urban bicycle journeys

You can see so much more of New Orleans by bicycle. Cycling around the city is generally safe but access into some neighborhoods is restricted by key choke points. On this Monday morning I had wanted to cycle by city-owned Longue Vue Gardens on Bamboo Road. There is no easy way to bicycle to the wealthy neighborhood around the Gardens and adjacent Old Metairie. This day I took a chance and cycled through the Metairie Road I-10 underpass which is filled with cars of speeding commuters who seem late to work.

The New Orleans Country Club entrance is maybe a hundred yards to the left of the photo above, on the other side. The sidewalk on the right in the photo continues only to stop at a concrete wall. I do not know if this setup was done subconsciously or intentionally to keep bicyclists and pedestrians from the rest of New Orleans out of those wealthy neighborhoods. It certainly succeeds. It is sad, really. I recently joined the New Orleans cycle advocacy group Bike Easy. I wonder if anyone has been pressing elected officials to do something about this.

I cycled to Longue Vue Gardens briefly, just to check it out. It seems lovely. I then cycled back to the underpass. This time I deliberately walked the bicycle on the left side of the photo above. It still felt totally unsafe.

It was 9:30 AM and I had not had breakfast. Right up the street is the famous Morning Call.

Morning Call served cafe au lait and beignets in the French Quarter for a hundred years but left for the suburbs in 1974, since then bouncing around a couple semi-suburban locations. I am sure their fare is delicious but this soul-less building does not light my fire. I looked for somewhere new.

The neighborhood is “Cemeteries;” several cemeteries each with its own story. Hundreds of years ago this was “back of town,” swampy land good only for burying the dead above ground.

Just around the corner I discovered the coffee shop Sacred Grinds, tucked into a green building in a tiny slot of St. Patrick Cemetery No. 2, part of a larger business called the Herb Import Company.

I parked the bicycle out front and went inside.

I met Olivia, Sacred Grinds’ only employee.

Service was friendly, rapid, and professional. I ordered a sixteen ounce oat milk latte, one pack sugar. The chocolate croissant, while unlikely baked on-site did seem almost same-day fresh.

There is a seating area out back where you can scan at your laptop while gazing at above ground tombs. I do not know this guy.

Out back you had to sit in the sun so I retreated to the shade on the front porch. I often find sitting, thinking, and reading easier in a public spot, a “third place.” It felt chill drinking coffee on Sacred Ground’s front porch watching the Canal Street streetcar rumble by. This is the end of their line which had started three and a half miles away alongside the French Quarter.

I read the New York Times on my phone before getting back on the bicycle. I then did my City Park loop for forty minutes before arriving back home. You have to exercise early to beat the heat.