A friend of mine tells the story about the first night she spent in her new home on St. Patrick Street close to the cemetery end of Canal Street. Her bedroom was on the St. Patrick side. It was a Saturday night and all was well until the light from the newly risen sun got bolder. Soon there was enough outside noise to awaken the nearby dead. She looked out the window and there were horses, bands and maskers walking by, all backed by a line of floats being positioned on the street. Somehow, she had not gotten the message. This was the Sunday before Mardi Gras and the Krewe of Mid-City parade was lining up – as seen from her window.
There are three major krewe anniversaries this year – Carrollton, Mid-City and Okeanos, who have reached 100, 90 and 75 respectively. By 1924, when the Carrollton krewe first marched, Carnival was in its second wave of expansion. Rex, Comus, Momus, Proteus and Twelfth Night Revelers had started parading in the previous century, but now as the city spread, so did the desires of others to have their own kingdoms. Some were organized around local businesses in a gesture of neighborhood camaraderie. For the Krewe of Mid-City there would be an extra incentive once the new Municipal Auditorium opened in 1930. The building was designed for all sorts of indoor events but it also was a grand palace for balls with wide floors for monarchs and their courts to promenade. Mid-City, founded in 1934, was one of the first krewes to take advantage of the new building; others would do the same, including Carrolton and Okeanos.
Full disclosure: I have lived most of my life in Mid-City, the neighborhood, so the krewe by that name has always resonated with me plus it has continually staged a really special parade, unlike any other.
Some examples:
First there is the foil. No other parade anywhere in out Carnival is decorated with the colorful, pliable, aluminum sheets. No parade sparkles on a sunny afternoon as does Mid-City. That’s why it has always been considered one of Carnival’s best daytime parades.
Then there is the animation. Mid-City pioneered having moving features on floats. It may be spinning wheels; or caricatures moving their arms, perhaps eyes that open and shut and objects that move up and down, No other parade offers such action, and what could be a more wholesome power source than the volunteer Boys Scouts inside the float body building their muscles by turning the various cranks and wheels?
And then there was the music. For several years, Mid-City sponsored its own “Greatest Bands in Dixie” contest to which top high school marching bands from throughout the South would come to compete. This was the Superbowl of Band Competition. The groups would perform at several spots along the parade route where judges were stationed. At Gallier Hall they would perform again for the dignitaries prior to announcements being made of the winners. I once saw some students on a losing band break into tears while hearing echoes of cheers from the winners. Greatness would have to wait for next year.
Finally, there was love. By tradition, the King and Queen of Mid-City were a married couple – sharing crowns as well as a life.
Those who live along lower Canal Street near the cemeteries are no longer awakened by parade formation.
Despite their neighborhood names, Carrollton and Mid-City have relocated from their namesake neighborhood. Like Okeanos, they are all now on the Uptown St. Charles- to- downtown route now. The oak-lined path is Carnival’s most glamorous route and is also the most efficient for combining police protection. The crowds are usually bigger as they line Carnival’s Broadway.
Wherever it marches, it can always be said of the Krewe of Mid-City that it has been one of Carnival’s most innovative parades.
My finest personal memory of Mid-City was as a Boy Scout. My job was to carry a theme sign in front of a float. The moment when we turned from St. Patrick onto Canal was thrilling. Suddenly there was what seemed be a world-full of people cheering me from both sides of the street.
For the moment, at least, Carnival made me feel more important than I had ever felt, if not as part of the greatest band, maybe as part of the prettiest parade under the sun.
-30-
Have something to add to this story, or want to send a comment to Errol? Email him at errol@myneworleans.com. Note: All responses are subject to being published, as edited, in this article. Please include your name and location.
SOMETHING NEW: Listen to “Louisiana Insider,” a weekly podcast covering the people, places and culture of the state. LouisianaLife.com/LouisianaInsider, Apple Podcasts or Audible/Amazon Music.
BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT: Errol’s Laborde’s books, “New Orleans: The First 300 Years” and “Mardi Gras: Chronicles of the New Orleans Carnival” (Pelican Publishing Company, 2017 and 2013), are available at local bookstores and at book websites.
WATCH INFORMED SOURCES, FRIDAYS AT 7 P.M., REPEATED AT 9:30 A.M. SUNDAYS.WYES-TV, CH. 12.
