The Special Page |
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Steven P. Unger follows Dracula... ...and tells us about Anne Rice and New Orleans, the most famous Vampire City in the world |
IN THE "SPECIAL PAGE" ARCHIVES: Joe R. Lansdale Part 2 |
VAMPIRES IN NEW ORLEANS by Steven P. Unger Lafayette Cemetery (Photo Courtesy of Phil Orgeron) There is no one who has done more to bring the vampire into the New Age than Anne Rice, born and bred in New Orleans, with her novel Interview with the Vampire and the films and books that followed. Those who have profited mightily from the popularity of True Blood and Twilight owe her a great debt. The ultra-retro St. Charles Avenue Streetcar will take you close to Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, the gravesite of Louis de Pointe du Lac's (Lestat's companion and fellow vampire in Rice's The Vampire Chronicles) wife and child and where Louis was turned into a vampire by Lestat. The Styrofoam tomb from the film Interview with the Vampire is gone now, but you can easily find the site where it stood, the wide empty space in the cemetery nearest the corner of Coliseum and Sixth Street. During the filming of Interview with the Vampire, the blocks between 700 and 900 Royal Street in the French Quarter were used for exterior shots of the home of the vampires Louis, Lestat, and Claudia, trapped through time with an adult mind in the body of a six-year-old girl. In fact, the streets there and around Jackson Square were covered in mud for the movie as they had been in the 1860s when the scenes took place. The perfectly preserved Gallier House at 1132 Royal Street was Anne Rice's inspiration for the vampires' house, and very close to that is the Lalaurie House, at 1140 Royal Street. Delphine Lalaurie, portrayed by Kathy Bates in American Horror Story: Coven, was a real person who lived in that house and was indeed said to have tortured and bathed in the blood of her slaves—even the blood of a slave girl's newborn baby—to preserve her youth. She was never seen again in New Orleans after an angry mob partially destroyed her home on April 10, 1834. There is a scene in American Horror Story where Delphine escapes from the coven's mansion and sits dejectedly on the curb in front of her old home. A private residence now, some locals still swear that the Lalaurie House is haunted, and that the clanking of chains can be heard through the night. Built in 1789, Madame John's Legacy (632 Dumaine Street) is the oldest surviving residence in the Mississippi Valley. In Interview with the Vampire, caskets are shown being carried out of the house as Louis' (Brad Pitt) voice-over describes the handiwork of his housemates Claudia and Lestat: "An infant prodigy with a lust for killing that matched his own. Together, they finished off whole families." 1135 Decatur RESOURCES IN NEW ORLEANS FOR VAMPIRES As a service to this most vampire-friendly city, the New Orleans Vampire Association (NOVA) describes itself as a "non-profit organization comprised of self-identifying vampires representing an alliance between Houses within the Community in the Greater New Orleans Area. Founded in 2005, NOVA was established to provide support and structure for the vampire and other-kin subcultures and "to provide educational and charitable outreach to those in need." As they describe it: Boutique de Vampyre The Boutique du Vampyre is a moveable (literally—they're known to change locations on short notice) feast of vampire and Goth-related odds and ends, many of them locally made. There are books as well—you may even find a copy of In the Footsteps of Dracula: A Personal Journey and Travel Guide if they're not sold out. Their website itself holds a surprise treat: a link to a free video cast of the first two seasons of Vampire Mob, which is just what the title implies. |
About Steven P. Unger Steven P. Unger has traveled extensively in North and South America, Western Europe, Israel, and Romania. He has been published in numerous travel and bicycling magazines. His book, In the Footsteps of Dracula: A Personal Journey and Travel Guide, is available HERE In the Footsteps of Dracula: A Personal Journey and Travel Guide meticulously follows Bram Stoker's depiction of Jonathan Harker's 1893 expedition from London to Count Dracula's castle on the Borgo Pass in Transylvania in text and almost 200 pictures. In the Footsteps of Dracula also includes every site connected with the historical Prince Dracula, that is, Vlad Ţepeş or Vlad the Impaler. Unger has been a traveler and writer from the time he learned to type with two fingers on a manual typewriter in the basement of his parents' house in Ferndale, Michigan. The typewriter sat on top of a ping-pong table, and the basement, through all of the seasons, was so damp that the pages would stay curled up when he rolled them out from the platen.
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