New Orleans: A Streetcar Named Desire (or 951)

On Monday I picked up a streetcar on St. Charles Street and headed for the World War II D-Day musuem past Lee Circle. I was surprised to see that these were real working streetcars and not the tourist type in San Francisco and other cities I've been too. Yes, there were tourists like me aboard, but the majority were folks going to work or students going to school or the elderly getting a ride to a needed destination.

After the musuem (more on that in another post) I headed out to the Borders bookstore in the Garden District. The Garden District is a distinct neighborhood in New Orleans (like the French Quarter) and includes Antebellum mansions and many beautiful 19th century homes. I also passed the historic Zion Lutheran Church, begun in 1847 by German immigrants. (The current church dates to 1871). The bookstore was housed in a beautiful older home and I asked one of the clerks what it used to be. The surprise response? A funeral home!

New Orleans has the most character of any U.S. city I have visited and it is truly an ecclectic and a fascinating place.