Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $9.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Why I Love New Orleans
    Why I Love New Orleans
    Why I Love New Orleans
    Ebook159 pages2 hours

    Why I Love New Orleans

    By Heather Graham

    3/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    New York Times Bestselling Author, Heather Graham has had a long standing love for New Orleans, Louisiana. She has used the city as a setting for many of her novels and there are many reasons why. On her blog in 2013 she spent 30 days sharing what she loved about New Orleans. From favorite restaurants, to museums she loves to her most loved ghost stories, she shared what made New Orleans one of her favorite cities in the United States. Now she has compiled these blogs into this ebook that she wants to share with those who are going to New Orleans, those who have dreamed of the city and want to learn more, and those who might want to debate her choices. Why I Love New Orleans is a love story, it's the story of Heather's love for this magical city.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHeather Graham
    Release dateMay 6, 2014
    ISBN9781311617040
    Why I Love New Orleans
    Author

    Heather Graham

    New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Heather Graham has written more than a hundred novels. She's a winner of the RWA's Lifetime Achievement Award and the Thriller Writers' Silver Bullet. She is an active member of International Thriller Writers and Mystery Writers of America. For more information, check out her website, theoriginalheathergraham.com. You can also find Heather on Facebook and on Twitter, @heathergraham.

    Read more from Heather Graham

    Related to Why I Love New Orleans

    Related ebooks

    Travel For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Boy Who Cried Wolf

      Jun 9, 2020

      Josh Turner from Austin, Texas The egg landed with a splat on the truck window. ‘Bullseye,’ grinned my buddy Dave*. Hiding in the shadows, as the car drove past, we could see the driver gesticulating furiously. It was 31 October 1990 – Halloween – a

      4 min read

    • Article

      New Orleans

      Feb 2, 2024

      The Choctaw Nation had the best name for New Orleans: Bulbancha, the place of many tongues. It speaks volumes about the defining feature of the city: that its colourful history has been shaped by many hands. Long before the Europeans arrived, Native

      4 min read

    • Article

      London Life Need To Know

      Jun 7, 2023

      London Life Need To Know
      6 min read

    • Article

      Liverpool

      Nov 4, 2021

      Liverpool
      8 min read

    • Article

      New Orleans

      Aug 5, 2021

      New Orleans
      8 min read

    • Article

      1900s Notebook

      Jan 5, 2022

      1900s Notebook
      3 min read

    • Article

      Southwestern Exposure

      Nov 24, 2020

      Southwestern Exposure
      4 min read

    • Article

      My Art Will Go On

      Mar 20, 2020

      My Art Will Go On
      5 min read

    • Article

      The City That Endures

      Sep 3, 2021

      The City That Endures
      4 min read

    • Article

      The City That Endures

      Sep 3, 2021

      The City That Endures
      4 min read

    • Article

      My Travels…

      Aug 18, 2022

      “As we drove through France, I was reading Célestine, Gillian Tindall’s account of researching the nineteenth century life of the woman who had once lived in the house that the author bought in Chassignolles in the 1970s. Th is account of the once ti

      3 min read

    • Article

      Travel Sickness

      Aug 24, 2022

      Travel Sickness
      5 min read

    • Article

      Diary

      Oct 28, 2021

      Diary
      6 min read

    • Article

      Tuck Into The Burgers Of Calais

      Jul 28, 2021

      Calais is anxious to counteract its image as a sad port with depressed migrants trying to cross the Channel. It’s ‘relaunching itself as an attractive seaside resort’, with a €46m (£39.4m) renovation of the seafront and the leisure facilities. The mu

      3 min read

    • Article

      A Testament to Survival

      Sep 1, 2020

      A Testament to Survival
      7 min read

    • Article

      USA Urban Escapes

      Jul 28, 2022

      USA Urban Escapes
      36 min read

    • Article

      Q&A YOU ASK, WE ANSWER

      Oct 28, 2021

      Q&A YOU ASK, WE ANSWER
      8 min read

    • Article

      WELCOME TO The BIG Apple

      Apr 1, 2020

      WELCOME TO The BIG Apple
      3 min read

    • Article

      Easy Does It New Orleans

      Aug 20, 2024

      Easy Does It New Orleans
      10 min read

    • Article

      Dear Paul

      Sep 9, 2022

      In August we heard about the delightfully-named Morwood Windle, who had the rather unsavoury occupation of ‘pig killer’. Although probably not seen as a desirable occupation nowadays, put into context, this occupation would have been more common in 1

      11 min read

    • Article

      Down South

      Oct 4, 2016

      Down South
      5 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Jun 9, 2022

      May’s Q&A mentioned Vere St Leger Goold, the loser of the 1879 Wimbledon final, who eventually died on Devil’s Island [a French penal colony]. It reminded me of the story of the man who beat him in that final: John Thorneycroft Hartley, whose “prepar

      4 min read

    • Article

      Nantucket Doesn’t Belong to the Preppies

      Aug 30, 2021

      Photographs by Amani Willett I caught the fast ferry from Hyannis to Nantucket, 30 miles off the coast of Massachusetts. As the boat plowed the waves, I was taken aback by my first view of the island. I could see it all at once, end to end, 14 miles

      12 min read

    • Article

      Northern Exposure

      Feb 1, 2020

      Northern Exposure
      4 min read

    • Article

      Dublin In Five Places

      Dec 21, 2023

      Dublin In Five Places
      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Why I Love New Orleans

    3/5

    1 rating0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Why I Love New Orleans - Heather Graham

      Why I Love New Orleans

      A Collection of Blogs

      Heather Graham

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright 2014 © Heather Graham Pozzessere

      Table of Contents

      Day One - Let the Dead Sleep

      Day Two - The Cemeteries

      Day Three - National World War II Museum and the Civil War Museum (Warehouse District)

      Day Four - FiFi Mahoney's and More

      Day Five - Rounding the French Quarter

      Day Six - The Haunted Mortuary

      Day Seven - Mardi Gras World

      Day Eight - The Audubon Aquarium of the Americas

      Day Nine - Food! Glorious Food!

      Day Ten - Meet Susie Q and the NOLA of Anne Rice

      Day Eleven - The Myrtles (Day Trip 1 from NOLA)

      Day Twelve - More Plantations

      Day Thirteen - Lower Mississippi Plantations

      Day Fourteen - The Zoo

      Day Fifteen - Music & All That Jazz

      Day Sixteen - The Historical Wax Museum of New Orleans - Musee Conti

      Day Seventeen - Jambalaya Jubilee-ing, French Quarter Fest-ing, Bent Pages—and Strawberries!

      Day Eighteen - Who Do Voodoo You Do - Tea Leaves and More!

      Day Nineteen - Blue Dog—Red Dog, Yellow Dog—and Art!

      Day Twenty - Jackson Square, The Cabildo, The Cathedral, and the Presbytere

      Day Twenty-One - Pirates!

      Day Twenty-Two - Bayou Baby

      Day Twenty-Three - Ghosts!

      Day Twenty-Four - Bars, Booze and Broads - Bourbon Street

      Day Twenty-Five - Vampires!

      Day Twenty-Six - Sometimes You've Just Got to Sleep

      Day Twenty-Seven - The Good, The Bad & The Ugly - The Slave Market and the Civil War

      Day Twenty-Eight – Lagniappe

      Day Twenty-Nine - Everybody's Got an Opinion

      Day Thirty - The Hotel Monteleone and Writers for New Orleans

      Are you heading to New Orleans? Or have you ever simply been entranced by the pictures and stories about the city that fill your imagination with images of the Mighty Mississippi, the Cathedral, the cities of the dead, and the picturesque architecture?

      It's a city I love, and have loved since I was a child and first saw the amazing bustle of every day life set within the arena of the unique and historic Southern city.

      The following is a series of blogs about New Orleans written to promote a number of different books I've written, utilizing the city. The blogs were done in 2013 and history, of course, goes on daily. But most of what you read is the same, has stayed the same for years, and will continue to be the same for decades to come.

      I hope I can impart just a little bit of why I love New Orleans so very much! Have fun—and feel free to disagree with me and love your own favorite restaurants, venues, tourist attractions—and pieces of history!

      Heather Graham

      Day One - Let the Dead Sleep

      Thirty Days of Why I Love New Orleans

      My book, Let the Dead Sleep, begins a series that highlights New Orleans. My protagonists—Danni Cafferty and Michael Quinn—are both from the city. They live and work in the city, love it, know it, and, naturally, want to keep it safe from harm!

      Well, I love the city, too. I've never lived there, but I spend a great deal of time there. I have since I was a small child.

      So, today's Why I Love goes to the city itself.

      New Orleans practices what I think of as living history daily. The French Quarter is filled with fantastic architecture—all being used today as restaurants, shops, hotels, homes, and what have you. While it's called the French Quarter, a lot of the architecture is actually Spanish. That's because of the fires. But, I'm setting the mule before the carriage.

      Native Americans lived in the area for hundreds of years before the first European explorers and fur traders began arriving in the late 1600s. 1718 brought the official founding of Nouvelle-Orléans by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville. In 1722 it became the capitol of French Louisiana, but a hurricane came and wiped out most of the houses that had existed at the time. They'd been described as hovels, so, maybe the hurricane—despite the damage and the horror—helped out history a bit.  Because, after all that damage and horror, Bienville set about to create the grid that remains the boundary of the French Quarter or Vieux Carre today. In 1763, with the British victorious in the Seven Years War, the land was ceded to the Spanish—and thus the Spanish rule. That didn't work out so well—a lot of the settlers, no matter where they came from, wanted it all back under French Rule. They drove the Spanish governor out in the Bloodless Revolution.

      Aha! The Spanish were not about to give up—a year later, they were back, and five of the ringleaders were executed and others were forced to pledge their loyalty to Spain. Next, great fires ripped through the city, the first being the Great New Orleans Fire of 1788 followed by another awful fire in December of 1794. Over a thousand buildings were destroyed.

      After these fires—and while the Spanish were still in control—the city began to rebuild with brick.  The cemetery, St. Louis #1, opened in 1789. While it’s true that flooding could cause bodies to float through the city, the style of the cemetery was, scholars argue, decidedly Spanish.

      Rule got a little tricky and confusing. In 1795, the Spanish granted the United States right of deposit. That meant the U.S. could use the port facilities. And then, in 1800 Spain and France signed the secret Treaty of San Ildefonso. It was so secret that many of the city’s residents wouldn’t know about it for years. It returned New Orleans to French rule, but only when the French were ready for a transfer of power and it wasn't to be for long. Then, as we know, Napoleon sold Louisiana (which included many other states or pieces of states!) to the United States.

      By then, of course, the English—some real English and many Americans—were trickling in and there was a magnificent mixture of cultures and people.

      However, from that time on, the beautiful city of New Orleans was American. Fantastic architecture was already in place and more was to come. The Garden District became part of the City of New Orleans back in 1833. Parcels of land were sold and since the French were in the Quarter, the English had to be somewhere. Both areas are unique, beautiful, and incredible.

      The Haitian Revolution that began in 1791 brought people—white and black, slave and free—to New Orleans and introduced incredible culture, including the Voodoo for which the city is so famous. Bad times were destined, of course. The Civil War came along, but the city was in the hands of the Union by 1862. And, as we all know, in our own day and age, the city was devastated by Katrina and the summer of storms and cast into further despair by the oil spill. But one thing about NOLA—the city is resilient! I was there yesterday and it was amazing to see the amount of people once again flocking the streets, making driving and walking a mad dash for survival, and most of all—appreciating the fantastic city.

      My favorite description of the city as a whole is that which denotes her as a gem of decaying elegance. Now, trust me—not everything is decaying. There’s work constantly going on and many places are just plain elegant. Others are just plain fun. Some—like Lafitte’s Bar—lets you feel that you are, indeed, living history.

      So, day one of loving New Orleans—she’s just a great city. There are all kinds of neighborhoods to visit extending beyond the French Quarter and the Garden District. There are the haunted cemeteries, the great Cities of the Dead, from St. Louis to Lafayette to those beyond the city limits. There is a bustling CBD, or Central Business District.

      Oh, there are bayous and parks and national heritage sights and more. There is an excellent aquarium. There are so many places to go; there are carriage rides that must be taken, ghost tours, history tours, vampire tours! There is the Mighty Mississippi and there are paddle steamers and magnificent plantations just down the road and…

      The city, the beautiful city itself, is a gem.  Just sit at Café Du Monde as others have since 1862 and watch the pageantry at Jackson Square or the abundance of people in the city as they pass by. See the beautiful buildings of Jackson Square, the cathedral, the Cabildo, the Presbytere…

      Ah. Those are for another day!

      Day Two - The Cemeteries

      Now, many people might start with Café du Monde. I do love Café du Monde and their café au lait, beignets and people watching across from Jackson Square, but this is me.

      So we’re heading to the cemeteries.

      First of all, many places in Louisiana have these Cities of the Dead so we’ll stay in the French Quarter and the Garden District. If you’re there and can only see one, it should be St. Louis #1.

      It was the first of three St. Louis cemeteries. One, two, and three, go figure. But it’s here where you’ll find the tomb that some swear belongs to Marie LaVeau, the Voodoo Queen, and some say is not where her remains actually reside. She had a daughter named Marie, so who knows? But, it’s accepted that her home in the City of the Dead is at St. Louis #1 and while you’re not legally supposed to deface a tomb, there are Xs on it and you can place a penny on the ground and turn around three times for her to grant you blessings.

      Never does that term decaying elegance come more to mind than in the cemetery. Many of the vaults are still pristine and beautiful. Many are chipping and aged and create images of ghostly beings sweeping from tomb to tomb when dusk falls or when a mist rises.

      St. Louis #1 was opened in 1789. Close by is St. Louis #2—by 1829, St. Louis #1 was already filled up—a horrible yellow fever epidemic had swept the city, speeding up the normal death rate. (In later years, room was made for some esteemed citizens of the city.) The Italian Society monument is the tallest and is

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1