Category Archives: ain't dere no more

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Johnny White’s

As someone who had a family member who was associated almost daily with JW’s bar, I have a hard time understanding the confusion over WHICH Johnny White’s were talking about, when people read stories like the current one on the “closing” of the Sports Bar.

Closing Sports Bar
The one on St. Peter is the “real” one for lots of full-time Quarterites, and not just for motorcycle riders. It exists as a home away from home for many, and are treated as family like when the fine folks on St. Peter gave my family member an honored send off when he died last year. Those who frequent the St. Peter one (and probably hung out at Johnny’s Annex too) usually also believe that the “Sports Bar’ on Orleans is pretty bad and not one to hang out in with friends. It, like a lot of things directly on Bourbon, is too full of, well lets just say there’s too much potential for a bad time.

there are 4 places with Johnny White’s name on them in the Quarter and the ones managed by the family of Johnny White are the three BESIDES the Sports Bar. The family is taking control of that space again and probably reopening it slightly altered, which is fine with lots of us.
JW website

There. hope that helps. Now, let’s get a drink.

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Dig uncovers burial ground

St. Louis Cathedral recently finished their own historical archaeological dig, finding among other things, a flower market and toys. Now, a storied name in French Quarter history has his own dig discoveries: Vincent Marcello wanted a pool in his backyard on Rampart and has found some older “residents” back there, probably from the time the area was St. Peter Cemetery in the 1700s.. Let’s hope he doesn’t want back rent…

Marcello uncovers old bodies

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Joy returning to Canal Street sooner or later

As a French Quarter teenager, I might have been the last of those who saw first-run movies at the Joy Theater. It gave downtown living another facet, long before Canal Place and even way before Black Pearl’s now-defunct Uptown Square movie house. Yes we had Prytania, but that was about it.

I welcome more activity to the American Sector to build more everyday life for the French Quarter.

WWL story about Joy

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4th of July

Seems to me its been about 20 years or so since New Orleans has begun the fireworks on the river on the holiday. The dueling barges is kind of a fun idea, especially as they outlaw personal fireworks in the city. Of course, all you have to do is go across the river to Gretna to buy some!
I suppose the 4th on the river has its beginnings in the 1984 World’s Fair where I remember they had nightly fireworks, although that seems excessive, so maybe I am wrong.
World’s Fair

Fireworks are not a huge part of New Orleans history. My memory was (when visiting my grandparents in the 1960s and 1970s) that we went to Pontchartrain Beach on the lake to view fireworks on the 4th. That park was pretty cool and this from someone who grew up most of the year in amusement park capital-Ohio. My mom actually met Elvis Presley at this amusement park way back in the early 1950s, when he was appearing nearby. The family story goes that a crowd was watching him play a carnival game, and when trying to wend his way out, he stepped on my aunt’s foot. My mom chided him and he gave her the stuffed animal he had won.
Sadly, Pontchartrain Beach closed in the early 1980s and is now a part of struggling University of New Orleans campus. I rode the Zephyr on that last day and like most people, walked off with a souvenir-mine was not a Presley gift but a mannequin arm that held my carnival beads for years in a place of honor in my courtyard.

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The “at least one useful thing on every block of Bourbon” list

100-Bourbon House
200-Galatoire’s and the site of “Owen Brennan’s Vieux Carre” Restaurant, the original Brennan’s restaurant (moved to Royal in 1956).
300-Jazz Park resting place and bathrooms at the Royal Sonesta Hotel
400-Still looking
500-Chris Owens (both she and the club) and Ramada bathrooms
600- Pat O’s Courtyard, Michael (waiter at Sammy’s), Court of 2 Sisters Thruway, Congresswoman Lindy Boggs’ home til 2005.
700-Marie Laveau’s Voodoo Shop, Fritzel’s
800-Washing Well, Bourbon Pub, Oz
900-Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop (piano bar), Lafitte’s In Exile, Clover Grill
1000-Postal Emporium/Frame Shop
1100-The Nelly Deli
1200 -2 lovely magnolias over sidewalk
1300-Kingsway Studio, owned by Daniel Lanois in the 1990s as a recording studio for groups such as Emmylou Harris, the Neville Brothers, Pearl Jam, Peter Gabriel, R.E.M., Robbie Robertson, Sheryl Crow, Iggy Pop, Luscious Jackson, Cowboy Mouth, Joe Henry, and Michelle Shocked. Before that, it was the home of Germaine Wells, the original big-hatted French Quarter Easter Parade doyenne and operator of her family’s restaurant Arnaud’s.

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Link to Bergen article

T-P writer Doug MacCash has written another charming piece about New Orleans, a bit removed from his usual art critic duties. He interviewed Margarita Bergen, a FQ fixture, ostensibly to talk about her love of champagne for the New Year’s Day edition, but every story with her is fascinating to read. The Bergen shop was one of the best (well-managed and well stocked) frame and poster shops in the Quarter throughout the 80s and 90s, closing around 2000 I think. This was during the heyday of poster sales in New Orleans, when it seemed a multitude of young drifters were framing in the back of every shop to support their drinking habits while clerks in front sold hundreds of posters of  misty  streetcars to tourists. Many mortgages were made on Jazz Fest poster sales alone; based on their windows, the Bergens did a brisk business on the Sitting Duck series for far longer than anyone else. (Now they have a shop on Decatur with my old Royal Street gallery boss, Casell.)

Cash cow poster series

Bergen article

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So, THAT’S where the library went…

1853 Providing that Fisk Library, founded under the bequest of the late Abijah Fisk, together with a lot and building on the corner of Bourbon and Customhouse (now Iberville) Streets, be transferred and assigned to the Mechanics Society of New Orleans to be held and used by them for the same purposes and trusts under which now used. The said library to be preserved and enlarged and be known as the “Fisk Free Library”.
1881 Requesting the President of the Mechanics Society to turn over to the City the Fisk Free Library together with the lot and building on the corner of Bourbon and Customhouse (now Iberville) Streets, so that said property may be administered in accordance with the will of Abijah Fisk bearing date of Nov. 27, 1843. Also providing that the library be removed to the room in the City Hall Building known as the Public School City Library, and that the rental accruing from lot and building on Bourbon and Customhouse Streets be applied solely to the enlargement of the library.
1894 Providing that the Public Library shall be kept open daily for access of the public between the hours of 9 A.M. and 3 P.M., and from 6 P.M. to 10 P.M. Sundays and Holidays excepted.