New Orleans – Crowds roared enthusiastically for the Zulu parade floats on Fat Tuesday and jazzman Pete Fountain led a band of gypsy musicians as New Orleans celebrated Mardi Gras in style, a year and a half after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.
Gregory Scott and his wife, daughter and three sons were among scores of people who set up grills along the St. Charles Avenue parade route before dawn to claim a prime parade-watching spot.
“It’s a big relief just to get out of the house and have fun,” said Scott, 41. Like others watching the parade, he said he is still working to repair his house in eastern New Orleans, which was wrecked by floods when Katrina hit in August 2005.
Mayor Ray Nagin, surrounded by mounted police officers, rode a brown horse at the head of the Zulu parade.
The mayor attracted sporadic applause and shouts, but nowhere near the tsunami of yells that greeted the floats that followed him from the 1,250-member Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club.
The 1,250-member Zulu club – a predominantly black group that wears grass skirts and blackface makeup in parody of stereotypes from the early 1900s, when it was founded – had the first parade rolling down the avenues today. It is among the most popular of Carnival.
Parade watcher Chris Williams pointed and shouted to the mayor, who returned the greeting.
“He’s a good guy. One of the good few,” said Williams, 27, who said he and his fiancee are trying to rebuild their hurricane-flooded house but are still renting now because of insurance problems.
Fat Tuesday – Mardi Gras – is the climax of the Carnival season that began on Jan. 6. After Mardi Gras comes Ash Wednesday and Lent.
Fountain, in a bright red vest and a jeweled headdress with turquoise plumes, played his clarinet from his mock St. Charles Avenue streetcar. It was the 46th time his Half Fast Walking Club had strolled from Commander’s Palace to the Mississippi River front on Mardi Gras Day.
Fountain, 76, has missed it only once: last year, when he was recovering from heart surgery. About 200 marchers, including a second band, accompanied him. This year the entire group was costumed as gypsies – an homage to people who have been living in hotels, trailers and otherwise making do since the storm.
“I figured we’d be gypsies since everyone moved around so much,” said Fountain, who lost his home in Bay St. Louis, Miss., to Hurricane Katrina along with musical instruments and his gold and platinum records.
Nate Garnache, 30, wore a military-style costume of cardboard and duct tape with beads glued on. He had a beer in one hand and another tucked into his waistband. Ashlye Keaton, 21, wore a pink cardboard-and-bead skirt modeled after Roman armor, pink beads and a pink cardboard shield over black knee-high boots and fishnet stockings.
“You become one with Carnival this way,” said Keaton.
Last year’s festivities were scaled down – fewer parades and only about 13,000 hotel rooms available. This year, 30,000 rooms were ready, and most were filled for the big weekend leading into Mardi Gras.
“The weekend was surprisingly busy,” said Earl Bernhardt, co-owner of two bars and a blues club in the French Quarter. “The crowd is bigger and they’re spending a lot of money.”
Three parades rolled Monday night, including Orpheus, the glitzy parade founded by singer Harry Connick Jr. Actress Patricia Clarkson and New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton were celebrity monarchs.
Big crowds lined the parade routes beginning late last week and continued through Monday night. Bourbon Street also was packed with revelers.
“We haven’t paced ourselves at all,” said Tracy Brown, 25, of Dallas. “We got here Saturday and I think we’ve only had about three hours of sleep since then.”
