Author: Errol Laborde

Anniversary Of An Urban Victory

  Fifty years ago, New Orleans saved it historic district and in doing so set an example for other American cities. Though some did not heed. Salvation came from an unlikely source but the one that counted the most. On…

Nick Saban And Me

As we brace ourselves for the annual LSU/Alabama smash down this Saturday I am reminded of my brush with former LSU coach Nick Saban in 2008. My timing was bad. I was driving from New Orleans to Marksville. Heading west…

In Pursuit of Real Barbecue

Memories: in this case, an afternoon as a kid when our family was invited to someone’s backyard for a barbecue. Backyards were a big deal back then, as the suburbs expanded and new houses were built featuring spots of green…

Streetcar: The Season of ‘99

As season openers went it was promising. The Saints began the 1999 season on the road against the Carolina Panthers. Featuring a squad that carried two Heisman trophy winners: Danny Wuerffel, a quarterback out of the University of Florida, and…

From the Editor: Christmases' Midnights

What I remember most about going to Christmas midnight mass as a kid was the men standing outside the church until the last moment before the mass began. I didn’t know it at the time, but that was a French…

Learning From Morgus The Magnificent

Last night, Morgus the Magnificent had a rare live appearance, speaking before an adoring crowd at the Orpheum Theater. Because my flight from Transylvania was late, I was not able to attend, however his appearance prompted me to dust off…

Roffignac – The Mayor and The Cocktail

Compared to the guillotine, moving to Louisiana didn’t seem to be such a bad choice. That was the plight of Count Louis Philippe Joseph de Roffignac, a native…

Streetcar: The Arrival

We were up early to see a lady who would be standing on a small island in the harbor. According to the cruise ship’s captain, we should be passing the Statue of Liberty around 7 a.m. The cruise director suggested…

Roads Less Traveled

  I never made it to the snake farm. That used to be one of the sites along Airline Highway (U.S. 61) as it stretched between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. In the days before interstates, traffic moved a lot…

Jacques Chirac: New Orleans Days Of A Future President

  Except for Andrew Jackson, we’re not sure any future President of a nation spent as much time in New Orleans as Jacques Chirac, who was chief executive of France from 1995 to 2007. Chirac, who died last week (Sept.…

Elvis On The Hayride

  Standing on the stage at Shreveport’s legendary Municipal Auditorium, Winston Hall, a musician and tour guide with a passion for the city’s music legacy, pointed to a spot on the floor, right up front in the center. The auditorium…

Hank Williams' Louisiana Links

  Expect for there to be an upswing in interest for country music over the next few weeks as PBS presents producer Ken Burns’ latest series, this one about country music. Segments include one about the music’s greatest performer and…

Do You Still Think About It? I Do.

  Last May I was attending a conference in Minneapolis. One morning I was in a breakfast buffet line when a man across from me, whom I did not know, looked up from his pancakes and asked a question that…

Streetcar: Back Street of Naples

Our group was walking through a back street of Naples on the way to an historic cemetery when the tour guide assured us that our destination was only about a kilometer away. We Americans are often illiterate about the metric…

From the editor: A gubernatorial story

This is a gubernatorial election year, which raises the admittedly dorky question, to me at least: Who was governor 100 years ago? That would be in 1919. Well, it turns out the answer has significance in two of the state’s…

The Story of a Cover

People to Watch is New Orleans Magazine’s oldest tradition, having started in the early ‘80s and continued, after a brief hiatus in the last years of the‘80s, through the present. Of all the people who we have been deemed worthy…

Farewell Zephyrs/Cakes

  This is the last week of home games for the Triple-A baseball franchise formerly known as the Zephyrs then changed to the Baby Cakes. After a homestand against Memphis, the team will finish the season in Oklahoma City. After…

The Pilot and the Passenger

  When I last talked to Franklin Augustus the occasion was a party to commemorate the life of a minority pilot who perished while flying. Augustus was the pilot of the two person aircraft in which he and news anchor…

Streetcar: A Fair’s Farewell

On the closing night of the 1984 World’s Fair, Congressmember Lindy Boggs stood on the big amphitheater stage. With the passing ships on the river as the background, Boggs and Seymore D. Fair, the event’s pelican mascot, plus some miscellaneous…

When New Orleans Said “No” to an Expressway

Fifty years ago, New Orleans saved its historic district, and in doing so, set an example for other American cities. Though some did not heed. Salvation came from an unlikely source, but the one that counted the most. On August…

The Best Antiseptic in Town

This being our annual Best Doctor’s issue brings to mind New Orleans’ first celebrity doctor. He even had his own pitchman singing a song for him on the radio. The doctor was G.H. Tichenor and his publicist went by the…

Should We Try Again With Hurricane Modification?

  We have wondered this about warts, colds and crabgrass and now each time a hurricane enters the Gulf of Mexico we ask the same about the storms, “why can’t they make them go away?” In fact, “they” have tried.…

Maria vs. The Boys

  This being the week of the Major League All-Star game brings to mind one of those moments when baseball worked its magic. It happened during a Zephyrs’ game (back when the team was still called by that name) several…

England Swings: Bonding For Britain

  In this the week of our nation’s annual celebration of independence from England I am feeling sorry for the mother country. England’s historic greatness cannot be denied but the country is now at war with itself over the Brexit…

Streetcar: A Dirge from the Pantheon

At nearly 6 p.m. on Saturday, June 8, a crowd gathered at the edge of the old Treme neighborhood outside the new Seven Three Distillery, where the locally made products include Gentilly Gin, Bywater Bourbon and Marigny Moonshine. Many in…

The Poor Boy That Might Have Been

I once gave the operator of a poor boy shop an idea that, had he followed it, he would have had to hire security guards to keep the line of customers calm as they waited to place their orders. His…

From the Editor: Easy Rider at 50

Fifty years ago, the search for the meaning of life wound through Louisiana with stops in the Pointe Coupee parish town of Morganza and in St. Mary Parish on the way to New Orleans. The motorcycle riders never found the…

Goodbye Newhouses; And Now The Change

  If you’re nostalgic about these kinds of things keep your editions of The Times-Picayune this week, or at least save next Sunday’s copy because that will be the last edition of the newspaper printed in the Newhouse era. Beginning…