Speaker 1: Welcome to Part Time Genius, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: I guess what, Mango? What's that? Well? All right, so
Speaker 1: you know how New Orleans is famous for being this
Speaker 1: kind of wild party town. You I hope you've heard
Speaker 1: this before, right, like sort of the Vegas of the
Speaker 1: Gulf Coast. I like that at the Vegas of the
Speaker 1: Gulf Coast. I actually just went to New Orleans for
Speaker 1: the first time this year, and I loved it, but
Speaker 1: I was kind of thrown off by the fact that
Speaker 1: you can just drink on the streets there. It's kind
Speaker 1: of amazing. Well, actually, what's weird about that is technically
Speaker 1: it's only in the French Quarter that you're allowed to
Speaker 1: do that, you know, as long as your drink isn't
Speaker 1: in a glass or a metal container. But you know,
Speaker 1: if you go into other areas that are pretty close by,
Speaker 1: it's not a law that really gets enforced that often,
Speaker 1: as I think you probably saw when you were there.
Speaker 1: And this is a city where the official motto is
Speaker 1: let the good times roll A pop quiz for you?
Speaker 1: Do you know how to say that in French? Mango? No?
Speaker 1: I do not, okay me either. I think it's some
Speaker 1: thing like les le bon temp roulet. Maybe I just
Speaker 1: butchered it completely, like I can't even imagine for all
Speaker 1: those who speak French, and for even for those who don't,
Speaker 1: they just know that I butchered it. I feel like
Speaker 1: you're just saying, like the line from that Lady Lady
Speaker 1: song or maybe from the Little Mermaid, I just stole
Speaker 1: a line. But you know, it is kind of amazing that,
Speaker 1: like New Orleans, it's such a good times town. But
Speaker 1: but I'm curious, like, like, are you just telling me
Speaker 1: that like New Orleans likes to drink? Is that? Is
Speaker 1: that what is all about? Now? I'm pretty sure the
Speaker 1: drinking is common knowledge at this point. It was you know,
Speaker 1: the thing that caught my attention when we were talking
Speaker 1: to Gabe about the research for this week was that
Speaker 1: it's really more like what the residents used to treat
Speaker 1: the hangover that comes after all the drinking. And that's
Speaker 1: a big steamy bowl of yaka Maine soup, as you know,
Speaker 1: also known as old sober. It's a soy sauce flavored
Speaker 1: broth with noodles, beef, chicken, shrimp, hard boiled eggs, and
Speaker 1: chopped onions. It actually sound, it is pretty good. And
Speaker 1: the amazing thing that sets this hangover cure apart from
Speaker 1: all the others is that it actually works. So there
Speaker 1: were some researchers that looked into this from the American
Speaker 1: Chemical Society, and what they've found is that the traditional
Speaker 1: soup contains all the right ingredients to help the body
Speaker 1: recover from a hangover. So the hardwalled eggs have this
Speaker 1: compound that helps expel toxic substances. The salty broth helps
Speaker 1: replenish sodium and potassium, and the beef and shrump helps
Speaker 1: slow down the absorption of alcohol. So it's like a
Speaker 1: one stop shop for this hangover cure. So how did
Speaker 1: dish called yakamine with all this soy sauce flavor, How
Speaker 1: that end up becoming a signature dish here? Like it
Speaker 1: doesn't sound super southern, Yeah, that's true. And actually, according
Speaker 1: to local legend, the dish came to the Big Easy
Speaker 1: by way of local soldiers that had been stationed in Korea.
Speaker 1: This was back during the nineteen fifties, and so when
Speaker 1: the war was over, they brought this soup of this
Speaker 1: yakamine soup back home with them and it's been the
Speaker 1: city's surefire hangover cure ever since, and that's pretty neat.
Speaker 1: So I've definitely heard before that New Orleans is one
Speaker 1: of the most culturally diverse cities in America, and it's
Speaker 1: kind of fun to see how it extends into food
Speaker 1: as well. Yeah, it's that's definitely true, and it's always
Speaker 1: been this huge cultural melting pot, going all the way
Speaker 1: back to the beginning of that highly unusual three hundred
Speaker 1: year old history and all of those years mingling cultures.
Speaker 1: It's really turned New Orleans into this super fun and
Speaker 1: very unique American city. And that's why I thought we
Speaker 1: should focus on this today, like this all of these
Speaker 1: one of a kind customs and traditions that make the
Speaker 1: city unlike any other out there. So with three centuries
Speaker 1: of stories to pull from, there's obviously a lot to
Speaker 1: talk about. So let's dive in. Yeah, Hei, their podcast listeners,
Speaker 1: welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as
Speaker 1: always I'm joined by my good friend Manes Ticketer. And
Speaker 1: then the other side of the soundproof glass, dressed to
Speaker 1: impress as always, that is our friend and producer Loell Berlante.
Speaker 1: Now he's picked up this mantle from where Tristan left
Speaker 1: off of course, and today he's wearing a shirt with
Speaker 1: a crawfish on it. He's really stepping up his game
Speaker 1: to try to to to keep up with Tristan and
Speaker 1: and for some reason, the crawfish has one claw in
Speaker 1: the air and he's asking where you at? You know,
Speaker 1: it's why apostrophe a t. I'm not sure what that means,
Speaker 1: but that's what the shirt said, so I I do
Speaker 1: think the crawfish is probably self explanatory. But that phrase
Speaker 1: where yet is actually something I was reading about this week.
Speaker 1: Apparently it's a pretty common greeting in New Orleans, kind
Speaker 1: of a how are you doing? Of the region. But
Speaker 1: one of the best things about the region has to
Speaker 1: be the way the people talk. It's kind of this
Speaker 1: hodgepodge of different languages and dialects, and you can go
Speaker 1: into any given neighborhood and here half a dozen different
Speaker 1: accents and idioms depending on who you're talking to and
Speaker 1: where you are in the city. And then there's the pronunciation, like,
Speaker 1: according to the official New Orleans website quote, we say
Speaker 1: the street name Burgundy, not Burgundy, just because that's the
Speaker 1: way it is. As for Calliope, say Calliope and you'll
Speaker 1: pass for a local, so they're giving all this advice
Speaker 1: on the site. Uh. But and you know this happens everywhere,
Speaker 1: right Like in Chicago people call Gothe Street and in
Speaker 1: uh in New York, Houston Street is called Houston But uh.
Speaker 1: You know what what's interesting about New Orleans is how
Speaker 1: so many little French idioms wound up kind of endearingly mistranslated.
Speaker 1: For instance, in New Orleans, they don't say I gotta
Speaker 1: go grocery shopping. They say I gotta make groceries, which
Speaker 1: actually comes from the French expression for grocery shopping. It's
Speaker 1: uh fair la marche. I guess the verb fair can
Speaker 1: I either mean to do or to make, and you
Speaker 1: wouldn't include that in your translation normally unless you're in
Speaker 1: New Orleans. And another fun pull from the French language
Speaker 1: is land yap, which I guess basically means a little
Speaker 1: something extra. So maybe you go out to eat and
Speaker 1: the waiter brings you a free dessert, or maybe the
Speaker 1: hotel you're staying at upgrades you to a riverfront view,
Speaker 1: and in either case you were given a land yap,
Speaker 1: which is an old New Orleans way to foster friendship.
Speaker 1: And and maybe some return business as well. Actually, no,
Speaker 1: since we're talking about the way French has woven into
Speaker 1: the language and the culture of the city, I do
Speaker 1: feel like we should talk a little bit about how
Speaker 1: that influence got there in the very first place. So,
Speaker 1: as you mentioned upfront that New Orleans has a three
Speaker 1: hundred year history, and and that's true. The city was
Speaker 1: founded in seventeen eighteen by the French governor of Louisiana,
Speaker 1: a guy named Jean Baptiste Bienville, and it was named
Speaker 1: for the French head of state at the time, this
Speaker 1: was Philippe Day Orleans. But of course, and I'm sure
Speaker 1: I'm saying all of these words wrong, but that's what
Speaker 1: it says. But the reality is that the French settlers
Speaker 1: were far from the first people to live there. So
Speaker 1: Native American communities called the place home at least six
Speaker 1: hundred years before Being Bill got there, and many of
Speaker 1: them are said to have lived right where the French
Speaker 1: quarters sits today. Yeah, it's funny that that word I
Speaker 1: mentioned a minute ago, which I probably also mispronounced land yap.
Speaker 1: It's technically considered Louisiana French, but it's actually barred from
Speaker 1: the Spanish language, which had taken it from Quechua, which
Speaker 1: is spoken by Native South Americans. So I feel like
Speaker 1: that's exactly the kind of like dense cultural overlap that
Speaker 1: you find in almost every aspect of New Orleans. They're
Speaker 1: all these different ethnic groups that have called the city
Speaker 1: home over its long history, and every one of them
Speaker 1: left its mark in ways that you can still see today.
Speaker 1: That's right. And they don't call it the most haunted
Speaker 1: city in America for nothing, right, Yeah, that's not exactly
Speaker 1: what I meant. But you know, after reading up on
Speaker 1: New Orleans history this week, I can definitely see how
Speaker 1: the city got such a spooky reputation. It sounds like
Speaker 1: it was a pretty rough place to live in during
Speaker 1: the colonial era. Yeah, you know, Benville and his men
Speaker 1: certainly had their work cut out for him, and and
Speaker 1: France had claimed that Louisiana territory in but then didn't
Speaker 1: do that much with it for at least a decade
Speaker 1: or so. So you had the War of the Spanish Secession,
Speaker 1: which began just a couple of years after the French
Speaker 1: colony was established, and the fighting kept most of the
Speaker 1: country's resources tied up for I guess it was the
Speaker 1: next thirteen years or so, and so by the time
Speaker 1: the war finally ended, France's outpost in Louisiana were pretty
Speaker 1: much empty by that point. What was the mood like
Speaker 1: in France during all of this? Were they so cast
Speaker 1: strapped after the war that they couldn't fund their own colony?
Speaker 1: I mean, they sort of were, Yeah, I mean, it
Speaker 1: turns out that thirteen years of war can be quite
Speaker 1: a drain on the old treasury. And you know, when
Speaker 1: you also lose that thirteen year war, it's even worse.
Speaker 1: That tends to drain the morale, of course, and that's
Speaker 1: exactly the problem France was facing back in seventeen fourteen.
Speaker 1: And then, of course, to make matters worse, there was
Speaker 1: this stretch of bad weather that led to food shortages
Speaker 1: and it sent many of the rural residents They're scrambling
Speaker 1: to cities in order to try to find work, and
Speaker 1: as a result of this, Paris was flooded with desperate people,
Speaker 1: and of the country's capital city, it really became this
Speaker 1: kind of den of crime and poverty at the time.
Speaker 1: So it sounds like things are pretty dire in France. Uh.
Speaker 1: The Louisiana colony is kind of a Wash, So how
Speaker 1: does the monarchy end up turning all of this around? Right?
Speaker 1: So the French king looked at everything going on and
Speaker 1: he realized a couple of things. For one, the colony
Speaker 1: in Louisiana could and should be making him more money
Speaker 1: than it was. After all, Spain was rolling in the
Speaker 1: dough thanks to its colonies in Mexico, so we thought,
Speaker 1: why not France. But the biggest obstacle at that point
Speaker 1: was that barely anyone was left in the Louisiana colony,
Speaker 1: and very few people were lining up to live there,
Speaker 1: no matter how much gold or how much land they
Speaker 1: were promised. So second, he noticed that the prisons were
Speaker 1: getting pretty full at the time, and this was thanks
Speaker 1: to all the homeless citizens and petty criminals and some
Speaker 1: prostitutes that have been just rounded up there in Paris.
Speaker 1: And that's when the king hit upon what he hoped
Speaker 1: would be the solution to both of his problems. He
Speaker 1: would just force the prisoners to go and settle the
Speaker 1: land in Louisiana. Yeah, which is kind of taking a
Speaker 1: page from England, right, Like, isn't that what they did
Speaker 1: in Australia? Yeah, but this was actually a good seventy
Speaker 1: years or so before, England had turned Australia into a
Speaker 1: prison colony, so if anything, they were the ones copying
Speaker 1: the French. So at any rate, this is ultimately how
Speaker 1: New Orleans was founded. It was a punishment for prisoners,
Speaker 1: and so in January of seventeen nineteen, the King issued
Speaker 1: a royal policy to the effects, saying, we believe that
Speaker 1: we can do nothing better for the good of our
Speaker 1: state than to condemn convicts to the punishment of being
Speaker 1: transported to our colonies, which is not exactly a ringing
Speaker 1: endorsement for Louisiana. No, I think they've changed the motto
Speaker 1: at this point, and the word had gotten around about
Speaker 1: how grueling it was to live in such an inhospitable region.
Speaker 1: It was surrounded by these swamps and these marshes that
Speaker 1: we sometimes think of with the region, and stories of
Speaker 1: the heat and the stench and the threat of all
Speaker 1: this disease. It, you know, it made it alan like
Speaker 1: this trip was a death sentence, and it sort of was,
Speaker 1: since most of the people sent there didn't live past
Speaker 1: the age of forty. But it's not like these people
Speaker 1: had a choice in the matter. So they were forced
Speaker 1: onto ships and sent over a few hundred at a time,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't until months later that someone realized they
Speaker 1: had only been sending over male prisoners, which obviously wasn't
Speaker 1: the ideal way to establish a thriving colony. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: to be fair, like, no part of this sounds ideal.
Speaker 1: It isn't just not having women that it does not
Speaker 1: sound ideal in any way. But as bad as things were,
Speaker 1: they only got worse from there. So pretty soon France
Speaker 1: started sending shiploads of orphans and female convicts to Louisiana,
Speaker 1: with many of them forced to marry male convicts in
Speaker 1: these mass wedding ceremonies. It sounds so weird, that's horrible.
Speaker 1: So how long did this force immigration go on for?
Speaker 1: Till seventeen twenty two, so about three years total. And meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the Louisiana governor, that Banville guy that we talked about before,
Speaker 1: is trying to key this experiment from flying completely off
Speaker 1: the rails. But he's obviously having a tough time keeping
Speaker 1: a city of convicts and check and and he's not
Speaker 1: exactly thrilled about the kind of settlers that France is
Speaker 1: sending him. In fact, there's a good quote from his journals.
Speaker 1: That really shows how frustrating it was, even for those
Speaker 1: at the top. So Bnville rights, it is most disagreeable
Speaker 1: for an officer in charge of a colony to have
Speaker 1: nothing more for its defense than a bunch of deserters, contrabands,
Speaker 1: salt dealers, and rogues who were always ready not only
Speaker 1: to desert you, but also to turn against you. Both
Speaker 1: Like having people who are ready to desert you and
Speaker 1: turned against you sounds pretty awful. But I'm guessing most
Speaker 1: of those people stayed right Well, yeah, they didn't really
Speaker 1: have much of a choice. I mean, these were convicted criminals,
Speaker 1: they were broke, they were stranded the middle of a
Speaker 1: swamp and unknown country. It's hard to even imagine, so
Speaker 1: leaving wasn't a real option. So most people just tried
Speaker 1: to make the best of staying, and being a stranger
Speaker 1: in a new world did have some advantages. For example,
Speaker 1: nobody knew their names there, which meant settlers were free
Speaker 1: to reinvent themselves and whatever way they wanted to, and
Speaker 1: some people made up complex family histories for themselves or
Speaker 1: added flourishes to their names to make themselves seem maybe
Speaker 1: higher class, I guess, And there was no way to
Speaker 1: prove or disprove any of this. So these false personas
Speaker 1: just stuck and kind of became the new reality for
Speaker 1: these people, which is kind of strangely fitting when you
Speaker 1: think about some of the things that have gone on
Speaker 1: to characterize New Orleans. Right, Like, I was actually skimming
Speaker 1: a book this week. It's called The Accidental City, Improving
Speaker 1: New Orleans, and there's one part where the author, who's
Speaker 1: a native, is talking about what a fresh start this
Speaker 1: experience was for so many settlers, and this is what
Speaker 1: he writes, quote, we were a city of impostors in
Speaker 1: a way. That's why Marty Graff fits so well with
Speaker 1: our identity. We could always put on new masks. That's
Speaker 1: pretty interesting. I actually hadn't really made that connection before.
Speaker 1: All Right, Well, we're just scratching the surface of New
Speaker 1: Orleans long storied history, so I feel like we should
Speaker 1: take a quick break and then we'll jump right back in.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Part Time Genius, and we're talking about
Speaker 1: the chain of events that turned a French penal colony
Speaker 1: into one of the most amazing cities in America. All Right, Mango,
Speaker 1: So what's the next piece of New Orleans history? You
Speaker 1: want to touch on. So we've talked a lot so
Speaker 1: far about the French influence on the city, but there's
Speaker 1: one part of the city they really can't claim credit for,
Speaker 1: and strangely enough, it's the French Quarter. So despite what
Speaker 1: the name suggests, most of the buildings in the famous
Speaker 1: neighborhood were actually influenced by Spanish architecture, not French. So
Speaker 1: you're saying that the French Quarter didn't exist when Binville
Speaker 1: founded the city. It did, but it wasn't called that
Speaker 1: at the time, and it also looked a whole lot different.
Speaker 1: So as the city took shape under French rule, it
Speaker 1: gradually organized around the highest patch of dry land in
Speaker 1: the area, which was still only about ten to fifteen
Speaker 1: feet above sea level. But what I'd kind of forgotten
Speaker 1: was the sway that Spain had over New Orleans. So
Speaker 1: following the Revolutionary War, France actually gave the Louisiana territory
Speaker 1: to Spain, mostly as a way to keep England from
Speaker 1: taking control of it. I mean, it's kind of a
Speaker 1: long story, but you can look up the Treaty of
Speaker 1: Fountain Blue if you're interested. But you know, Spain took
Speaker 1: possession of New Orleans in seventeen sixty two, and they
Speaker 1: held onto it for just under fifty years, and then
Speaker 1: in eighteen o one a different treaty placed Louisiana back
Speaker 1: under French rule until two years later when Napoleon sold
Speaker 1: the whole thing to the US as part of the
Speaker 1: Louisiana Purchase. All Right, so you're saying New Orleans has
Speaker 1: changed hands a lot over the years, and it definitely
Speaker 1: tracks with the cultural mishmash, and you know that you
Speaker 1: kind of think about when you think of the characterization
Speaker 1: of the city. But what it doesn't do, Mango, is
Speaker 1: explain how the French quarter got so Spanish Like? Could
Speaker 1: we get to that part? Basically, nearly all of the
Speaker 1: original French colonial buildings in New Orleans were destroyed during
Speaker 1: Spain's rule in the late eventeen hundreds. They weren't knocked
Speaker 1: down on purpose, though. Basically there were these two massive
Speaker 1: fires that laid waste to the city. And the first
Speaker 1: fire took place in and it actually might not have
Speaker 1: been that bad except that it happened to occur on
Speaker 1: Good Friday, and because of that, the city's priests wouldn't
Speaker 1: allow the church bells to be rung as fire alarms,
Speaker 1: which made it nearly impossible to organize, like, you know,
Speaker 1: help during all the chaos. So the fire burned unchecked,
Speaker 1: and within five hours it had consumed eighty percent of
Speaker 1: the city. Good, Lauren, And you're saying the same thing
Speaker 1: happened just a few years later. Yeah, I mean, it
Speaker 1: didn't happen during Good Friday this time. But after six
Speaker 1: years of rebuilding, they had another fire and it was
Speaker 1: extinguished a little bit faster, but it still took out
Speaker 1: I guess two buildings. I don't know. It's still a
Speaker 1: terrible thing, but but not as bad as the first one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's tough luck for Spain there. And it sounds like
Speaker 1: their entire reign in Louisiana was just fires and reconstruction.
Speaker 1: It was like burn, build and repeat. But you know,
Speaker 1: Span left a deep impression on New Orleans in the
Speaker 1: little time it took over. So after that second fire,
Speaker 1: the Spanish government started handing out loans for citizens to
Speaker 1: rebuild their houses. But the only catch was in order
Speaker 1: to get the money, you had to agree to build
Speaker 1: according to the government's newly developed guidelines. And so this
Speaker 1: is really smart. The idea was to make the city
Speaker 1: a little more fireproof, including the switch to brick and
Speaker 1: plaster town homes instead of those wooden cottages. And uh,
Speaker 1: as you probably guess, this is when the French quarters
Speaker 1: started to look a little more Spanish, you know, even
Speaker 1: if the streets were still named for French royalty and nobility.
Speaker 1: And the transformation proved to be a real turning point
Speaker 1: in New Orleans history. And that's something this author Lyle
Speaker 1: Saxon touches on in his book Fabulous New Orleans. As
Speaker 1: he puts it, quote, the city that fell before the
Speaker 1: flames was a congested French community of wooden houses, badly
Speaker 1: arranged and irregular. A stately Spanish city rose in instead.
Speaker 1: Large fan shaped windows looked down into courtyards which held
Speaker 1: banana trees and oleanders, and balconies railed with delicately wrought
Speaker 1: iron overhung the streets. You know, it's interesting because I
Speaker 1: actually never really noticed how non French the French Quarter is.
Speaker 1: But when you break it all down, it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course these are all Spanish architectural features, I guess. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And and and that Spanish style wasn't only limited to
Speaker 1: where people lived it. It also influenced how the city's
Speaker 1: dead were laid arrest, so when settlers first came to
Speaker 1: the region, they had a tough time getting there dead
Speaker 1: to stay put. Because the water table in the area
Speaker 1: is so high, all the burial plots had to be
Speaker 1: dug shallow, otherwise the grave would fill with water and
Speaker 1: the coffin would just pop out of the ground. And
Speaker 1: they tried everything to keep the coffins in place right,
Speaker 1: like they would board these holes into the lids to
Speaker 1: make them less buoyant. It was a huge problem. They
Speaker 1: e didn't like, tried weighing down the lids with heavy stones.
Speaker 1: But you know, if a rainstorm was bad enough in
Speaker 1: the area, which if you know the area, they have
Speaker 1: terrible rainstorms, the coffins would still float right out of
Speaker 1: the graves. So all of that changed during the Spanish
Speaker 1: period when the city's current system of these burial chambers
Speaker 1: was introduced. So you know, Orleans starts stacking their vaults
Speaker 1: and using these more ornate tombs and crypts for for
Speaker 1: I guess, the wealthier families. But when taken all together,
Speaker 1: the new cemeteries kind of looked more like miniature cities,
Speaker 1: and they were complete with these like house like tombs
Speaker 1: and almost like avenues or streets for pathways. And while
Speaker 1: it might seem a little micabre to have so many
Speaker 1: reminders of death and plain view like that, these so
Speaker 1: called cities of the Dead were so much better than
Speaker 1: you know, stepping outside in the storm and having to
Speaker 1: walk over your your late grandfather's coffin or whatever it
Speaker 1: was floating down the streets, so so morbid. So these
Speaker 1: fire codes and graveyards, you know, they definitely improved under
Speaker 1: Spanish rain, but I mean, from everything I've read, the
Speaker 1: space and sanitation issues were still pretty major concerns, because
Speaker 1: you know, you've got to keep in mind, like the
Speaker 1: entire city was still pretty much confined to the French
Speaker 1: Quarter at that point, and everything beyond that was seen
Speaker 1: as uninhabitable, like swamp and marsh lands, and so to
Speaker 1: make the land usable, the city would need to build
Speaker 1: these levees and canals and pumps to drain the water
Speaker 1: and the soil beneath all of that. And so that
Speaker 1: really took more than a century to get this system
Speaker 1: up and running properly. So in the meantime, all the
Speaker 1: residents of New Orleans just had to squeeze together on
Speaker 1: this only patch of upraised terrain that they had, yeah,
Speaker 1: which is all surrounded by a horrible swamp. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that later proved a problem in itself. So the city's
Speaker 1: poor sanitation and lack of running water proved to be
Speaker 1: this perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes, who quickly developed a
Speaker 1: taste for human blood. And so it wasn't long after
Speaker 1: that horrific yellow fever epidemic broke out in the city,
Speaker 1: claiming the lives of more than forty one residents. And
Speaker 1: this happened between eighteen seventeen and nineteen o five, So yeah,
Speaker 1: not a lot of love lost between those living in
Speaker 1: New Orleans and the local wetlands in those days. And
Speaker 1: in fact, I came across this amazing quote that one
Speaker 1: observer made about the region. This was back in eighteen fifteen,
Speaker 1: and I sort of think it captures the spirit of
Speaker 1: what most residents would have thought of the place during
Speaker 1: its first two centuries or so. So he says, the
Speaker 1: boiling Fountain of Death is one of the most dismal,
Speaker 1: low and hard places on which the light of sun
Speaker 1: ever shone, and yet they're under it lies the influence
Speaker 1: of a tropical heat belching up its poison and malaria,
Speaker 1: the dregs of the seven vials of wrath covered with
Speaker 1: a yellow, greenish scum. How bad is that? Yeah? It
Speaker 1: makes me think Springbreak, New Orleans exactly. It does make
Speaker 1: you wonder, like, how did the Native Americans fashion lived
Speaker 1: there so long if the conditions were as bad as
Speaker 1: everyone makes it up to be. Yeah, I was wondering
Speaker 1: the same thing. But if you stop and think about it,
Speaker 1: their lifestyle was a little more flexible than that of
Speaker 1: the European colonists, so when the floods came, a tribe
Speaker 1: could simply move to higher ground or maybe build a
Speaker 1: couple of dams to keep the village dry. And things
Speaker 1: got a little bit more complicated though, like when you
Speaker 1: start trying to establish a permanent city for tens of
Speaker 1: thousands of former prisoners. So life in the swamp was
Speaker 1: exceptionally hard for settlers, but that's largely because they were
Speaker 1: asking more of the region than anyone before them had,
Speaker 1: so the civilization they wanted it. It did come together
Speaker 1: a little by little, but it took a lot of
Speaker 1: time and a lot of trial and error just to
Speaker 1: get there. All right, Well, now we have the history,
Speaker 1: but I feel like we should cover some more of
Speaker 1: the only in New Orleans things, So why don't we
Speaker 1: do that? For first a quick break? Welcome back to
Speaker 1: part time genius. All right, Mango, So before the break
Speaker 1: we talked about why New Orleans is a terrible place
Speaker 1: to be a grave digger. So I didn't know that before.
Speaker 1: It's water table is so high that above ground interment
Speaker 1: is really the only safe option. And you know, as
Speaker 1: you might guess, that kind of concern extends beyond the cemetery. So, friends, things,
Speaker 1: you'd be hard pressed to find an underground basement in
Speaker 1: New Orleans for very much the same reason, like it
Speaker 1: would flood any time it rained. But again, just like
Speaker 1: with the above ground tombs, residents solve the dilemma by
Speaker 1: getting pretty creative. So in the early twentieth century, these
Speaker 1: new raised basement houses started appearing throughout the city. So
Speaker 1: these homes consisted of these low ceiling basements built at
Speaker 1: ground level and a higher ceiling living space on top
Speaker 1: of those. So if you've ever seen a house in
Speaker 1: New Orleans with an unusually long staircase leading up to
Speaker 1: the front door, that's probably what's going on there. Like
Speaker 1: these stairs go straight to the second floor because the
Speaker 1: first floor is actually just the basement. You know. It's
Speaker 1: neat to see all the different workarounds residents have come
Speaker 1: up with over the years, like that first floor basement
Speaker 1: set up. That works great for a private home, but
Speaker 1: it's a little less practical for a shop in the city, right,
Speaker 1: So customers need to be able to pop in easily
Speaker 1: without having to climb a steep set of stairs or
Speaker 1: navigate through the store's basements. And that's why if you
Speaker 1: look up some of the older row homes in New Orleans,
Speaker 1: the ground floor is taken up by retail space and
Speaker 1: the basement is actually in the ceiling. Isn't that just
Speaker 1: an attic? Yeah, I mean it sounds like it the
Speaker 1: way I put it, but but actually that's not the case.
Speaker 1: So it's actually more like a crawl space between the
Speaker 1: first floor and the second story. So you'd open a
Speaker 1: trapdoor in the floor, and rather than climbing up into
Speaker 1: the ceiling like you wouldn't addict, you'd actually like sneak
Speaker 1: down into the space between the store and your first
Speaker 1: floor of a home. And it's a pretty clever way
Speaker 1: to sneak some extra storage space into a rowhouse without
Speaker 1: having to go all the way up to an attic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess that's true. So if you ask me, the
Speaker 1: real historical must have for your New Orleans home is
Speaker 1: a floor level mirror. So apparently a lot of the
Speaker 1: plantation homes in and around the city at the time
Speaker 1: feature these long mirrors, and they were mounted flush with
Speaker 1: the floor, and and that was so that women could
Speaker 1: check the links of their dresses to make sure that
Speaker 1: their ankles weren't showing, because mago, if you if you
Speaker 1: know this, like, the ankle is the gateway to all
Speaker 1: impure thoughts and deeds, I think. So it does seem
Speaker 1: strange that people actually freaked out about seeing an ankle
Speaker 1: in public, considering that, like the summers in New Orleans
Speaker 1: are so hot, it is tough to imagine like how
Speaker 1: unbearable that would be. In in addition to ankle coverings,
Speaker 1: folks in the region had another way to prevent scandals.
Speaker 1: They would use this architectural cork called the Romeo catcher.
Speaker 1: So if you've ever spent time in the French Quarter
Speaker 1: or seeing pictures of it, you're likely familiar with the
Speaker 1: second and third floor balconies. They're called galleries. When you're
Speaker 1: in New Orleans, and these things line the historic streets
Speaker 1: when you go visit there, and along these balconies, you'll
Speaker 1: also see lots of ornate rod and cast iron railings,
Speaker 1: as well as some metal support columns connecting the balconies
Speaker 1: to the streets below. Now, on some of these buildings,
Speaker 1: if you're near the top of the columns, you'll see
Speaker 1: what looks like a ring of spikes or barbed wire
Speaker 1: going all the way around the post. And on some houses,
Speaker 1: the spikes might like nails sticking out in all directions,
Speaker 1: while other houses might have spikes that look like coat
Speaker 1: hooks or thorns or something like that. But you know,
Speaker 1: in either case, the purpose of the spikes was the same.
Speaker 1: It was to deter these would be Romeos from climbing
Speaker 1: up to Juliette's balcony late at night. And I'm guessing
Speaker 1: those still coming pretty handy during Mardigras, right, Like, if
Speaker 1: someone has too much to drink, they'd probably think twice
Speaker 1: about climbing that balcony once they see those spikes. Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1: And that's actually where this story takes a little bit
Speaker 1: of a dark turn, which seems like what we've been
Speaker 1: doing a lot of in this episode, But because the
Speaker 1: Romeo catchers weren't really meant to catch the late night
Speaker 1: boyfriends on the way up, the hope was that the
Speaker 1: side of the spikes would scare the boy off, but realistically,
Speaker 1: if he wanted to get around the spikes badly enough,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be too much of a problem as long
Speaker 1: as he was sober. The true danger of these spikes
Speaker 1: was on the way back down, because even if a
Speaker 1: suitor did make it up to the balcony, there was
Speaker 1: still a strong chance that the girl father would hear
Speaker 1: the commotion come charging in with a loaded shotgun, and
Speaker 1: at that point the boy would usually make for a break,
Speaker 1: you know, for the railing and trying to scramble down
Speaker 1: and this what's happening so quickly, and in his panic,
Speaker 1: the Romeo might forget about all the spikes, waiting to
Speaker 1: snag whichever parts it might be able to. Uh, and
Speaker 1: you're saying these Romeo spikes are still there today though,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean they're all over the French Quarter
Speaker 1: and a lot of people never notice them though, So
Speaker 1: they're like these little remnants of the city's history, sort
Speaker 1: of hidden in plain side. Is something worth looking for
Speaker 1: when you're there, and it's funny. Before the show, I
Speaker 1: was thinking about the crowds on Bourbon Street and thinking
Speaker 1: it's not a city for everyone. But the more we
Speaker 1: talk about it, it's really more the opposite, Like there's
Speaker 1: so many things going on in New Orleans, both culturally historically,
Speaker 1: that there really is something for everybody. Like you can
Speaker 1: look and do basically any aspect of the city and
Speaker 1: come away with some colorful bit of history that ties
Speaker 1: together these five different cultures from food to music to whatever.
Speaker 1: There's actually so much I feel like we should do
Speaker 1: a follow up episode that's all joyful instead of just
Speaker 1: disaster stuff. But you know, it's true, it isn't the
Speaker 1: case with all American cities. Like that level of historical
Speaker 1: scope and kind of the variety that is in New
Speaker 1: Orleans is something we almost exclusively attribute to like cities
Speaker 1: in Europe, where like the old and newer kind of
Speaker 1: intermingled and and you can see the different phases of
Speaker 1: civilization all at once. You know, New Orleans is is
Speaker 1: kind of an exception in that way in America. It's
Speaker 1: it's an American city that's been shaped by so many
Speaker 1: different hands over the years, and it's impossible to pin
Speaker 1: down if it's strictly Southern or French or Spanish or
Speaker 1: Haitian or Creole. It's like all of that all at once. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I appreciate how innately weird the result of that
Speaker 1: mash up is, Like you read about those efforts to
Speaker 1: keep Portland's weird or keep Austin weird, which you're never
Speaker 1: really going to need a public campaign like that in
Speaker 1: New Orleans, Like there's no other option. The city can't
Speaker 1: help but be itself. Yeah, well, I think that's a
Speaker 1: good place to leave things right now. But since we've
Speaker 1: been talking about the Crescent City, it's only fitting that
Speaker 1: we end by offering a little land yaff of our own.
Speaker 1: So why don't we do the fact off? All right?
Speaker 1: I'll start us off. So New Orleans is the birthplace
Speaker 1: of a few unexpected inventions, I think you'd say, And
Speaker 1: this includes the game of craps, the modern version of poker,
Speaker 1: and randomly enough, dental floss. But one thing that New
Speaker 1: Orleans can't actually claim credit for is the Marty Gross Festival.
Speaker 1: And that's because, believe it or not, the oldest Fat
Speaker 1: Tuesday celebration in America dates back to seventeen oh three,
Speaker 1: and it took place not in New Orleans but in
Speaker 1: my own Mobile, Alabama. I guess I really can't say
Speaker 1: my own I'm from Birmingham, but you know it's it's
Speaker 1: in Alabama. So the Gulf coast of Alabama saw its
Speaker 1: share of French explorers in the seventeen hundreds, just like
Speaker 1: Louisiana did, and the more free spirited among them started
Speaker 1: holding Marty Gross celebrations just like they had back home.
Speaker 1: So I've got another bit of fun New Orleans lingo
Speaker 1: for you. And the words are neutral ground, and that's
Speaker 1: the term the locals used for that grassy strip of
Speaker 1: brown do you find between two roads. We normally refer
Speaker 1: to them as medians, but in New Orleans they're called
Speaker 1: neutral ground. And the term apparently dates back to the
Speaker 1: mid eighteen hundreds when there were these cultural and political
Speaker 1: tensions and it was kind of an all time high
Speaker 1: in the city. At that point. Things got so bad
Speaker 1: that New Orleans was actually split into separate municipalities. Like
Speaker 1: the French speaking Creoles and the supporters were on one side,
Speaker 1: the Anglo English speaking populations were on the other. But
Speaker 1: the dividing line for these groups was Canal Street, which
Speaker 1: had a wide, grassy median running right down the middle,
Speaker 1: and residents kind of half jokingly started calling the media
Speaker 1: neutral ground, and before long the nickname was applied to
Speaker 1: all the medians in the city. All right, Well, speaking
Speaker 1: of ways to keep the peace in New Orleans, I
Speaker 1: have to tell you about the peacemakers sandwich, which is
Speaker 1: basically the precursor to the city's famous Oh Boy. So
Speaker 1: according to newspaper reports from the late nineteenth century, the peacemaker,
Speaker 1: also known as the oyster loaf, was pretty much a
Speaker 1: French loaf stuffed with these hot fried oysters. But this
Speaker 1: wasn't a lunchtime staple like the po boy would eventually be,
Speaker 1: and instead, the peacemaker was a sandwich for a very
Speaker 1: specific occasion. So as the name suggests, peacemakers were usually
Speaker 1: purchased by husbands as a way to preemptively smooth things
Speaker 1: over with their wives after coming home late from a
Speaker 1: bar or wherever else. And this was common and a
Speaker 1: pretty well known practice in New Orleans that was actually
Speaker 1: reported about in a San Francisco newspaper way back in
Speaker 1: But the description of how the whole exchange plays out
Speaker 1: is too good not to share, So I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: read out this excerpt that I pulled from it. When
Speaker 1: the sandwich has been wrapped in paper, the buyer flees
Speaker 1: as a bird to his home. The little difficulty with
Speaker 1: the keyhole overcome, he steps into the awful presence undismayed.
Speaker 1: There she stands, grim as old yor but without an
Speaker 1: apologetic word. The airing one climbs slowly up the stair
Speaker 1: and holds forth the peace banker. She takes it, puts
Speaker 1: down the lamp, and removes the cover. The deliciously flavored
Speaker 1: steam ascends like sweet incense until it reaches her rigid knockles,
Speaker 1: and then her features relaxed into something like a smile.
Speaker 1: When her lord is banging his shoes and depositing his
Speaker 1: hat carefully in the washbasin, she sits on one side
Speaker 1: of the bed, eating the spoils of domestic war. That
Speaker 1: is ridiculous. Is very ridiculous. I can't imagine working in
Speaker 1: my house. But here's another food related fact. There's a
Speaker 1: legendary restaurant in New Orleans called Dukey Chase's Restaurant, and
Speaker 1: the long running executive chef there actually served as the
Speaker 1: inspiration for the Tiana character in The Princess and the Frog.
Speaker 1: So when the production team for that movie came to
Speaker 1: New Orleans on a research trip, they met with the
Speaker 1: chef at a restaurant and knew right away that she'd
Speaker 1: be the basis for the main character. Now, the chef's
Speaker 1: name is not Tiana, it's Leah Chase, and after reading
Speaker 1: about her this week, she's kind of my new hero.
Speaker 1: She and her husband's restaurant served as a crucial gathering
Speaker 1: place during the civil rights movement in the sixties. Um
Speaker 1: In fact, MLK and the Freedom writers frequently met there
Speaker 1: to discuss strategies in her upstairs meeting rooms. And we
Speaker 1: don't have time to go through her whole life, but
Speaker 1: it's a really lovely story about a woman who came
Speaker 1: from nothing and became this source of hope and pride
Speaker 1: for a community. She passed away in June this year,
Speaker 1: but right up until the end, she was still hard
Speaker 1: at work in the kitchen of Dukie Chase, doing what
Speaker 1: she loved most. You know, I don't feel like I
Speaker 1: can top the sweetness of that fact, So I think
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go the strange path instead. Alright, So, during
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies. Three of the first nine Super Bowls
Speaker 1: were played at Two Lane University and the stadium there.
Speaker 1: It was in New Orleans, and each of those games
Speaker 1: was attended by two ancient Egyptian mummies who had lived
Speaker 1: around nine hundred BC. So that is not where I
Speaker 1: expected sentence dayhand. But how did two ancient Egyptian mummies
Speaker 1: go to the Super Bowl? That's pretty easy, Maga. They
Speaker 1: took the Sarkafa bus. I don't know if you've ever
Speaker 1: heard this one. I feel like that's a terrible joke
Speaker 1: you stole from yourself. Now I totally stole that joke.
Speaker 1: But here's the real fact. Two ancient Egyptian mummies were
Speaker 1: donated to Tulane University in eighteen fifty and so for
Speaker 1: the next hundred years they were passed from one museum
Speaker 1: exhibit to another until they ultimately made it back to
Speaker 1: the school's math department. I don't know why, but that's
Speaker 1: where they ended up. Then in the nineteen fifties, the
Speaker 1: mummies were put in a storage room beneath the bleachers
Speaker 1: of Two Lane Stadium, and that's where they stayed until
Speaker 1: the mid seventies when the stadium was torn down. So
Speaker 1: According to an article in the Tulane University magazine Quote,
Speaker 1: the Mummies attended every two lane home game from nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty five until the last wave appearance in Tulane Stadium
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy four. They were presented all three Super
Speaker 1: Bowls and does of New Orleans Saints games waged on
Speaker 1: two lane turf, and they never once complained about their
Speaker 1: lousy seats. You know, I like that football loving mummies story,
Speaker 1: but I really love the peacemaker sandwich story, which I
Speaker 1: think earns you the victory of this dround. All. Well,
Speaker 1: thanks for that, and from Gabe, little Mango and me,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for listening. We'll be back soon with
Speaker 1: another episode. Ye Part Time Genius is a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.