Bourbon Street

For the first time since Hurricane Katrina, the city's Bourbon Street bars and other businesses will be allowed to stay open all night. Mayor C. Ray Nagin announced Wednesday that he was lifting the city's 2 a.m. curfew for all areas west of the Industrial Canal beginning Friday. Nagin also announced that residents would officially be allowed to stay overnight in more areas of the city deemed safe for rebuilding.

Average domestic airfares rose 1.8% to $367 in the third quarter of 2012, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics reported this week. Huntsville, Ala., had the highest average fare, $522, while Atlantic City, N.J., had the lowest, $133. The average fare at LAX was $398, up 1.7% over the year before . . . . Not able to make it to New Orleans for the Super Bowl on Feb. 3, or Mardi Gras a week later? Get a feel for the streets with EarthCam's live webcams in the heart of New Orleans.

Last week Compton officials unveiled architectural plans for a shopping and entertainment complex along the Artesia Freeway. This week they hired a Los Angeles marketing firm to tell them whether they should pursue the project, which would feature a New Orleans, French Quarter-like atmosphere. On a 3-1 vote Tuesday, the City Council agreed to pay Harrison Price Co.

If you go THE BEST WAY TO NEW ORLEANS From LAX, Delta, United and Southwest offer nonstop flights to New Orleans, and American, United, Delta, Southwest and US Airways offer connecting flights (change of plane). Restricted round-trip fares begin at $442. WHERE TO STAY Dauphine Orleans Hotel, 415 Dauphine St., New Orleans; (504) 586-1800, http://www.dauphineorleans.com . A quiet respite in the heart of the French Quarter, just one mile from Frenchmen Street.

Ah, New Orleans' Bourbon Street--the stretch of strip clubs, adult "novelty" shops and daquiri window service where frat-boy yahoos shout from balconies for women to expose themselves . . . and they do. It's a year-round Mardi Gras of fleshly indulgence, accented by the fragrant mix of rotted beer and you'd-rather-not-know-what-else. But lately, on the corner of Bourbon and St. Peter, people have been observing some rather strange behavior.

Florida and Miami apparently couldn't wait to resume hostilities in a rivalry that has been on hold for 13 seasons. Gator and Hurricane players were involved in a scuffle on Bourbon Street in New Orleans late Wednesday night, the first evening both teams were in town to prepare for the Sugar Bowl. "I guess by last night's events, the rivalry is back, sort of to where it used to be," Florida Coach Steve Spurrier said Thursday.

I have been here a week now, and I feel qualified to make the following observation: New Orleans is a diverse, multicultural polyglot that owes much of its charm and sophistication to the variety of immigrants who have come to this city on the ever-churning cultural tide of the Mississippi River. New Orleans offers a wealth of architectural, musical and literary styles unique in America. Oh, and you can party till you drop. Hoo-wah! Yes, I believe I'll have some gumbo and a cajun martini.

If you couldn't party on Bourbon Street on Shrove Tuesday, the next best place to let the good times roll was the Mardi Gras Symphony Gala at the Regal Biltmore Hotel. Irrepressible event planner Jim Watterson pulled out all the stops for the annual bash. The revelry began as guests arrived amid a shower of beads and doubloons for sidecars and bubbly in the hotel's Gold Room. There, a makeup station dispensed glittery grease paint, baubles and boas for the glitz-challenged. Washington I.

Somebody forgot to tell the French Quarter that this town is dead. Because the regulars at Johnny White's Sports Bar & Grill on Bourbon Street were having none of the talk about their city being the new Chernobyl, a ghost metropolis never to rise again. Even if the bureaucrats in Washington and Baton Rouge want to shut the place down and move everybody out. "It's my property.

Right now, it is only a proposal. But with great fanfare, including a Dixieland band and free fried shrimp for 200 people, city officials this week unveiled a plan to create alongside the Artesia Freeway an entertainment and shopping complex with the flavor and vitality of the famous French Quarter in New Orleans. Already named Bourbon Street by the city's Redevelopment Agency, the complex would be located on 5.

NEW ORLEANS - The cab careened past Washington Square and onto Frenchmen Street. It was close to 10 p.m., and the neighborhood was filled with locals adorned with tattoos, piercings and lots of ragged black accessories. "The cab drivers call this 'Freak Street,'" our driver said. "Because a lot of crazy characters hang out here - guys in skirts with huge holes in their ears, that kind of thing. But we mean it in a good way. This is where all the music happens. " My Australian friend, Jordan, and I had spent the last few days finding novel ways to avoid Bourbon Street, where I had twice been accosted by drunken frat boys in flip-flops who wanted to ply me with foot-tall Hurricanes and make me listen to bad cover bands playing Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'.

"What's that?" Visitors often ask that in New Orleans, which is a trove of unexpected juxtapositions. Just steps off the French Quarter's raunchy Bourbon Street, for instance, is the stately Hermann-Grima House, a Federal-style brick mansion with French Louisiana balconies and galleries. Ring the doorbell. Why it's a treasure: The Hermann-Grima House, named after two early owners, is an interpretation of a wealthy New Orleanian's home between 1830 and 1860. Carpets were made on an 1830s loom; furniture is typical of the era. Each October, the house is draped in mourning for a funeral.

When it ended, the scene was like something out of Mardi Gras. It was a Lakers victory celebration, only a continent away. Europe doesn't have a Super Bowl, but this will do, at least until the next big soccer extravaganza. On a Monday afternoon, on a wonderful Twenty Ten course that had been turned into a giant mud pie by days of rain and now was basking in sunshine, Europe won the Ryder Cup. In a competition of golf, with an overwhelming aroma of nationalism, it had defeated the big 'ol, rich USA, which is always special for Europe.

"Does your mother know what you are doing?!" That was my reaction to the artfully unclothed young man standing just inside the Abercrombie store at South Coast Plaza ("The Ab in Abercrombie," by Jade Chang, Fall Fashion Issue, Sept. 10). I had just returned from pre-Katrina New Orleans with vivid memories of late-night prowling in the Bourbon Street gay bars. I saw the same provocative poses, the same glistening muscles, the same throbbing music. I admit, I went into the store. Sadly, I bought nothing.

For the first time since Hurricane Katrina, the city's Bourbon Street bars and other businesses will be allowed to stay open all night. Mayor C. Ray Nagin announced Wednesday that he was lifting the city's 2 a.m. curfew for all areas west of the Industrial Canal beginning Friday. Nagin also announced that residents would officially be allowed to stay overnight in more areas of the city deemed safe for rebuilding.

Bourbon Street stinks. One of the most famous addresses in the world is filled with trash after Hurricane Katrina, and the stench at some points is overwhelming. Dumpsters are filled with black plastic bags and other trash, because only now is the city beginning to collect the debris accumulating for a month in the French Quarter. Beer bottles are everywhere. The street is awash with National Guard members, police from all over the country, firefighters and volunteers.

The Big Muddy is finally a star attraction in the Big Easy. By 8 p.m. on a recent pre-holiday evening, hundreds of people carrying daquiris or beer in plastic cups (open containers are not only allowed here, they are practically de rigueur ) were milling about in Spanish Plaza, a stylish open space next to Riverwalk Festival Marketplace. A barge all gussied up like a Mardi Gras float but bearing a garish Christmas tree, sailed up the Mississippi to the ferry dock.

There are misty, watercolor memories of the way they were. Of George Halas, pinching pennies. Of Mike Ditka, throwing tantrums. Of Doug Atkins, swilling martinis and shooting pigeons. Of Willie Galimore, John Farrington, Bill George, Mike Rabold--killed, every one of them, in automobile accidents. Billy Wade, quarterback of the 1963 Chicago Bears, now a banker in Nashville, Tenn.

MARGUERITE SMITH has seen a few sights in her 34 years in the French Quarter, but the jailbreak at the buggy barn ranks among the most memorable. To hear Smith tell it, the carriage horses and mules were hungry and jittery after being cooped up during Hurricane Katrina. After the storm passed, they kicked down the doors and dashed -- or walked, some of the older ones -- to the nearby Mississippi River in hopes of finding food and a modicum of freedom.

Like those of so many artists and musicians, Peter Nu's life was scattered to the four winds when Hurricane Katrina ripped up the Gulf Coast two weeks ago. He's still not sure when he'll be able to go home to New Orleans, and what sort of job prospects may greet him once he gets there. But this last weekend, Nu was back tapping out jangly melodies on his steel drum at an impromptu art fair here in the heart of Cajun country, about two hours northwest of New Orleans.