Yes, You Can Get There From Here-Part 4- New Orleans Continued
A Quick Note (UPDATE: Starting October 1, I will be doing new entries on Monday and Friday. Magic Mondays will have fun stuff like glimpses into both the books and my life and Famous Friday which will be character driven. Look for the fun changes! And occasionally we’ll have Wildcat Wednesdays (with Baron the Vampire Cat).
In the last post, I took you you on a tour of some of the best things about New Orleans that I put into the Fangs & Halos series. This is the continuation of the tour. When we last saw Sullivan and Lilly, they were marching down Bourbon Street during the Southern Decadence parade that was held despite the ruin of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina.
During the parade, Sullivan and Lilly get to Johnny White’s Sports Bar 720 Rue Bourbon. This was the only bar or business open during Hurricane Katrina. They didn’t close even in the face of the hurricane, the occupants merely put down their drinks long enough to hold the doors shut (they have no locks) until it calmed down. Lilly and Sully leave the parade to go into the pub.
The bar became something of a community center where people could check in, call in (the phone still worked) and keep each other, and the rest of those who refused the mandatory evacuation, supplied with drinks. They gathered to make community food, relief groups dropped off supplies including diapers, vitamins, clothing, and condoms, and the National Guard dropped off MREs.
The journalists sent to cover the hurricane and its aftermath made it a headquarters. I took a few liberties with that story, bringing Lilly and Sullivan there. The bar had a generator so the TVs worked and there’s a journalist doing an article about the bar being opened. I based David Jones of KBQ TV after Shepherd Smith of Fox News. As they film, it’s a live shot, Lilly sees herself and Sully on the television and is amazed. This whole scene was written because I saw the interview back in 2005 and inserted Lilly and Sully into it. The bar has changed hands since then, it’s now called Johnny White’s Corner Pub and it’s still serving drinks.
When Lilly leaves Sullivan, she goes to her crypt where she’s found by Arianne Campbell, who turns out to be Marcus’s maker. They go back to Arianne’s house. I set that part in the historic Magnolia Mansion at 2127 Prytania St. Magnolia Mansion is also referred to as the Harris-Maginnis House. Built in 1857, the home was built for Alexander Harris as a home for his young bride, Elizabeth ‘Lizzie’ Johnson Thompson, who was a minor when the marriage license was signed, something that wasn’t uncommon in that era. After Alexander died of Yellow Fever, along with his brother Lizzy continued to live there until 1879 when she remarried and sold he home to John Henry Maginnis, a cotton magnate and his wife, Elizabeth “Lizzy” Tweed (Lizzy was a common name for Elizabeth’s in the 19th century). Lizzy was the daughter of the most powerful politician in New York, William Marcy “Boss” Tweed. Her sister, Mary Amelia married John Henry’s brother Arthur Ambrose Maginnis.
John Henry Maginnis was one of the wealthiest men in New Orleans. He owned a large cotton mill that had over a thousand workers, men, women, and children too. Some in New Orleans were of the opinion that he was a tyrant as an owner. They weren’t surprised when John Henry was struck by lightning, on the Fourth of July, 1889 while on holiday in Mississippi. Lizzy Maginnis was left with three children and a company to run. She passed away in Mississippi in 1921 and willed the house to her daughter Josephine. When she married and moved to New York, Josephine donated the home to the Red Cross who operated their New Orleans office from there.
The current owners, entertainer Hollie Diann Vest and her mother, Wanda Marie Hansen, purchased the house on the first of October, 2001. They have turned Magnolia Mansion into a bed and breakfast and wedding venue.
And yes, you can stay there.
Interestingly, the home was designed by Norfolk architect James H. Calrow, who, coincidently designed the home at 1239 First Street, the Brevard-Clapp House, better known now as the Anne Rice House. I didn’t know that when I first picked the Magnolia.
When Sullivan is looking for Lilly, he retraces their steps during the Southern Decedence parade and then finds out she left the cemetery with a woman. He finds out it was Arianne from the caretaker and gets the address of her home. He starts walking to the Garden District, crossing Canal Street and going past the Earnest N. Morial Convention Center. He finds a small child who is lost and takes him to a military guard nearby.
In the real world, on Saturday afternoon, as the Louisiana Superdome was finally emptying out, a lesser-known humanitarian crisis was in its fifth day a few blocks east, at the wrecked, mile-long Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.
The city by that time was a mess, 25;000 people desperate to leave gathered at the convention center to catch buses to other cities on orders from the mayor and law enforcement. Most were without transportation, food, water, or a change of clothing. And nowhere to go, their homes were destroyed. This was an alternative to the overcrowded, flooded, and unsanitary Superdome, where hundreds had taken shelter before the storm. The convention center didn’t offer much more comfort, it was dark, and people had no place to go to the bathroom so it was wherever. And there were dead bodies of people who died after arrival while waiting for help that was very slow to come. They finally got on buses to places that would be their home, some for months, others forever as they decided not to come back to New Orleans.
In Marcus’s Vampire (Book 2) we return to New Orleans as Marcus comes to find Lilly, who he has discovered isn’t dead and is in the city. I have Marcus going into Harrah’s Casino New Orleans to talk to the assistant to the commander in charge of the safety of the city after the flooding. Harrah’s is a huge 115,000 sq ft on Canal Street a block from the river and the Riverwalk.
In the book, I have the inside ruined and dark. In reality, the casino came through the storm with very little damage. It was central and the rescue and safety effort was basing out of there. The casino was able to reopen in time for Mardi Gras 2006.
The portion of Lilly and Sullivan’s story in New Orleans was both happy and sad, so much death, and yet a spirit to survive that has kept New Orleans a favorite place to live and work for centuries.
Resources
Story about Johnny White’s Sports Bar
Magnolia Mansion
News story about the Morial Convention Center during Katrina