Category Archives: French Market

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Dutch Alley in the French Market

While locals watch tourists frantically search for shade and some room on the sidewalk in the French Quarter (while down in the French Market District) those same locals know to duck behind Cafe Du Monde to use this alley. It’s one of the few places in the Quarter where some peace is nicely merged with a bit of activity.

Even though the alley is next to the Mississippi storm gates, the name has nothing to do with the language of the Netherlands and their triumphant engineering over waterways, or from any emigration patterns. It, in true New Orleans form, is named for Mayor Dutch Morial and his 1980s era of civic renovation. It’s joined by its neighbor the Moonwalk, which is the riverside path parallel to the alley, which was named for 1970s Mayor Moon Landrieu, father of the current mayor as well as our senior US Senator.
Ironically, the French Market owes its location to the Choctaw Indians, its name and founding to the French, its structures to the Spanish and its present day doldrums to politicians who keep finding a way to put their names on the stuff!

However, some smart local artists have taken this rather confusing intersection name and made it the home of cooperative marketing as Dutch Alley Artists Co-op. Take a right turn while on Decatur going downriver (around Joanie on her pony a.k.a. the Joan of Arc Statue) and chat with some great local artists while you load up on your gift-giving.

Dutch Alley Artsts Co-op

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Homemade Fruit Wine Demonstration

This Sunday: French Market Fare – Homemade Fruit Wine with Brewstock

Sunday, June 17 at 2 PM
Free and Open to the Public

French Market Fare Demonstration Stage (located between Ursulines and Governor Nicholls Streets)

Aaron Hyde of Brewstock will demonstrate how to make a delicious and relatively easy blackberry wine in your own home. Doing the Locavore challenge and feeling thirsty? This is a great way to bulk up your liquor cabinet! Brewstock is one of the only brewing supply shops in New Orleans, covering everything from beer and wine to soda and cheese.

For more information:
SOFab

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King Creole Returns

Dust off your blue suede shoes and head down to the Quarter, as the New Orleans Film Society, the Louisiana State Museum, and the Louisiana Museum Foundation present an outdoor screening of the classic Elvis film King Creole. The film, which takes place in and around the Vieux Carre, will be shown on our new inflatable screen set up on the grounds of the Old US Mint.

About the film: Elvis Presley, Carolyn Jones, and Walter Matthau star in this 1958 film that tells the story of a nineteen-year-old who gets mixed up with crooks and involved with two women. The film was critically and commercially successful and included the song “Hard-Headed Woman,” which became a number one hit for Elvis. He later said that King Creole was his favorite acting role.

Old U.S. Mint
(400 Esplanade Avenue)
Thursday, June 28
Screening starts at 8:15 p.m./sundown

Tickets: Admission is $3 for NOFS members, members of the Louisiana Museum Foundation, and members of the Friends of the Cabildo. General admission tickets are $6.

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French Market Fare

I’m always surprised when I happen over to the French Market and find music or cooking demos. Mostly because you would think they would work to make damn sure that locals know about them. In any case, I am not sure why they have chosen the spot where they do demos- oh wait a minute – that was where we used to stage the Crescent City Farmers Market once a week. I wonder if it has anything to do with that?

I’ll be in the Quarter for a week or two full-time during Tennessee Williams Festivals days and then back for the French Quarter Festival. I’ll be sure to spend time in the French Market, looking at local artists wares and maybe picking up a new flag to hang on my house for JazzFest. If you haven’t done that recently, give it another chance.

Market events