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NOLA Express: An Interview with Darlene Fife
From 1968 - 1974, Darlene Fife and Robert Head published NOLA Express, an underground paper that fought for the end of the Vietnam War and free speech. In this 1990s interview with Fife, she reflects on those turbulent years in the French Quarter.
– by Dennis Formento
The Party Begins at Midnight: 1920s Bohemian Balls
These risqué French Quarter balls attracted high-society flappers, reveling artists and writers, and even New Orleans blue bloods – all ignoring Prohibition and dancing until “Dawn streaked the dove-colored sky with lipstick-reddened finger.”
– by John Shelton Reed
Larger than Life: Bohemian Women of the Quarter
In the Roaring ‘20s, the French Quarter became an incubator for women exercising more than just their newly won right to vote.
– by John Shelton Reed
Mardi Gras 1979: Mambo Moments
Although Mardi Gras was officially canceled because of a police strike, a young musician experiencing her first Carnival is left with joyous – and unforgettable – memories.
– by Ellis Anderson
Artist Glenn E. Miller: Looking Closer
An aspiring artist arrives in the mid-60s French Quarter to begin his career in Jackson Square – one that would include several misadventures and six decades of pushing the creative envelope.
– by Michael Warner
Searching for an Artist and a Grandfather: Daniel Webster Whitney
A woman who feels a mysterious connection to New Orleans discovers that in the Roaring Twenties, her grandfather was a celebrated artist, art teacher – and notable French Quarter personality.
– by Catherine Whitney
The Vieux Carre Courier: Guarding the Gates of the Neighborhood
In the early 1970s, a fearless editor for a feisty French Quarter newspaper defends the historic neighborhood, taking inspiration from past preservation battles - both won and lost.
– by Bethany Ewald Bultman
The Ultimate Outsider: A 1995 Interview with Gypsy Lou Webb
In the 1960s, “Gypsy” Lou Webb and husband Jon Webb worked out of a tiny French Quarter apartment and published ground-breaking work by beat writers like Charles Bukowski, Henry Miller, Langston Hughes, and Jack Kerouac. Thirty years later, she looks back at her literary life in New Orleans.
-by Dennis Fomento
The Last Forgerons
In 1920, the last in a line of French Quarter forgerons put down their hammers, never again to create the wonderfully detailed wrought iron fences and balconies of New Orleans.
– by Michael Warner
Everything Under the Sun: The Quorum Club
A haven for free-thinkers in the mid-60s, the Esplanade Avenue coffee house broke racial barriers of the day – and paid a price.
— By Mary Rickard
Danseuse du Roi - The Life of Suzanne Vaillandé Douvillier
A mysterious dancer in the early 1800s mesmerized crowds and caused consternation by cross-dressing and challenging social norms.
Up From the Ashes: Rebuilding the Cabildo
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
That Heathen Crowd at the Green Shutter
In the Roaring 20s, feisty Uptown socialite Martha Westfeldt opens a French Quarter bookstore that becomes Bohemia Central.
- by Michael Warner