GAY TRAILMAP 1 TENNESSEE WILLIAMS’ FORMER RESIDENCE 632 Peter’s St. (now 632 Elysian Fields Ave.)
Openly gay playwright Tennessee Williams wrote A Streetcar Named Desire, one of the most famous works of American drama, in this apartment, just a few blocks from the French Quarter. 2 FAUBOURG MARIGNY ART AND BOOKS 600 Frenchmen St.
This longtime gay and lesbian bookstore carries a selection of gay titles specializing in works by famous gay locals. For decades, the bookstore has been a hub for gay activism and visibility in the Big Easy. 3 LGBT COMMUNITY CENTER OF NEW ORLEANS 2114 Decatur St.
Home to gay and lesbian life in the city, the community center hosts special events each week and is home to a library featuring the works of openly gay and lesbian writers from New Orleans. 4 GOLDEN LANTERN
1239 Royal St. This is the city’s second-oldest gay bar, and home to Southern Decadence. Golden Lantern is the starting point for New Orleans’ most famous gay event each year, with a parade kicking off from this watering hole every Labor Day weekend.
The history of New Orleans is woven with gay culture, much of which is documented in the Historic New Orleans Collection, a museum (533 Royal St.), library and publisher dedicated to promoting the history of Southern Louisiana. Visit the Williams Research Center (410 Chartres St.), which includes rare books, manuscripts, prints and more. Open 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Tues.-Sat., excluding holidays. Follow the map for more gay history.
11 GUNGA DEN
6 CAFÉ É LAFITTE IN EXILE 901 Bourbon St.
325 Bourbon St.
As the oldest gay bar in the U.S., Café Lafitte in Exile was first located footsteps from its current location at a bar now called Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop. Both destinations attract gay and lesbian patrons.
Female impersonators made this a once-famous burlesque house a gay-friendly destination through the 1980s. Today, it’s Sho-Bar, one of the oldest operating gentleman’s clubs in the country.
7 AMBUSH HEADQUARTERS 828 Bourbon St.
1214 Bienville St.
Every year for the past quarter century, the gay Krewe of Queenateenas host the official Gay Mardi Gras Bead Toss here. Mardi Gras has long enjoyed gay traditions, including the Fat Monday Luncheon, which began in 1949 and is the oldest continuing gay event in the country.
12 MY PLACE SALOON
Gay jazz pianist Tony Jackson, famous for his 1916 song “Pretty Baby,” secretly written about his male lover, regularly played here, a one-time saloon where whites-only could hear black performers from Storyville, the city’s legendary red-light district. 13 ARMSTRONG PARK
8 TRUMAN CAPOTE’S
FORMER RESIDENCE 811 Royal St. This openly gay Louisiana son wrote his first novel here, Other Voices, Other Rooms, in a slave-quarter apartment he rented for $70 a month when he was just 19. He was provocatively photographed here by famous shutterfly Henri CartierBresson. 9 UPSTAIRS LOUNGE
Iberville and Chartres St. This is the former site of a deadly arson that killed 32 people in 1973. A plaque now honors the dead on the site of this one-time popular gay bar.
801 N. Rampart St. Named for New Orleans native and jazz superstar Louis Armstrong, New Orleans native and openly gay comedian and talk show host Ellen DeGeneres emceed the first gay street parade here in 1981—long before she would host her Emmy-winning daytime television show. 14 CITY PARK 1 Palm Dr.
In 1971, New Orleans launched its Gay Pride with a “Gay-In” picnic here, the first event of its kind anywhere in Louisiana. Pride would eventually become an annual event by 1978 at Jackson Square. Today, Pride makes its home in the French Quarter.
10 HOTEL MONTELEONE
214 Royal St. 5 FRANCIS BENJAMIN JOHNSTON HOME 1132 Bourbon St.
This pioneering female photographer lived an openly gay life in New Orleans when she retired to the French Quarter in 1940. She lived in this Bourbon Street townhouse until her death in 1952 at the age of 88. During her life, she photographed the famous, including lesbian socialite Natalie Barney in her Paris salon.
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The hotel has been a destination for many famous scribes, including openly gay writers Tennessee Williams and Truman Capote, who have spent much time in the hotel’s famous Carousel Bar, where Eudora Welty wrote “The Purple Hat.” During an interview in People magazine in 1981, Capote recalled that his mother Nina would lock him in one of the hotel rooms as a child.
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