Jackson Square

Jackson Square is where New Orleans keeps its establishing shot: a formal French garden-park facing the Mississippi, St. Louis Cathedral's white spires rising behind Andrew Jackson's rearing bronze, the matching Pontalba buildings (the oldest apartments in America) framing the flanks with their iron galleries, and a permanent street carnival working the fence — painters hanging canvases on the wrought iron, tarot readers at card tables, brass bands and living statues competing for the crowd on the flagstones of Chartres Street. It costs nothing, anchors everything, and changes character by the hour: dawn delivers the empty, bell-toned square photographers hoard; midday runs full carnival; dusk empties the park (gates close at sundown) but lights the cathedral facade for the night shift of buskers and ghost tours staging on the slate. The surrounding ensemble is half the attraction — the Cabildo and Presbytère museums flanking the cathedral (Louisiana history and Mardi Gras/Katrina exhibits respectively, both worth their hours), Faulkner's old house in Pirate's Alley, the mule carriages lining Decatur, and Cafe du Monde's beignet smoke drifting from across the street. Treat it as the hub: orient here on arrival, cross it daily, and give it the one dawn visit that shows the square the postcards actually photographed.

The square's history is the city's in miniature: laid out in 1721 as the Place d'Armes — military parade ground, execution site, the stage where Louisiana passed from France to Spain to France to the United States (the Purchase transfer was signed in the Cabildo beside it) — then renamed and gardened in the 1850s under the patronage of the Baroness Pontalba, whose twin rowhouse blocks still define its sides and whose initials still work the iron railings. Clark Mills' equestrian Jackson (1856) was engineering bravado for its day, the rearing horse balanced on hind legs; the inscription on its base is Union general Ben Butler's occupation-era needle, left in place as the city's longest-running grudge.

Working the ensemble: the Cabildo (Spanish colonial seat, Purchase room, Napoleon's death mask) and the Presbytère (one wing pure Mardi Gras — costumes, floats, krewe history; one wing the sober, superb Katrina exhibit) bracket the cathedral and together make the square's rainy-day plan. Pirate's Alley and Père Antoine Alley run moody and flagstoned along the cathedral's flanks toward Royal; the Pontalba arcades shelter shops and the 1850 House museum, a restored apartment showing how the baroness's tenants actually lived. River-side, the Washington Artillery Park steps give the elevated photograph — spires, Jackson, and square in one frame — with Cafe du Monde waiting below.

Using it well: dawn (before 8am) belongs to photographers, dog walkers, and the bells — the only hours the fence stands bare and the flagstones empty. Late morning through afternoon is the full bazaar: browse the fence artists (originals cheaper than the galleries, and the painters take commissions), hear the brass sets, and mind the standard tourist-zone pickpocket sense. The park gates close at dusk but the square's edges wake: cathedral floodlights, carriage lanterns, and the ghost-tour muster making the slate theatrical. Buskers and readers are unregulated commerce — enjoy freely, pay what the performance earned, and know the card games are for entertainment. The square demands no ticket and no plan; it asks only to be crossed often enough that the trip's memories involuntarily stage themselves here.