Mardi Gras Day 2024: Lower Quarter style
The St. Anthony Ramblers, with the Panorama Brass Band pauses beneath the office of French Quarter Journal on Mardi Gras day.
February 2024Mardi Gras has many faces in New Orleans, depending on one’s vantage point. There’s the upper Bourbon Street version with raucous, sardine-packed crowds that’s been popularized nationally. Locals swear by the family-friendly Uptown and Mid-City parade route varieties, the amazing Mardi Gras Indian meanderings or the gay costuming competitions mid-French Quarter. But our own favorite Mardi Gras perspective takes place in the lower French Quarter and Marigny neighborhoods, where our journal’s office is located.
St. Anne gets the credit for starting the growing trend. More than 50 years ago, a group of artists started the Société of Sainte Anne, who revived the old-fashioned walking parades and dressed in outrageous and fantastic handmade costumes. Each MG morning, they paraded from the Bywater through the French Quarter, then to the Mississippi River. There, they consigned the ashes or tokens of loved ones who had passed during the year to the water rushing toward the Gulf.
Video of St. Anne’s parade 2024 by Isabelle Jacopin, Isabelle Jacopin Gallery, 829 Royal Street. In the early decades, the krewe’s march was a rare stream of dazzling color and fiery glory, flowing between banks of parade-goers dressed in street clothes. Through the decades, other local walking krewes formed, inspired by St. Anne. Today there are dozens. With more debuting every year.
And the costuming code has caught on with spectators who aren’t in a krewe. Nearly all locals and many visitors from far-flung places don festive get-ups just to watch. The better and more inventive the costume, the higher one’s status for the day. So on Mardi Gras day, the entire lower Quarter becomes a wildly spinning kaleidoscope of color and good cheer.
- photos by Ellis Anderson and Gregg Martel
Note: For optimum viewing, enjoy this feature with a large-screen device. Unattributed photos by Ellis Anderson If your photo appears here, you may copy it onto your own computer and even share it on social media – please simply credit the photographer and French Quarter Journal – and consider joining our Readers' Circle to support our stellar creative team. These images have been optimized for fast loading on the internet, so they're not print quality. If you'd like print-quality files, contact us here.
This feature is supported by the Isabelle Jacopin Gallery
Parade-goers were invited to pass through the belly of the voracious fish.
Artist Amzie Adams wore an Amzie diorama top hat. Photo by Gregg Martel
Photo by Gregg Martel
Societe Des Champs Elysee at the river, photo by Gregg Martel.
Photo by Gregg Martel
photo by Gregg Martel
Members of St. Cecilia’s take a break at the French Quarter Journal office, (L - R), Cherry May, Kate McNee (headdress artist and co-founder of the Society of St. Cecilia) and Lily McNee Haggerty.
Swinging Mermaid on Chartres Street, Mardi Gras 2022. Mermaid: Laura Kamenitz, house float design: Edward R. Cox-Simply Stunning Designs - NOLA.
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