New Orleans bids farewell to Mardi Gras season

NEW ORLEANS

The U.S. state of Lousiana’s New Orleans bade a typically joyous goodbye to Carnival season on Feb. 13 with Mardi Gras parades, street parties and what amounted to a massive outdoor costume festival around the bars and restaurants in the French Quarter.

Revelers in capes, wigs, spandex and feathers danced in front of St. Louis Cathedral at Jackson Square while Latin music blared. Not far away, tourists and locals roamed Bourbon and Royal streets with costumes that varied from the scanty and suggestive to the fanciful.

Outside the narrow streets of the quarter, two tradition-rich parades rolled on a route that took them through the city's Uptown neighborhood and onto Canal Street in the business district. First came the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club, with marchers and riders in African-inspired garb handing out the century-old club's signature gift — hand-decorated coconuts. Later, Rex, King of Carnival rolled down St. Charles, stopping for a ceremonial toast at a historic downtown building with Mayor LaToya Cantrell.

Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday is a secular holiday but it's tied to Christian and Roman Catholic traditions. It always falls the day before Ash Wednesday and is seen as a final day of feasting and revelry before the solemnity of Lent.

Monday night featured the parade of the Krewe of Orpheus, co-founded by home-grown musician and actor Harry Connick Jr. In addition to elaborate floats and marching bands, participants included Connick himself, actor Neil Patrick Harris and Harris’ husband, David Burtka.

New Orleans has the nation’s largest and best known Carnival celebration. It's replete with traditions beloved by locals. But it's also a vital boost to the city’s tourist-driven economy.

The annual pre-Lenten festivities aren't limited to New Orleans. Similar celebrations are held in Louisiana and along the Gulf Coast and other lavish Carnival celebrations in Brazil and Europe are world renowned.

Monday's activities in New Orleans also included an afternoon “Lundi Gras," or Fat Monday celebration on the Mississippi Riverfront, including live music. Part of the event was the annual ceremonial meeting of the man tapped to be this year’s King of Carnival — chosen by the Rex Organization, a predominantly white group with roots in the 19th century — and the man elected king Zulu, founded by Black laborers in the early 1900s. The meeting is a custom that began in 1999 in what was seen as a symbol of slowly eroding social and racial barriers.