Mid-City New Orleans and the “Cities of the Dead”

New Orleans’s Mid-City offers something for every type of traveler: restaurants, shops, walking tours and all of it within a great, laid back residential section of the city.  Yet, the most important part of Mid-City that rivals the rest of New Orleans is its cemeteries, most notably Metairie Cemetery, Cypress Grove, and Odd Fellows Rest.

Cemeteries all through New Orleans are known for their vaulted plots.  Two reasons have evolved over time as to why this type of architecture had become popular.  First, the city possesses a high water table and it had not been uncommon in the past to find caskets floating down the street during periods of flooding.  Second, the French and the Spanish also buried their dead in vaulted tombs so that this became a tradition that jumped the Atlantic.  Throughout the cemeteries, visitors can find the plots of voodoo practitioners, politicians, and pirates. These places are an historical tour de force and a tour for the imagination.  In addition to the caliber of people found, visitors oftentimes find flowers, votive candles, and hoodoo money in honor of the dead.

Metairie Cemetery, founded in 1872, was built on the Metairie Race Course.  It originally housed victims of yellow fever who could not be buried within the city proper.  Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, was originally interred there.  Other plots of noteworthy are the Italian Society Tomb and the Brunswig Tomb. 

The Fireman’s Charitable and Benevolent Association founded Cypress Grove Cemetery in 1840.  Many Protestant families chose to bury there dead, also.  A tomb of note is the Chinese Soon On Tong Association’s tomb that holds a grate in front so that visitors can burn prayers in it.

Another benevolent association and this time a secret one, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, founded Odd Fellows Rest in 1849.  At its dedication ceremony, two circus bandwagons and a funeral car of departed members’ remains jostled through the city on the way to newly interred grounds.  The Howard Association Tomb, founded in 1837, came about to accommodate all the yellow fever victims and is worthy of a visit.

To visit New Orleans’s cemeteries is to learn a whole new language.  Most vaults or plots are infused with funerary symbolism.  For example, an anchor stands for hope; the broken column represents life cut short; and the broken flower symbolizes a life terminated.  The clasped hands that can be found almost everywhere stands for unity and love, even after death.  Flowers in these cemeteries also represent a variety of human emotions: the pansy with remembrance and humility; the poppy with sleep; the red rose with martyrdom; the white rose and the lily with purity; and the daisy with innocence.

In addition to the symbols, the architecture and types of tombs of the cemeteries vary greatly within their own gates.  Among different types of tombs, visitors to any of the 42 cemeteries in the city and most particularly to the ones in Mid-City can find the following: barrel-vaulted, pitched roof, pyramid, sarcophagus, society, stepped, temples, and wall vaults.

After a day in the cemeteries section of New Orleans, many restaurants of various ethnicities (Italian, Vietnamese, Jamaican, and African, among others) and shops can be found along Carrollton Avenue and Canal Street.