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MY
ROUSES
EVERYDAY
SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2015
the
Savings
issue
J
ust around the corner from the
Rouses Market in the French Quarter,
prospective homebuyers are presented
with a real estate option you won’t likely
find anywhere else but New Orleans.
In addition to the choices between
hardwood floors or wall-to-wall carpeting,
central A.C. or ceiling fans, balcony or
courtyard, several properties offer Haunted
or Not Haunted.
I am not making this up.
The bleary-eyed visitor to America’s most
libertine neighborhood, suffering from the
effects of a long night on Bourbon Street,
might be forgiven for doing a double-take
when he sees a local “For Sale” sign which
specifies one or the other.
Haunted. Not Haunted.
New Orleans is pretty famous for not
doing things the way other cities do, and
that obviously includes our real estate
transactions.
It’s the only place — that I am aware of,
at least — where spooks and apparitions
are included among a property’s premium
selling points.
It is a point of local pride and a long-held
notion — and even a marketing gimmick
— that New Orleans is the most haunted
city in America.
That may or may not be true — but it
certainly makes sense when you think
about it. The city is old and mysterious
and inscrutable and beholden unto ancient
rituals. It is also more death-obsessed than
most places.
Cemeteries are tourist destinations, and
funerals are public spectacles. One former
funeral home is now a seafood market, and
another is the former home of rock star
Trent Reznor.
On All Saints Day and All Souls Day,
families gather to picnic at their relatives’
gravesites and mausoleums.
And any seasoned visitor to the city has
certainly noticed that we have more people
walking around our streets who look like
zombies than anywhere else in America.
There is an entire cottage industry in New
Orleans built upon the afterlife, a thriving
necromantic economy. Ghost tours, ghost
books, vampire novels, cemetery tours,
voodoo rituals, séances, Anne Rice — and
the biggest, baddest, scariest selection of
Halloween haunted houses in the world.
Hauntworld.com, an online informational
clearinghouse for all things, well, haunted,
says of one local Halloween destination —
The Mortuary on Canal Street: “Those who
enter will be tested and pushed to the limits
of their sanity.”
That’s high praise coming from what is
essentially the Yelp of haunted houses — a
Consumers Digest for the fright industry.
When an attraction established for a holiday
that is ostensibly supposed to be catered
to children doesn’t allow admittance to
children — as several New Orleans haunted
houses do not — then you can bet they’re
serious about the business of scaring.
But New Orleans’ supernatural scene is
by no means limited to Halloween. The
sidewalks of the French Quarter are packed
with ghost and vampire tours every night of
the year, with visitors paying a pretty penny
to get their shock on.
I don’t know if there are many cities — if
there are
any
cities — where dozens, maybe
hundreds, of people make their living telling
ghost stories.
Nice work if you can get it.
Haunted
History
by
Chris Rose +
photos by
Erika Goldring