Dats My NOLA Tours, LLC

17/04/2020

Discover the history of New Orleans cocktails in

CORONA CHRONICLES NO. 2

Where I share tidbits of New Orleans history and culture from time to time while we are all homebound.

04/04/2020

CORONA CHRONICLES NO. 1

When the guests can't come to the tour guide, the tour guide comes to the guests. This is something I did for the Friends of the Cabildo. Thought you might enjoy.

01/06/2019

I most often do tours operating as a contractor for a tour company. But occasionally I have the pleasure of doing a private tour on my own as I did today. I hosted a wonderful group of Norco, Geismer, Convent and Chennai Shell Oil Company employees on a French Quarter tour.

26/04/2019

It's official. Completed my first official French Quarter History Tour for the Friends of the Cabildo. FOC is a volunteer organization that helps support the Louisiana State Museums in NOLA - The Cabildo, The Presbytere, The 1850 House, Madame John's Legacy, and The US Mint.

01/10/2018

Great video of Louis Armstrong playing Basin Street Blues!

Basin Street, i.e., Storyville was where Louie got his start playing in the saloons, bordellos, and gambling halls. Storyville was home to many great jazz musicians and is considered to be the birthplace of jazz. Because his mother was a pr******te and his father abandoned the family, he lived with his grandmother until the age of seven. A Jewish Lithuanian family, the Karnofsky's, hired him to do small chores around their hardware store. They took a liking to him, fixed up a bedroom, and eventually adopted him. He expressed an keen interest in music, so they gave him an advance on his pay so that he could buy his first cornet. (That cornet is on display in the New Orleans Jazz Museum located at the U.S. Mint building on Esplanade Avenue. The third generation of Karnofsky's own a restaurant on Bourbon and St. Peters called "Cornet" in honor of Louie. His music plays in the background.) At the age of 11, Louie fired a pistol in the air on New Year's Eve. He was thrown into the Colored Waifs Home for Boys (now the location of Rosedale restaurant in Lakeview). It was in the home that he perfected his musical talent. He became a member of the institutional band and fell under the tutelage of the band instructor, Peter Davis, who immediately realized Louie's talent and made him bandleader. Louie moved to Chicago with another local jazz musician, King Olivier, to pursue opportunities there when Storyville was shut down in 1917. Louie wore a star of David pendant around his neck until the day he died because of his affection for the Karnofsky family. Jewish melodies were incorporated into many of his tunes including "St. James Infirmary" and "Go Down Moses". Louie also had a great love for New Orleans food and signed all his letters "Red Beans and Ricely Yours".

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qRjT4h7F_jw

From the Bell Telephone Hour: The American Song, February 2, 1964. I think the personell are as follows: Armstrong, Louis (Trumpet, Vocal) Moore, Russell "Bi...

11/09/2018

This is an exhibit at the Southern Museum of Food and Beverage. This was part of a costume seen in the French Quarter the first Mardi Gras after Katrina. Hysterical! SoFAB is an excellent venue to experience the food and cocktail culture of New Orleans. I had a fabulous day there yesterday with my sisters at a cooking class.

11/06/2018

I am reading “Fabulous New Orleans” by Lyle Saxon. Written in 1928. It’s so cool to read historical accounts at a particular point in time knowing what is going to happen next.

The French Opera House burned to the ground December 4, 1919. It was located on the corner of Bourbon and Toulouse, which is now occupied by a Four Points Sheraton Hotel. The building was erected in 1859 at the height of New Orleans’ glamour days. Opera was as popular then as rock was in the 70s and as rap is today. The opera house played host to many a traveling troupe. During World War I, French opera troupes were unable to make the journey and the building went into a state of disrepair. An anonymous benefactor financed repairs and turned it over to Tulane University. When the fire occurred, the insurance policy covered $57,000, but the estimate to rebuild was $1 million, thus it was never rebuilt.

Saxon writes that at the time of his writing, "a municipal opera house and auditorium for New Orleans is under discussion. ....and a site has been chosen just beyond the borders of the Vieux Carre' – a plot of ground fronting on old Congo Square." Hmmmm…… wonder what that could be. For those of you not from here, that would be the New Orleans Municipal Auditorium located behind Armstrong Park, which has been shuttered since Hurricane Katrina.

BTW, if you’ve walked down the 500 block of Bourbon, you might notice that Bourbon Street widens on the side of the street where the Four Points hotel is now located. That was done on purpose for the opera house so that horse buggies could pull up close to the entrance to unload passengers.

27/05/2018

Garden District tour on a toasty day with great friends.

02/04/2018

I am giving a French Quarter History Tour on Thursday, April 19, 2:00 p.m. for my sister's friends who are coming into town. If anyone else would like to join, let me know. FB Friends get a discount.

13/03/2018

Why was Louisiana not forced to implement British common law after becoming part of the United States?

This is in answer to Elizabeth's question. This is what my research reveals:

Governor Claiborne, first American governor, had every intention to implement the English common law system that was being utilized in every other state in the US into Louisiana after the Louisiana Purchase. He was met with much opposition, both from the Creoles (French and Spanish born in colonial Louisiana) and higher ups, especially Richard Livingston, a New York common law attorney, who came to NO in 1803. He was a strong proponent of civil law. He and a handful of other lawyers felt similarly. He and Claiborne hated each other. They clashed over this as well as a host of other things. The creoles did not want to give up the French and Spanish civil code that they were accustomed to, so the popular opinion lied strongly with Livingston and his gang. I guess as a way to compromise, Claiborne assigned Livingston, et al, to develop a new code, which they did. After many years, the Louisiana code was born, having a strong basis of French and Spanish civil law with even a little common law influence. So, Louisiana did not actually keep the Napoleonic civil code that was in effect during its colonial days, but in fact, developed a new civil law system unique in and of itself. After years of debate, I think that Claiborne was worn down and signed off on this. The creoles fought tenaciously to keep civil law because it gave them protections that common law would not. Civil law provides for forced heirship. Children cannot be disinherited. Inherited property is not community property. Women had the ability to own property and to enter into business. About one-third of the blacks in NO in 1805 were free people of color. They had the freedom to enter into business and own property. If Louisiana would have lost its civil code, all blacks would have been forced to be treated all alike, ie., as slaves. Creoles did not want to lose all of this. In addition, Creoles were a stubborn bunch. Their French culture, traditions, language, etc. were ingrained in them and by golly, they just were not going to acquiesce easily.

26/02/2018

View from atop Washington Artillery Park this afternoon, Stop No 1 on French Quarter tour. I never get tired of this view.

09/02/2018

French Quarter Tour with some of my fellow retiree peeps.