Tchoupitoulas

po’boys at Domilie’s

There are many famous and intriguing streets in New Orleans – Royal, Esplanade, Canal, Basin, Magazine, St. Claude Avenue, St. Charles Avenue, Chartres – but a street that caught my interest is Tchoupitoulas.

Traveled this street while on my way back from Domilise’s, which David Chang once claimed serves the coldest beer in the world.

Could be!

Tchoupitoulas runs alongside the Mississippi.  There is an enormously long, apparently vacant structure that runs along the river and the railroad tracks.

I asked a bartender at Cavan in the Irish Channel about this structure.  She told me it’s a set of wharves and warehouses, many of them still privately owned.  It was said, according to her, that somewhere under this place Marie Laveau had once had her voodoo church.

based on a drawing, now lost, by George Catlin

“The Wild Tchoupitoulas” were a band of Mardi Gras Indians, who in 1976, with the help of the Neville Brothers and some members of The Meters, recorded an album based on their chants.

Viewers of Treme will recall that Steve Zahn’s character and his girlfriend Annie Tee have a discussion when they move in together about whether they need to keep both of their two CDs of The Wild Tchoupitoulas.

Next time I’m on Tchoupitoulas I’m going to visit Hansen’s Sno-Bliz.

photo by Infrogmation