Walk the Saint-Named Aisles of a Working New Orleans Cemetery
The guide on this walk wrote the book about these cemeteries, which is a different thing from having read one. Ninety minutes on Esplanade Avenue, under a mile of ground, every step of it outdoors.
Sally Asher wrote Stories from the St. Louis Cemeteries of New Orleans, published in 2015. She is the one who walks you through this one. Red Sash names her as the guide on this tour's own page, and the reviews almost always name her too. Once in a while a colleague takes a date instead.
That matters more than it sounds. Her own site lists two master's degrees from Tulane and a term as president of the preservation group Save Our Cemeteries, and she says she is now writing a second book, this one on the symbolism carved into New Orleans tombs. She brings copies to each tour and signs them.
The walk covers under a mile, and the booking runs ninety minutes. Red Sash's own confirmation note tells booked guests the walk itself takes a little over an hour. Reviewers report the opposite problem: one wrote that the slot is scheduled for an hour and fifteen minutes and the guide kept going well past it, and others put their own walk at two hours. Budget two hours and you will not have to leave mid-story. However long it runs, you are on your feet and outdoors the whole time. There is no indoor stop to duck into.
Meet at the front gates at 3421 Esplanade Avenue, at the gate farthest to the right, underneath the trees. The company asks you to arrive ten minutes before the start time. Its packing rule is easy to remember: water, umbrella, sunscreen, sensible shoes. The umbrella is for sun as much as for rain.
New Orleans St. Louis Cemetery No. 3 Walking TourNinety minutes on foot through St. Louis No. 3 with Red Sash Tours, meeting at the Esplanade Avenue gates.www.viator.comSociety Tombs, and the Dues That Filled Them
Above-ground burial in New Orleans usually gets explained as a water-table problem, and then the explaining stops. Red Sash's own tour page lists what is actually standing here: family tombs, wall vaults, columbariums, public mausoleums and society tombs, in styles the company describes as classic Greek and Roman, Gothic, Egyptian, Baroque and Byzantine.
Society tombs are the ones worth slowing down for. Mutual aid organizations built them, so one structure can hold dozens of people whose only connection was paying dues into the same fund. The company dates the cemetery to 1854 and calls it twice the size of St. Louis No. 1 and No. 2 combined. You will not see all of it in ninety minutes, and you are not meant to.
A Hand, a Broken Lily, an Eye Inside a Triangle
The carving is a vocabulary, and by her own account the next book Asher is writing is about exactly this. A finger pointing up. A lily with its stem snapped. A square and compass with an eye set into the triangle. Somebody chose each one, and paid a carver to cut it.
The main aisles are named for saints, and the cross aisles for clerics of the church. That is the detail that turns the place from a field of stone into an address system. Once you have it, you stop reading the cemetery as scenery and start reading it as a neighborhood.
The Architect, the Secret Photographer, the Turducken
Red Sash's own description names the people this walk stops for: a famed architect whose ship went down in a hurricane with over a hundred prostitutes and circus performers, the secret photographer of Storyville, the Poet Priest, the Angel of the Delta, and a set of chefs the company credits with advancing the Civil Rights movement, restoring horse racing in New Orleans and introducing the turducken to the United States.
The Viator listing adds two more: the first businesswoman to have a public statue erected in her honor, and the woman behind the quirky castle. Every one of those descriptions is the company's own. The stories behind them are why the walk needs ninety minutes to cover under a mile.
Rain or Shine, and What That Actually Means
Red Sash is blunt about weather in its own FAQ. Rain or shine, the tour continues, and hurricanes are the exception. If dangerous conditions force a cancellation, the company offers a reschedule at no extra charge or your money back.
Your own side of it runs on a twenty-four hour line. A full refund needs twenty-four hours' notice, and the company says it cannot refund or reschedule inside that window regardless of the circumstances. Booking closes three hours before the start time, and confirmation is instant. The guide works in English. Gratuities and bottled water are not included.
Red Sash controls the walk. The Archdiocese of New Orleans controls the gate, and it sets St. Louis No. 3's hours and closures on its own calendar. The cemetery admits no tours and no visitors on All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day, the two days the Catholic calendar sets aside for the dead. Both of those dates are blocked on the booking calendar, and so are Thanksgiving, Christmas Day and Mardi Gras Day. Watch the Saturday before Mardi Gras as well: the Archdiocese closes the gates early that day for the Endymion parade, and the calendar still offers it. A service animal needs certification and identification at the gate, and it is the only animal the cemetery admits.
Fair Grinds Coffee Shop on Ponce de Leon Street and Canseco's Market on Esplanade Avenue are both about five minutes from the gate on foot, and Red Sash recommends either one for a coffee or a bottle of water before you start. Get there with a few minutes to spare and you can read the ironwork on the gate itself before anyone starts talking.