urban bicycle journeys

New Orleans is an island of urbanity surrounded by wetlands on almost all sides. Except for extended bike rides on the levees, most longer bike rides still heavily involve city streets.

It seems like almost every day I cycle the same seventeen mile city loop featuring significant but precious bike path. Certain streets are safer to bicycle than others. It has taken me a while to perfect this route.

From our condo in the Lower Garden District I cycle on St. Mary Street across St. Charles Avenue, then take the next right onto Carondelet Street heading towards downtown. I take a left on Howard Avenue; then a right onto O’Keefe, heading towards Canal Street and the Roosevelt Hotel, where Huey Long had held forth in the 1930’s. O’Keefe in the French Quarter becomes Burgundy Street, famous for being pronounced ber-GUN-dee. (If you were to order a certain red wine on that street; you would ask for a BERgundy on ber-GUN-dee!)

Four blocks into the French Quarter I take a left on St. Louis Street, which three blocks later joins the Lafitte Greenway. That greenway continues almost three miles before ending four blocks beyond Carrollton Avenue, It is only a few blocks to the Marconi Greenway, a bike path that encircles the wide perimeter of City Park.

Along the lakefront side of City Park the path parallels a street that until about ten years ago was called Robert E Lee Blvd. Now it is Allen Toussaint Blvd, named after the New Orleanian who produced and wrote hits in the early sixties, including “Mother in Law” and “Working in a Coal Mine.” The bike path ends near the art museum at the foot of Esplanade Avenue. I usually cycle almost the entire length of Esplanade Avenue, all the way to the French Quarter, before taking a right on Dauphine Street. I can follow Dauphine through the Quarter and across Canal Street, where it changes its name to Baronne Street. Following Baronne through downtown and underneath the Expressway, I take a left somewhere around Melpomene Street, leading me the few blocks to my home.

I like to cook and usually eat at home. This past Monday while cycling my usual route it seemed a good day to go out to lunch. I was on my own since Tootie was away on a Garden Club outing, of all things.

About sixty years ago as a little kid in Virginia Beach I remember my mother going to something called “Garden Club.” I do not remember hearing the words spoken seriously again until now.

We are fortunate in the New Orleans of 2025 to have all sorts of interesting friends, including one who invited Tootie as a Garden Club guest on a delightful sounding daylong event on the north side of Lake Ponchartrain, “across the lake.” The outing included pickle ball at the backyard court of another friend’s sister’s country house near Covington.

French has not been spoken much in New Orleans for more than a hundred years but many still like the affectation of a French name. One of the Garden Club group’s name is Julie, but she pronounces it Ju-LEE.

Meanwhile I was searching by bicycle in Mid-City for a lunch place. Supposedly one hundred thousand people of Sicilian descent live in the New Orleans area. Bar-restaurants serving informal Italian-Amercan versions of Louisiana chow used to be ubiquitous in the city limits but are now mostly in the near suburbs of Jefferson Parish.

In Mid-City New Orleans there are two surviving Liuzza’s. One would think that they were branches of each other, but a Times-Picayune article online confirms that the names are just a coincidence. I bicycled over to the Liuzza’s on Bienville Street and it was almost empty at lunchtime. A mile away just off Esplanade, Liuzza’s By The Track seemed a better choice. It already had a crowd of people outside on the sidewalk, waiting for a table.

Being alone has its advantages and I was able to find a seat at the bar almost immediately.

In very Italian-American fashion, there are framed photos of celebrities on the wall, including the owner (one assumes) shaking hands with the Pope (one assumes.). I cannot avoid staring at people. For lunch on a Monday the crowd included a Black guy with effeminate mannerisms, a young woman in a headscarf, and next to me at the bar, a heavyset White guy in hunting cammo who was emptying the salt shaker into his (to my taste) already too salty gumbo, .

Everyone wants an oyster poor boy. Because of the current high price of oysters, many places do not “do” oyster anymore, or charge too much. People will settle for a shrimp poor boy. Fried shrimp, to me, do not have the pronounced flavor necessary to make a great poor boy. Meanwhile, the much lower cost hot Italian sausage poor boy, fully dressed, featuring a thin hamburger-like patty, is often close to perfect. The key to a great poor boy is the local French bread, which New Orleans restaurants have delivered each morning from the German heritage bakery Leidenheimer’s.

The bartender thoughtfully delivered me the gumbo first. By the time the sandwich arrived I had almost finished my beer, a local IPA called Jucifer, served in Liuzza’s signature goblet.

As I was finishing up a young man sat down next to me at the bar. He did not order lunch, just a canned drink that I did not recognize. I guess I don’t get out much, but I had never seen a marijuana infused drink at a public bar. The guy said it takes about fifteen minutes for the drugs to take effect. He stayed only stayed about ten minutes before walking out with his canned beverage.

You can never be too careful about bicycle security. I recently bought this bike at Bayou Bicycles in Mid-City just to navigate the cratered bumpy streets of New Orleans. It has racing style downturn handlebars but super-wide soft mountain bike tires. It cost more than two thousand dollars and I do not want to lose it. At Liuzza’s By The Track it was U-locked to a parking sign but from inside from the bar I could still stare at it through the window.

It was time to leave. I cycled through the streets of Mid-City.

It took me about half an hour to bicycle home.