Priceline.com travel website is calling the French Quarter the top destination for July 4th travelers, based on more than 30,000 hotel room booking requests processed through the site.
(Or maybe our visitors just love Priceline…)
Essence Festival information here
(Essence Festival is a huge event that should be embraced by the local powers that be more than it has been. July used to be a loss for most of the tourist area and now hotels are sold out and welcoming restaurants get crowds all weekend)…
Go Fourth On The River
Fireworks Extravaganza at 9:00 p.m.
This unique salute to America’s Independence will feature a fireworks display from two barges over the Mighty Mississippi (between Gov. Nichols St. Wharf and Canal St. Dock). Choreographed to stirring patriotic classics and simulcast on Magic 101.9 and WWL AM paints beautiful strokes of radiant light with the sky as a canvas and color as the palette.
(I assume my readers realize that is cut and pasted from their press release; “beautiful strokes of radiant light? Calm down; it’s explosions set to music. But enjoy if that’s what you’re into…)
DOUBLE FEATURE of both Panic in the Streets and Cool Hand Luke Friday, July 12, outdoors on the grounds of the U.S. Mint.
We will start with Panic in the Streets at 8:00 p.m., followed by a ten-minute intermission, and then Cool Hand Luke will start around 9:45 p.m.)
Admission is $5 for NOFS members, members of the Louisiana Museum Foundation, and members of the Friends of the Cabildo. General admission tickets are $7. (The price will be the same whether you see one film or both.)
For a fair price, you can get tickets to the 2013/2014 Le Petit season and support one of the oldest community theaters in the country while having some enjoyable evenings.
The deadliest fire in New Orleans history occurred on June 24, 1973. On that night, an unruly patron was thrown out of the UpStairs Lounge, which was located at the corner of Iberville and Chartres streets. About 30 minutes after being ejected from the bar, the patron returned and deliberately set the stairwell on fire. Thirty-two people died as a result of the arson.
The police and fire department responses were nonchalant and no arrest was made in the case, even though authorities knew who set the fire. Mayor Moon Landrieu, nor any other government official, had anything to say about the tragedy. Churches were either silent or subtly suggested the victims deserved what they got. Today, the fire remains largely forgotten.
After UpStairs Lounge fire, gay and straight New Orleans changed: Frank Perez | NOLA.com.
I wrote about this before on this blog and appreciate that some of our media at least bothers to note this date of this terrible event. Recently, I saw a husband/wife set of tourists stop and read the plaque that was only recently put there to note the spot. Maybe if more people were aware of this crime and the lack of concern at that point by city officials-and the churches that refused to have services for the dead- we can begin to understand why we need to push human rights issues forward in every generation.
'73 Upstairs Lounge fire 'worst mass murder of gays in U.S. history' | wwltv.com New Orleans.
French Quarter block by block 