate images do not reveal the secret of Lalaurie’s window. Who knows if that’s intentional. But there is a hint. There is a vent in the small guest room on the same wall as the door to the mystery…I wonder if the air return or some other mundane modern amenity hides behind the bricked up window? They would have retrofitted for air conditioning at some point, so this feels like the most likely explanation to me. What do you think?

    From the 2024 listing with my labeling

    Here’s another story of an old haunted house in New Orleans.

    [Historic New Orleans Collection?] 2-050-060
    Negative gift of Mrs. Emilio Levy, May 20, 1968. 2-050-059
    Negative no. 34712/16336, lent by Library of Congress 2-050-058
    Negative lent by Louisiana State Museum. 2-050-056
    1. Brandt, Libertina. “For $10.25 Million: A New Orleans Mansion With a Wine Cellar, ‘Psychedelic Room’ and Some Ghosts,” Wall Street Journal, July 4, 2024. https://www.wsj.com/real-estate/luxury-homes/lalaurie-mansion-new-orleans-for-sale-35a20826 ↩︎
    2. “1140 Royal Street, New Orleans, LA 70116” Latter & Blum Real Estate Listing. https://www.latter-blum.com/p/1140-Royal-Street-New-Orleans-LA-70116/dmgid_170502975 ↩︎
    3. “1140 Royal Street” Collins C. Diboll Vieux Carre Digital Survey, a project of the Historic New Orleans Collection. https://www.hnoc.org/vcs/property_info.php?lot=22782-30 ↩︎
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