STRANGER’S GUIDE WHO WE ARE BEFORE THERE WERE GUIDEBOOKS, 18th- and 19th-century authors wrote “stranger’s guides,” which were personal, eccentric and intimate portrayals of places. Stranger’s Guide is a modern version of that idea—an award-winning publication that reveals the intricacies of locales across the globe, through both local and foreign eyes. Each print guide dives deep into a single location, featuring writers and photographers from those regions, on everything from sports and economics to fashion, politics and literature. Our work, which has garnered National Magazine Awards for General Excellence and for Photography, explores the power of place-based journalism to break down stereotypes and foster global citizenship. PUBLISHER Abby Rapoport EDITOR IN CHIEF Kira Brunner Don CHIEF OPERATIONS OFFICER Mike Kanin MANAGING EDITOR Kyla Kupferstein Torres CREATIVE CONTENT EDITOR Emily C. Skaftun SPORTS/ SENIOR EDITOR Emily Nemens SENIOR EDITORS Alex Hannaford, Anushree Kaushal LITERARY EDITOR Joanna Yas EDITOR AT LARGE Courtney Desiree Morris ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Ambia Elias ASSOCIATE EDITOR Cecilia Nowell ASSOCIATE PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR Kike Arnal ASSISTANT EDITORS Annie Estes, Aja Miller COVER ILLUSTRATOR Benjamin Frisch WEB DESIGN Blase Design COPY EDITOR Tan A. Walker JOURNALISM FELLOW Sharon Kleiman NEW ORLEANS ISSUE EDITORIAL BOARD Garnette Cadogan, Pableaux Johnson, Brett Martin CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Kira Allmann, Joshua Beckman, Garnette Cadogan, Saneta de Vuono-Powell, Kyle Haddad-Fonda, Stephanie Heimann, Roger D. Hodge, Joshua Jelly-Schapiro, Laleh Khadivi, Victor LaValle, Alexis C. Madrigal, John McMurtrie, Ayan Mittra, Martin Perna, Emily Raboteau, Betsy Reed, Laura Secor, Cassim Shepard, Lola Shoneyin, SA Smythe, Matthew Zapruder SUBSCRIBE | strangersguide.com/subscribe ADVERTISE | [email protected] RETAIL DISTRIBUTION rrrhodes1 [email protected] GET INVOLVED Fi facebook. com/strangersguidemag G@ @StrangersGuide @StrangersGuide Contributors THOMAS BELLER’s books include Seduction Theory: Stories, JD. Salinger: The Escape Artist, which won the New York City Book Award, and the forthcoming Lost in the Game: A Book About Basketball. A longtime contributor to The New Yorker, he is an associate professor and direc- tor of creative writing at Tulane University. BIG FREEDIA is a New Orleans-based hip-hop artist and a critically-acclaimed ambassa- dor of bounce music worldwide. She has recorded with Kesha, Beyonce, and Drake, and starred in her own docuseries, Big Freeda Bounces Back. JOANN CLEVENGER opened Upperline in 1983, one of New Orleans’s most beloved restaurants. She 1s a four-time James Beard Award final- ist and the recipient of the Southern Food- ways Alliance’s Craig Claiborne Lifetime Achievement Award. L. KASIMU HARRIS is a New Orleans-based writ- er and artist. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Na- tional Geographic and Garden @ Gun magazine. LEONE JULITTE is a French freelance photogra- pher based in New Orleans who is commit- ted to documenting communities rooted in radical self-expression. ADAM KARLIN has written guidebooks for Lonely Planet and essays for numerous anthologies, as well as The Bitter Southerner, Catapultw and other publications. BRETT MARTIN is a correspondent for GQ Mag- azine and a three-time James Beard Award winner. He is the author of the book Diffi- cult Men: Behind the Scenes of a Creatwe Revolu- tion, From The Sopranos and The Wire to Mad Men and Breaking Bad. CC MOLAISON is a writer and bartender from New Orleans, pursuing a degree at Tulane University. This is her debut publication. COURTNEY DESIREE MORRIS is a visual artist and as- sistant professor of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Her forthcoming book is To De- Jend This Sunrise: Black Women’s Actiwism and the Authoritarian Turn in Nicaragua. KATY RECKDAHL writes frequently for the New Orleans Advocate Times-Picayune, the New York Times and the Washington Post. She’s received more than two-dozen first-place New Orleans Press Club awards, the James Aronson Award, a Casey Medal and three TV-documentary Emmy Awards. In 2020, she was a producer for The Allantic’s ac- claimed podcast, Floodlines. NATHANIEL RICH is the author of the novels Odds Against Tomorrow and Ring Zeno, set in New Or- leans in 1918; and two works of nonfiction, Second Nature and Losing Earth. He is a writer- at-large for The New York Times Magazine. MAURICE CARLOS RUFFIN is the author of The Ones Who Don’t Say They Love You, a New York Times Editor’s Choice that was also long- listed for the Story Prize, and We Cast a Shad- ow, which was a finalist for the PEN/Faulk- ner Award, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the PEN America Open Book Prize. BROOKE SAUVAGE is a writer and costumer based in New Orleans. She has worked with the Marigny Opera Ballet, New Orleans Airlift and Vice. GWEN THOMPKINS is the executive producer and host of a New Orleans-based public radio program, Music Inside Out. Currently, she’s writing a book on the Music Inside Out inter- views to be published by the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Press. AVERY LEIGH WHITE is a street photographer, jour- nalist and producer based in New Orleans. Her work has been published by VICE, Roll- ing Stone, Buzzfeed News and PBS. Stranger’s Guide [ISSN 2639-3638 (print) ISSN 2639-3646 (online)] entire contents copyrighted (c) 2021 is published quarterly by SG Studios, LLC. Email: [email protected]. Customer Service: [MaiL] P. O. Box 15007, Austin, TX 78761, [PHONE] (833) 848-5116. Postmaster: Send address changes to: P. O. Box 15007, Austin, TX 78761. Subscriptions: | yr $75. Back issues $22. Airmail, foreign, group and bulk rates available on request. Stranger’s Guide NEW ORLEANS TOUR GUIDE SG's guide to New Orleans FEATURES Acid Church by Courtney Desiree Morris A queer psychedelic ramble through the Crescent City Postcards from NOLA by Maurice Carlos Ruffin, JoAnn Clevenger & Brett Martin and Big Freedia Slow Time by Katy Reckdahl Getting by in the Orleans Parish Prison Rubble & Dust by Thomas Beller The collapse of the Hard Rock Hotel Mishpacha on the Mississippi by Adam Karlin Jewish life in New Orleans Heinemann’s Curse by Nathaniel Rich The spectacular rise and grisly death of New Orleans baseball 34 43 a 19 89 PHOTOGRAPHY Turning a Look by Léone Julitte intro by Brooke Sauvage Vanishing Black Bars and Lounges by L. Kasimu Harris Bourbon Street by Avery Leigh White FICTION How to Haunt by GG Molaison FIRST PERSONS Blow, Man, Blow mtro by Gwen ‘Vhompkins TIMELINE A Brief History of Slavery in New Orleans LITERARY TOUR SOUND BITES 16 62 96 105 112 00 84 128 KNOW BEFORE YOU GO LOST & FOUND: HURRICANE KATRINA ‘The things they left behind [75] PHRASES TO KNOW Talk like a local [38] NNET-CAJUN Po’boy v. bénh mi [47] MAKE IT WRONG Fraud & incompetence post-Katrina [48] ABANDONED PLACES 27 st-century ruins [56] THE REAL VAMPIRES OF NEW ORLEANS The secret les of sanguinarians [59] MUSIC BOX VILLAGE Aduszcal architecture [80] \NOLENT FEMMES Notorious female murderers [90] AMERICA’S MOST HAUNTED A coho’s who of New Orleans ghosts [93] SERVICE CITY Hospitality in the Big Easy [107] MASKING INDIAN Crafting a costume [109] THE CLAIBORNE AVENUE MONSTER Trouble in Tremé [117] NICKNAMES: The Big Easy CRESCENT CiTy The City That Care Forgot THE PARIS OF AMERICA CRAWFISH TOWN Gumbo City NOLA TOUR GUIDE NEW ORLEANS CONGO SQUARE, in Tremé, is where enslaved and free Creole peoples of color gathered, danced and made music on Sundays—their day off, per Code Nowr laws. It ts considered the birthplace of jazz. In pre-Columbian days, the place where Congo Square stands was the site of a Houma Indian harvest festival. THE WORLD'S FIRST MOVIE THEATER, VITASCOPE HALL, OPENED IN NEW ORLEANS ON JULY 26, 1896. In the early 1980s, the New Orleans school system asked students which homegrown sports star they most wanted to meet. The answer; JUNKYARD 006, New Orleans’s greatest wrestling superstar. Today, he’s almost forgotten. DENTAL FLOSS WAS INVENTED IN 1815 BY NEW ORLEANS DENTIST LEVI SPEAR PARMLY. IN 1922, NEW ORLEANS HAD 229 MILES OF STREETCAR LINES. stern lnee ; In 2022, tt had 22.3 males. New ORLEANS Ciry PARK IS ABOUT 50°% BIGGER THAN CENTRAL Park. The highest point in New Orleans 1s a man-made hill dubbed “Laborde It’s illegal to wear a hat while the curtain is raised at New Orleans theaters. Mountain,” which reaches 43 FEET ABOVE SEA LEVEL The po’boy sandwich earned its name during a 1929 streetcar strike. Brothers Bennie and Clovis Martin gave free sandwiches to “poor boys,” striking workers who couldn’t pay. AT LEAST 319 SONGS WITH “NEW ORLEANS” IN THE TITLE HAVE BEEN RECORDED. Sno-Balls, finely shaved-to-order flavored ice, were hand-chipped until the 1930s, when New Orleanians George Ortolano and Ernest Hansen THE SAZERAC WAS DECLARED NEW ORLEANS’S OFFICIAL COCKTAIL BY THE LOUISIANA LEGISLATURE IN 2008. New Orleans is one of the only North American areas to grow Mirhitons, a pale green gourd native to Brazil. Stuffed murlitons are a feature of some NOLA Thanksgwing meals. independently invented electric ice shaving machines. HANSEN'S MACHINES ARE USED ONLY AT THE FAMILY’S SNO-BLIZ STAND, WHICH OPENED IN 1939. A LETTER PURPORTEDLY FROM A SERIAL KILLER KNOWN AS THE AXEMAN PROMISED TO SPARE ANYONE IN A HOME WHERE JAZZ MUSIC WAS PLAYING AT 12:15AM, Marcu 19, 1919. THE AXEMAN KILLED SIX AND INJURED SIX MORE, BUT NONE ON Marcu 19. New Orleans’s “sludge metal” as a subgenre of doom metal that uses brooding guitar riffs to evoke extreme depression. More than Subsidence from half of New draining what used Orleans is to be swampland is below sea level, in some places 8 FEET BELOW sinking the area by as much as 2 INCHES PER YEAR The official colors of SINCE NOLA'S FIRST LARGE-SCALE NiadicGuas haves besa CARNIVAL IN 1857, THE CELEBRATION HAS BEEN CANCELED 15 TIMES: “CASQUETTE GIRLS” OR “CASKET GIRLS” WERE YOUNG WOMEN SENT TO LOUISIANA BY THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT IN THE 1700s TO MARRY COLONISTS—-NAMED around since 1872. 1862-65 Civel War 1874. White supremacist AFTER THE CASKET-LIKE TRUNKS IN WHICH Halenie THEY STORED THEIR POSSESSIONS. ‘Topay, 1879 Yellow Fever MANY NEW ORLEANS RESIDENTS CLAIM 1918 WWI LINEAGE TO THE CASQUETTE GIRLS. 1919 Spanesh flu 1942-45 WWI 1951 Korean War 1979 Police union strike 2021. COVID-19 NOLA H AS In early New Orleans, coffins would float 2 1 up out of the ground when it rained. Even ; ~ ° HISTORICAL after above-ground PURPLE = JUSTICE An i Ibs illegal to ride on a. New DISTRICTS, yin GREEN = FAITH a Orleans Mardi Gras float | THE MOST OF ; other items are thrown coffins sometimes slid GOLD = POWER from floats each year. without wearing a mask. ANY US CITY | cut into the streets A New Orleans law prohibits using ESP phrenology, astrology In 1978, Ernest “Dutch” Morial became or palmistry to resolve lovers’ quarrels or locate burted treasure. the first Black mayor of New Orleans. - we a <—| In 1991, Epwin Epwarbs BECAME LOUISIANA’S FIRST 4-TERM GOVERNOR, RUNNING AGAINST FORMER KKK GRAND WIzaRD David DUKE ON THE SLOGAN: “VOTE FOR THE CROOK: = IT'S IMPORTANT.” | ‘steer Chicory was brewed in lieu of coffee during France’s 1808 Continental Blockage and the US Civil War. New Orleanians continue to enjoy it in sweetened café au lait. 1 = A 5 of by, 0 "4 /, New Orlean 5 was the 4th- HE WON WITH 61° PERCENT OF THE VOTE. Cage also owned the “haunted” ; ‘ $ LaLaurie Mansion for 2 years. larges t fi im p roduction hub in the US, after In 2000, Edwards was sentenced to 10 years in prison He thought it would be a good New York, Los Angeles and Atlanta. on 17 counts of racketeering, conspiracy and extortion. place to write a horror novel. The Live Oak Society, founded in NOLA’s independent New Orleans, has 9,585 Quercus radio station, WWOZ, virginiana “members” in 14 states. broadcast for its first few years out of the upstairs Louisiana’s coast has lost 2,000 square miles to erosion since the 1930s. beer storage room of Tipitina’s bax. The DF would drop a microphone through the floor to broadcast live musie. LOUISIANA I$ HOME TO AN ESTIMATED 2 NOLA has roughly 180 MILES of canals. MILLION ALLIGATORS Its current president 1s Venice has 26 mules. the 1200-year-old “Seven Sisters Oak.” HALF OF NEW ORLEANS’S CANALS ARE UNDERGROUND. THE LIVE OAK GANG WAS A GROUP OF VIOLENT There was never a canal at Canal GRIMINALS IN THE MID-1800s, WHOSE WEAPON S Iv plans f OF CHOIGE WAS OAK GLUBS. treet, only plans tor one. Acid Church A queer psychedelic ramble through the Crescent City Courtney Desiree Morris tis really easy to fall in love with New Orleans. Especially when you are on drugs. Ask me how I know. “T wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for acid. Acid saved my life.” Alli Logout is a bona fide rockstar. A café con leche, butter- scotch woman—down South, we’d call them a yellow bone— with a blonde Afro that floats around their head like a gold- en cloud. They are the ferocious frontperson of a rock group called Special Interest. The first time I saw them perform at the WITCHES party during Mardi Gras weekend, they roared through the crowd on a motorcycle wearing nothing but com- bat boots, a black thong, fishnets, a black bikini top and topped with a black feather cape and a Pocahontas wig. Then they climbed onstage and roared into the microphone, “Sodomy and LSD!” That’s how you start a night in New Orleans off right. We are standing in a backyard smoking cigarettes at a house par- ty somewhere between the Seventh Ward and Bayou St. John. The party is winding down. The early morning air feels cool and good on my skin. Emotionally, I feel empty. It’s been a hard night. It’s been a hard day. A day that start- ed 200 miles away from New Orleans in Lake Charles, Louisi- ana at my grandmother’s house. When I come into her bedroom that morning, she is al- ready awake, propped up on a bunch of pillows watching some evangelical preacher on the Trinity Broadcasting Network and humming gospel songs to herself. I walk over to her bed, plant a kiss on her forehead and pull up a chair next to her. “Good morning, Miss Bobbie. How you feeling?” “Pretty good, baby. My arm’s a little bit sore this morning, but you know I’m feeling pretty good.” “Pulpit.” Sanctuary at the Mount Zion Baptist Church. Mossville, Lousiana. 2016. All photographs from the series Solastalgia by Courtney Desiree Morns. “She Who Sits with the Dead.” Morning Star Cemetery. Mossville. 2019. Now that I am closer, I catch the faint odor of urine wafting up from the sheets, and I wince. I don’t like the idea of my grandmother stuck in bed sitting in her own piss. “Hey Mamma, you ready to take a shower?” “Yeah baby, that sounds good.” “Alright then, honey, let’s get you out of these dirty clothes.” I get up and slide my right arm behind her back; once she is upright, I slide her gently to the edge of the bed until her tiny feet are grazing the floor. Then I slide my arm behind her once more as she leans back so I can pull off the adult diaper she wears to bed each night. It is soaked with urine. “This thing ain’t chafing you, Mamma?” “No, baby, ’m fine.” She’s being polite, but she’s lying. Nothing chafes the skin worse than piss. I used to get annoyed at these omissions, but I know that she doesn’t like us to worry or to seem needier than she actually is. Even now as she is dying, she is terrible at ask- ing for help. I sigh. We are alike in so many ways. I prop her back up, then turn around to grab the metal walker tucked away next to her dresser. As I do this, I catch a glimpse of her in the mirror. She looks vulnerable and awk- ward sitting naked on the bed. I hurry back and place the walker in front of her. She grabs the handles and pulls herself forward. As she shifts her weight from the bed to the walker, she begins to pant as she struggles to find her balance. “You good Mamma?” “Yeah, baby. ’m good.” She leans forward and begins to waddle towards her bed- room door. I position myself behind her just in case she begins to look too wobbly. I can feel her shivering as we walk the short distance down the hall to the bathroom. My uncle has already turned on the portable heater in the bathroom. I begin to sweat immediately when we step inside, but my grandmother contin- ues to shiver. She complains about being cold all the time since she started the chemotherapy treatments. She parks the walker up against the side of the sink while I turn on the hot water in the tub. ‘Then we begin the awk- ward dance of maneuvering her into the bathtub. The narrow bathroom is not designed to accommodate an elderly, over- weight, ill woman and an adult granddaughter trying to bathe her. I pull the detachable showerhead from its cradle. As the warm water pours out of the shower head I move it over my grandmother’s body, watching the water stream down over her shoulders, her wide breasts, sliding into the folds of her