Chilly New Orleans morning no bar to Mardi Gras crowds
NEW ORLEANS — New Orleans bade a typically joyous goodbye to Carnival season Tuesday with Mardi Gras parades, street parties and what amounted to a massive outdoor costume festival around the bars and restaurants in the French Quarter.
Revelers in capes, wigs, spandex and feathers danced in front of St. Louis Cathedral at Jackson Square while Latin music blared. Not far away, tourists and locals roamed Bourbon and Royal streets with costumes that varied from the scanty and suggestive to the fanciful.
There were pirates, mimes and a family of giant bananas. A group of black-robed, white-wigged judges downed drinks outside a bar wile, nearby, a half-dozen blonde-wigged, fur-coat-wearing Kens from the “Barbie” movie posed for pictures with passersby.
Initially light crowds grew markedly as the cold, overcast morning gave way to sunshine and milder temperatures.
Outside the narrow streets of the quarter, two tradition-rich parades rolled on a route that took them through the city’s Uptown neighborhood and onto Canal Street in the business district. First came the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club, with marchers and riders in African-inspired garb handing out the century-old club’s signature gift — hand-decorated coconuts. Later Rex, King of Carnival, rolled down St. Charles Avenue, stopping for a ceremonial toast at a historic building with Mayor Latoya Cantrell.
Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday, is a secular holiday but it’s tied to Christian and Roman Catholic traditions. It always falls the day before Ash Wednesday and is seen as a final day of feasting and revelry before the solemnity of Lent.
“I was raised Catholic, so tomorrow’s for repenting but today is for partying,” Bethany Kraft, a regular visitor from Mobile, Alabama, said while waiting for parades with her husband, Alex. She wore a white dress and a crescent moon headpiece; he, a Fred Flintstone costume.
New Orleans has the nation’s largest and bestknown Carnival celebration. It’s replete with traditions beloved by locals. But it’s also a vital boost to the city’s tourist-driven economy — always evident in the French Quarter.
The annual pre-lenten festivities aren’t limited to New Orleans. Similar celebrations are held in Louisiana and along the Gulf Coast. Mobile, Alabama, where six parades were scheduled Tuesday, lays claim to the nation’s oldest Mardi Gras celebration. And lavish Carnival celebrations in Brazil and Europe are world renowned.
Monday’s activities in New Orleans included an afternoon “Lundi Gras,” or Fat Monday celebration on the Mississippi riverfront. Part of the event was the ceremonial meeting of this year’s King of Carnival — chosen by the Rex Organization, a predominantly white group with roots in the 19th century — and the man elected King Zulu, founded by Black laborers in the early 1900s. The meeting is a custom began in 1999 in what was seen as a symbol of slowly eroding social and racial barriers.