Fun Cities: New Orleans vs Calgary
One of the things I like doing visiting a new city is to compare it to Calgary. I think most of us do that intuitively. A recent trip to New Orleans was the catalyst for just such a comparison. After a week of exploring New Orlean’s, it was obvious to me it is a place to play, while Calgary’s is a place to work and live. Let’s have a look.
New Orleans fun community parade.
Stampede Park’s fun midway parade.
Mardis Gras & Jazz Fest and Stampede
I was surprised at how many similarities there are between Calgary’s Stampede and New Orleans’ two mega festivals.
For example, parades are the key element of Mardi Gras with 80 parades over the six week festival (most in the last 10 days), while the Stampede kicks off with one of the largest parades in North America, plus daily parades along Stephen Avenue.
Families and adult revelers alike enjoy the many Mardi Gras parades with their playful floats full of people in colourful costumes throwing out beads to the people watching. The parades happen during the day and early evening and not just downtown, but in the surrounding neighbourhoods also.
The Calgary Stampede Parade is just as colourful, with 35+ floats, several world class marching bands and 700 horses along its 5-km route through downtown.
In the evening, New Orleans’ Burbon Street is where thousands of party goers stroll - many in costumes, wearing the beads they collect from the parade floats earlier in the day or from people throwing them from the balconies along the street. The Stampede midway in the evening is similar with party goers hooting and hollering in their western wear strolling from ride to ride or lining up for Nashville North.
The Stampede’s music program, combined with concerts at the Saddledome, Fort Calgary and Cowboy Park has many similarities with New Orlean’s iconic Jazz and Heritage Festival. Their Jazz festival has 14 different stages located at the Fair Ground Race Course featuring headliners and up-and-coming performers.
Mardi Gras has its own iconic cake – Kings Cake. The name “king cake” comes from the Biblical story of the three kings who bring gifts to Baby Jesus. A blend of coffee cake and cinnamon roll, king cake is iced in yellow, green and purple (the colors of Mardi Gras) and is frequently packed with fruit fillings and cream cheeses. Hidden inside is a plastic baby symbolizing Baby Jesus.
The Stampede equivalent is its “pancake breakfast.” The first pancake breakfasts were held in 1923 along Eighth Avenue. During the 10 days of Stampede, over 200,000 pancakes are served at hundreds of free breakfast events city-wide.
New Orleans King Cake.
Calgary’s pancake breakfast.
Attractions
New Orleans has two unique world class museums – National WWII Museum and New Orleans Museum of Art, in addition to an aquarium, zoo, and numerous smaller museums and attractions. The New Orleans Convention Centre, located along its River Walk is mammoth – 1km.
Calgary has several world class museums - JR Shaw Centre for Arts and Culture, National Music Centre, Calgary Zoo, Science Centre and Heritage Park. The recently expanded BMO Centre is only about half the size of New Orleans’.
New Orleans’s Art Museum, with art park behind it.
Contemporary Calgary public art gallery with skate park behind it.
Downtown
New Orleans downtown is dominated by Canal Street, a 6-lane street with a broad boulevard that was originally planned as a canal linking three bodies of water back in 1807. In the 19th century, it became the city’s major shopping street; today is lined with shops and hotels. It is home to both the Saenger and Orpheum Theatres, is the main Mardi Gras parade route and hub for the Canal Streetcar Line.
Their downtown is home to the city’s major arena (Smoothie King Centre) and Caesars Superdome stadium as well as a mega casino. It boasts approximately 21,000 hotel rooms (including 3 hotels each with 1,000+ rooms) and 10 million square feet of office space.
About 4,300 residents call the greater downtown home. I was surprised by the lack of new residential construction in the New Orlean’s greater downtown.
Calgary is unique in that it doesn’t have a wide downtown main street like Canal Street, common in most cities, instead it has two downtown pedestrian streets - Stephen Avenue (for shopping and dining street) and 7th Avenue (the transit corridor).
Our downtown is dominated by 40 million square feet of office buildings, four times that of New Orleans. However, it is home to only 6,000 hotel rooms. About 55,000 people live Calgary’s greater downtown, with dozens of new residential projects under construction.
New Orlean’s Main Street with fun street cars.
Stephen Avenue Walk pedestrian mall and historic district.
Frenchmen Street vs Stephen Avenue
New Orleans is widely recognized as a great music city and the home of Jazz. Frenchmen Street is the home to the city’s live music scene. Calgary’s equivalent is Stephen Avenue with its bars, restaurants and the Werlund Centre (four, soon to be six theatre spaces and major concert hall) as well as Vertigo Theatre and Grand Theatre nearby.
Frenchmen Street is a gritty street with most of the stages at the front door, so the music spills out onto the street. There was even a full band performing on the street many nights. There are about 15 live music venues along two blocks, creating party vibe especially on weekends when both the music and patrons spill out onto the street.
Stephen Avenue has a much more reserved vibe with its high-end restaurants and high-culture theatre and concerts. Once people are in the theatres the street goes quiet and most people head home afterwards. Our theatres are closed in the summer (out peak tourist season), so it is less of a tourist attraction.
In the evening Frenchman Street becomes an outdoor music venue.
Stephen Avenue Walk lunch-time concerts.
Street Life
Bourbon Street is a 12-block long party street packed with bars and drinking spilling out onto the street. Calgary’s 17thAvenue is 10-block long destination for party goers to enjoy the numerous bars, lounges and patios, creating a raucous street atmosphere in the summer patio season.
New Orlean’s Magazine Street is a six mile long street with three commercial hubs. It is an eclectic mix of vintage shops, cafes, galleries, bakeries, bars, boutiques and restaurants. It is unique for its “residential to retail” conversions, i.e. rather than tear down the old homes and build new commercial spaces, there are 100s of homes converted to commercial uses. It is very charming.
Calgary’s equivalent would be Inglewood, Kensington and Mission each with their own charm and mix of shops, galleries, live music venues, cinema and cafes.
New Orlean’s Magazine Street’s quaint houses converted into shops and cafes.
Calgary’s Kensington Village shops, cafes and restaurants.
Garden District vs Mount Royal
New Orleans’ Garden District is well known for its stately mansions, manicured gardens and tree-lined streets; however, the sidewalks are dangerous as big tree roots have caused the concrete to crack and heave severely.
Calgary’s Mount Royal neighbourhood with its curved streets, historic and contemporary mansions is on par with the Garden District. So is Roxboro or Scarboro, as all three neighbourhoods were designed on the principals of the Garden City Movement, where neighbourhoods were designed to be park-like.
New Orlean’s mansion district.
Calgary’s Mount Royal mansions and gardens.
Art Park vs BUMP
New Orleans’ hidden gem is the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden in City Park, next to the New Orleans Art Museum. A 6-acre park with ponds, gardens and 100+ sculptures make for a pleasant 60 to 90 minute walk.
Calgary’s equivalent would be the Beltline Urban Mural Project that has resulted in over 400 murals, in the Beltline neighbourhood and beyond. Today, it seems like Calgary’s City Centre is an art park with 100+ outdoor artworks, in addition to murals on every other block.
Joseph Hein’s, Mirror Labyrinth is just one of 100+ artworks in NOLA’s art park
One of the 100+ murals in Calgary’s City Centre. Dancing Animals by JUMU Monster.
Trolley Cars vs LRT Free Fare Zone
New Orleans is famous for its heritage Trolly Cars that transverse its inner-city neighbourhoods. The most famous being the St. Charles Line that operates using the historic green cars that date back to 1835, the other lines use replica cars, but they are fun to ride and cheap at $1.25 for adults and only 50 cents for seniors and disabled.
While Calgary has nothing to match the historic trolley cars, we do have the 14-block long downtown Free Fare Zone making it easy to get from Cowboy Park to Fort Calgary, from Contemporary Calgary to National Music Centre.
Note: Our Free Fare Zone is currently under review. It could stay the same, be expanded or eliminated (I hope not), but only time will tell.
Calgary, with one of North America’s busiest LRT boasts a much bigger and better transit system than New Orleans.
New Orlean’s heritage street cars are fun to ride.
Calgary’s LRT is free to ride in downtown.
Famous Cocktails
The Sazerac, originated in the mid-1800s. It combines Cognac, sugar, water, and Peychaud’s Bitters. Antoine Amédée Peychaud, a Creole apothecary, is credited with creating the cocktail using his proprietary bitters in a mixture. It is named after Sazerac-de-Forge et Fils, a brand of Cognac imported by Sewell Taylor, who established the Merchants Exchange Coffee House (later the Sazerac House) in the 1850s.
The Caesar, is Calgary’s quintessential cocktail, invented in 1969 by bartender Walter Chell at the Calgary Inn (now The Westin). Inspired by spaghetti alle vongole (pasta with clams), Chell mixed vodka, clamato juice, hot sauce, Worcestershire sauce, and a celery salt rim. It was created to celebrate the opening of hotel’s new Italian restaurant.
Note: The B-52 drink was invented in 1977 by Peter Fich, the head bartender at the Banff Springs Hotel in Alberta, Canada. Fich created the layered shot (Kahlúa, Baileys, Grand Marnier) and named it after the band The B-52s, not the military aircraft, as he liked to name his creations after musical acts.
The Sazerac, originated in the mid-1800s in New Orleans.
The Caesar was created in Calgary in 1969.
Rivers
Rivers play an influential role in shaping both cities past and present. New Orleans’ Mississippi River is a massive body of water as it enters the Gulf of Mexico. Calgary’s Bow and Elbow Rivers are tiny in comparison but have a similar impact on the city’s sense of place. While tourists and locals love party cruises along the Mississippi River, in Calgary tourists and locals love to float down either the Bow or the Elbow Rivers.
Note: Don’t be surprised if you see someone flyfishing in the Bow River right downtown, it is one of the best flyfishing rivers in the world.
New Orleans cruise boats offer iconic Mississippi River experiences, primarily featuring daytime jazz, brunch, and dinner cruises. The top operators include the Steamboat Natchez (traditional steam engine) and the Paddlewheeler Creole Queen, which provide views of the French Quarter and Port of New Orleans, often featuring live jazz and Creole cuisine
Calgarians love to float lazily along the Bow and Elbow Rivers.
Last Word
New Orleans is a bit like a senior citizen i.e. slow moving and run down. There is little infill development or new construction, and it has the worst sidewalks I have ever seen. Yet, it also has some of the most vibrant night life I have ever experienced. It is truly an international tourist city.
Calgary is more like a teenage city - still growing with lots of infill projects constantly changing its appearance. It is fascinated by the lust of the new i.e. the glitz and glitter of shimmering new buildings and homes. It is more focused on being a better place to work and live, than to play. It is tourist city for 10 days of the year, otherwise it is the gateway for tourist to get to Banff and the Canadian Rockies.
New Orleans is an old city that focusing on the past, while Calgary is new city focusing on building a future.
