Many American cities occupy outsized places in the popular imagination. From New York and Los Angeles’ gigantic, uncanny cinematic familiarities, to San Francisco’s historical counter-cultural leanings, the more niche associations of musical meccas like Nashville, or architectural anomalies like Savannah, GA; American metropolises project images that precede them. Perhaps no city in the US is more bursting with pop-cultural, historical, social and spiritual associations than New Orleans.
The city – founded by the French, before being taken by the Spanish, then returned to the French just before...