Ever wish for a dedicated list of happenings just in the French Quarter and surrounding neighborhoods? Curated by local insiders?
Wishes come true. Our event page is updated weekly and makes planning easy for neighborhood residents, locals, and savvy visitors.
Above: The 2023 St Joseph’s Day Parade
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The annual Stella Shouting contest 2022, which kicks off the Tennessee Williams Fest, photo by Ellis Anderson
Read the winning pieces by writers Katie Henken Robinson, Kate Tooley and Monic Ductan.
Every March 19th, the neighborhood once called “Little Palermo” celebrates the saint – that legend says ended a terrible famine – by creating elaborate altars, then sharing food, blessings and goodwill.
photos by Ellis Anderson
For more than three decades, this unique writers’ workshop has been offering camaraderie, inspiration and fascinating French Quarter locations.
– by Christopher Louis Romaguera
To the delight of the neighborhood, a French immersion elementary school will move into the vacant “Little Red Schoolhouse” this fall.
- by Jane Lowrance-Neal
Postponed by a storm, the legendary canine parade Barkus rolled the Sunday after Mardi Gras this year, giving Carnival a merry March reprise. The 2025 theme: “Vanity Fur: Barkus Rules the Runway!”
- photos by Andrew Simoneaux
Was the predicted morning storm kept at bay until evening by great music, goodwill and exuberant spirits?
– photos by Shawn Fink, Scott Saltzman, and Ellis Anderson
This year on Mardi Gras Day, the legendary Society of Saint Anne celebrated the artist and costume designer who helped conjure the colorful magic.
– by Nan Parati
A Lundi Gras favorite that began in 2008, the Krewe of Red Beans delights crowds with costumes featuring beans – and puns.
- photos by Ellis Anderson
For close to 50 years, the popular photographer has been capturing – and been captivated by – the city’s creatives and their costumery.
– by Doug Brantley
With the double entendre theme of “Krewe du Vieux is Revolting,” the 2025 parade floats included jabs at the oligarchy and tributes to Scrim, the famous runaway terrier.
- photos by Shawn Fink
A tour through one of the city's most revered landmarks and their krewe-designated dining rooms stirs a sense of wonder for the spectacle of Carnival.
-by Kim Ranjbar
A relative newcomer to the walking parade scene, since 2018 Krewe Boheme and its “absinthe-minded green fairy” have been intoxicating crowds.
- photos by Melanie Cole
A visionary young doctor purchases a derelict historic building in 1996 and spends the next decade transforming it into one of the most stately homes in the French Quarter.
– by Karen Hinton
The French Quarter erupted with spontaneous joy – and of course, music – as a record-breaking ten inches of powdery snow fell on New Orleans on January 21st.
- album by Shawn Fink + more
The epic Mardi Gras Day costuming contest got its start as a promotion to drum up business for a Bourbon Street diner.
– by Frank Perez
More than 3,000 people marched in this popular sci-fi-themed parade on February first, with hundreds of children participating this year, making for a fun-filled family-friendly extravaganza.
- photos by Ellis Anderson
The spontaneous memorial that sprang up after the tragedy continues to remember those lost, long after the first flowers have faded.
- photos by Ellis Anderson
A Day at the Jazz Museum: Baby Doll Blessing of the Streets and New Orleans Cigar Box Festival
To the delight of many Jazz Museum visitors, the annual Baby Doll blessing of the streets took place on the last day of the New Orleans Cigar Box Guitar Festival.
- photos by Ellis Anderson
Seeking a relationship with her estranged father, noted New Orleans painter Noel Rockmore, a young woman travels to the Quarter in 1977 for a year of discovery.
– by Michael Warner
In a St. Louis Cathedral service, President Joseph R. Biden drew from personal experience to comfort families of those lost in the Bourbon Street New Year’s Eve attack.
- photos by Ellis Anderson
A new book from LSU Press provides a comprehensive overview on the oft-overlooked history of the Spanish in Louisiana and New Orleans.
– by John S. Sledge
In the aftermath of a New Year’s Eve vehicle attack, the evening hours reveal a quiet and mournful neighborhood, with a heavy presence of law enforcement personnel and journalists.
- photos by Kimberly Summerlin
The largest Krampus parade in the country marches through the Bywater each year, celebrating ancient and creepy European holiday folklore traditions - New Orleans-style, of course!
- photos by Shawn Fink
Over the past 30 years, this casual neighborhood fixture has quietly become a French Quarter classic by offering a distinctive Creole/Italian menu, farm to table ingredients, a great wine list – and an unbeatable ambiance.
Preserving the Narrative at The Celestine
A classic French Quarter building with a storied past has been recreated into an alluring boutique hotel – named after one of its historic owners, Celestine Peychaud.
– by Kim Ranjbar
From Albania to Sicily to New Orleans: across two continents, three countries, and five centuries, some members of the city’s Arberesh community still honors their roots, while others are just discovering them.
– by Mark Orfila
A year-long family sabbatical in New Orleans inspired a tasty enterprise that’s expanding across the Gulf Coast, with its newest location in one of the French Quarter’s most storied buildings.
– by Kim Ranjbar
Artist Jim Blanchard spills the tea about his technique, his attachment to New Orleans, and his passion for Louisiana’s architectural treasures.
– by Bethany E. Bultman
Frenchmen Street bakery owners Kelly Jacques and Samantha Weiss have created an in-house incubator, educating and encouraging employees taking first steps toward entrepreneurship.
– by Kim Ranjbar
In this sleek new cookbook, Chef Eric Cook skillfully elevates family recipes to meet New Orleans’ stratospherically high fine dining standards. Bonus in this review: Baked Flounder with Shrimp and Mirliton Dressing recipe from the book.
– by Thomas Uskali
Unrelenting advocacy over two abandoned wharf sites scores what appears to be a win for New Orleans residents while helping protect two of the most fragile neighborhoods in the country: the French Quarter and Faubourg Marigny.
– by Frank Perez
A journalist turned buggy driver reflects on the people who live in his unusual workplace - a combination historic museum, adult amusement park, and a residential neighborhood.
– by Mark Orfila
A music-loving French Quarter newcomer becomes the ultimate good neighbor when he sponsors a new concert series for the house museum next door.
– by Ellis Anderson
Occasional Wife founder Kay Morrison and two of her veteran organizers share favorite pointers for simplifying life in historic homes.
– by Bethany Ewald Bultman
Marie Laveau’s tomb was one of the first to be restored in a unique initiative that cares for New Orleans’ fabled Cities of the Dead.
– by Reda Wigle
Brought up with the traditions of his musical family, drummer Glen Finister Andrews is equally at home playing in the French Quarter streets and iconic venues like Preservation Hall.
– by Karen Lozinski
In the ‘70s, a young journalist writing for a small New Orleans newspaper in the French Quarter broke some of the city’s most important stories.
– by Frank Perez
In the ‘70s, a young journalist writing for a small French Quarter newspaper broke one of the city’s most startling stories and helped organize one of the first gay protests in the South.
– by Frank Perez
This story includes a series of never-before-published images of the 1977 rally by Owen Murphy.
A move to establish a French Quarter Bohemian colony in 1920 eventually led to the Jackson Square fence becoming one of the world’s most beloved art galleries.
– by Michael Warner
After 25 years on the street that is its namesake, a classic French Quarter bookstore moves into a spacious corner location, steps from Jackson Square.
– by Christopher Louis Romaguera
The Occasional Wife’s estate sales are legendary! We set up and sell the contents of your home, offering complete clean-out after a sale. Unsold items or ones you like but no longer need can be placed on consignment in our stores:
· French Quarter (624 Dumaine Street)
· Uptown (2850 Magazine Street)
· Elmwood (5727 Jefferson Highway)
· Mandeville (1675 US Highway 190, Ste. 1675)
· Pensacola (13440 Perdido Key Drive).
Feeling overwhelmed? We also offer services to simplify your life! Our staff can declutter and organize your home or office, prepare your home for market, help you pack, move and unpack in your new home! We also offer holiday decorating, downsizing, running errands, planning and much, much more!
Reader Favorites
from our archives
Fire is the mortal enemy of the city's oldest neighborhood, but in the case of the 1988 Cabildo inferno, dedicated preservationists prevailed in the end.
- by Michael Warner
In 1980 and again in 1983, a Mobile, Ala. writer named Frank Daugherty interviewed Thelma Ducoing Toole, mother of the late John Kennedy Toole, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Confederacy of Dunces. The lions’ share of the material and Frank’s photos have never before been published.
- interview and photographs by Frank Daugherty
Meet a few of the far-sighted men who blocked the wrecking ball's path through the Quarter in the early 1900s.
- by Frank Perez
Step into the “organized chaos” of Arcadian Books & Prints, where the love of the written word and two languages has reigned for 40 years.
– by Matt A. Sheen
Follow Alessandrini's significant public works along the river and through the Quarter, then visit with the artist in his Howard Avenue studio.
- by Saskia Ozols
A look at the famous playwright's complex and lifelong relationship with the neighborhood where he brought "A Streetcar Named Desire" into being.
- by Richard Goodman
Chef and restaurateur Eric Cook breathes new life into a historic French Quarter space with the launch of Saint John, a Lower Decatur Street restaurant offering “haute Creole” cuisine.
- by Kim Ranjbar
Immigrating from Sicily in 1957, Biagio “Blaise” Todaro worked in a neighborhood grocery before opening his own shop - one that's become a French Quarter institution.
– by Jeremy Trager
Was the matronly New Orleans stenographer who founded a French Quarter temple the guru everyone in the 1960s was seeking? At least one follower still believes.
- by Michael Warner
Ride along with this award-winning writer to learn a few of the everyday challenges - and unexpected rewards - of making a living as a French Quarter pedicabber.
- by Andrew Cominelli
West African monarch, His Majesty King Toffa IX, visits the French Quarter as part of a United States tour.
- by Ellis Anderson
More than 150 years since its publication, George Washington Cable’s Old Creole Days remains an essential New Orleans read.
- by John Sledge
In the Roaring ‘20s, feisty Uptown socialite Martha Westfeldt opens a French Quarter bookstore that becomes Bohemia Central.
- by Michael Warner
The rise of homelessness during the pandemic reminds a French Quarter writer of a luckless time in her youth, when a spontaneous act of generosity turned the tide.
– by Ellis Anderson
In 1981, a young woman moves to the French Quarter and lucks into a job at the Toulouse Theatre, home of the hit show One Mo' Time.
- by Nan Parati
After working 60 years at the French Quarter's famed Hotel Monteleone, Al Barras has become an institution - and the subject of an award-winning documentary.
- by Kirsten Reneau
A fascinating new book by long-time resident Macon Fry explores life along the last batture community in New Orleans.
- by John Sledge
Few get to meet the woman who plays the most unusual - and loudest - instrument in New Orleans. French Quarter Journal goes behind the scenes and up top of the Natchez to watch Debbie Fagnano in action.
- by Rheta Grimsley Johnson
As she's closing her gallery and packing to move, Harriette Prevatte reflects on four decades spent as a working artist in the French Quarter.
- by Ellis Anderson
In the 1900s, LGBT+ people from around the country were drawn to the French Quarter's shifting centers of queer gravity, which offered both a spicy nightlife scene and an evolving culture.
- by Frank Perez
Longtime Quarter/Marigny resident and noted Tennessee Williams scholar Kenneth Holditch passed away December 7, 2022. FQJ published one of his last essays, “Of Two Mississippi Writers,” which you'll find below, along with a 2019 profile of the scholar by Rheta Grimsley Johnson. 
Despite the state's legacy of repression, some of the country's best writers are Mississippi natives. It's the birthplace of contemporary luminaries like Kiese Laymon and Jesmyn Ward. Tennessee Williams scholar Kenneth Holditch looks back at two 20th-century literary lions who wrote about that “postage stamp of native soil.”
- by Kenneth Holditch
The man who made the Quarter's literary legacy come alive with his walking tours and Tennessee Williams lore: a visit with Kenneth Holditch.
– by Rheta Grimsley Johnson
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