Mardi Gras

Yardi Gras stories: Creative recycling on display in Lower Garden District house floats

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Although Mardi Gras as we know it is back, houses are once again on parade. The Krewe of House Floats, created in 2021 so New Orleanians could enjoy Carnival even though parades were canceled, may have taken hold. 

This year, with parades rolling again and Carnival in full swing, many people recycled their house float from last year, adding a few extra special touches to update them for the 2022 season. The Krewe of House floats continues to connect artists and homeowners to create unique and beautiful house floats that add to the festivities of the Carnival season. 

The subkrewe of Garden District and Lower Garden District does not have an exact theme for the 2022 season, but that didn’t stop the celebration. Instead, in the true spirit of “Do Whatcha Wanna,” the neighborhood came together to create looks that capture that magic of Mardi Gras and New Orleans itself. Kelli Walker Starrett’s theme is the song “They All Ask’d For You.” Her house float on Chippewa and Josephine streets depicts a second-line of local animals, including a gator, a crawfish and a pelican.

Mardi Gras

Yardi Gras stories: ‘Pure Imagination’ fuels house floats in Broadmoor and Fontainebleau

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Last year ago, the unimaginable happened: February passed in New Orleans with no Carnival parades. With parades cancelled due to Covid, there were no massive floats rolling the street, no masses of revelers standing elbow-to-elbow and hollering to have some beads thrown their way. 

So New Orleanians had to use their own imagination and come up with a safer way to celebrate. What they came up with was Yardi Gras: a new tradition where revelers decorated their own homes as elaborate floats. This year, Mardi Gras is back — but Yardi Gras survives as well, along with the spirit of imagination and ingenuity it represents. While there are fewer homes participating in the Krewe of House Floats this year, there’s still plenty of creativity on display, as seen in the neighborhoods of Broadmoor and Fontainebleau.

Mardi Gras

Yardi Gras stories: University area house floats celebrate ‘Les Bons Temps’

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When three smaller subkrewes of the Krewe of House Floats —University, Freret and St. Charles Avenue — melded into one, an anything-goes theme evolved, which in turn became “Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler,” said subkrewe captain Jenna Rockett. With no constraints to follow, krewe members improvised their individual whims. The Bergers of State Street decided to lean into their name by turning their house into a burger joint. The family’s “State Street Soda Shoppe” house float serves up a giant balcony burger, fries, a milkshake and an ice cream sundae. It’s a theme that delights the Bergers’ two young daughters, Lillian and Grace.

Krewe of House Floats

Yardi Gras stories: Irish Channel residents take a dip in the bayou

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The residents of the Irish Channel are once again showing their creativity and Carnival spirit in Year Two of the Krewe of House Floats. This year, the neighborhood’s theme is “Down on the Bayou.”

The Irish Channel subkrewe captain, Autumn Town, said that the theme is a way to pay homage to bayou communities struggling to recover from Hurricane Ida. Because New Orleanians are able to decorate their homes while so many people on the bayou are still rebuilding, the subkrewe is also holding a fundraiser for Ida relief. The KoHF participants are collecting supplies and funds for the People of the Bayou campaign as part of the neighborhood efforts. 

Town was the subkrewe’s co-captain last year and is flying solo this year. She first got involved when KoHF started in 2021 from a random post that popped up on her Facebook feed.

Yardi Gras stories: Audubon-Riverside neighborhood has a sense of déjà vu

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In its second year, the Audubon-Riverside subkrewe of House Floats selected the theme “Déjà Vu in 2022.” It has a double meaning. First, it’s here we are again — still with the pandemic. The Krewe of House Floats’ overall theme for the 2022 Carnival season, “Vaccinate, Decorate, Celebrate,” is also a nod to the enduring pandemic. 

Audubon-Riverside’s theme has a second meaning, recognizing that many residents plan to re-use most or all of their house float decorations from last year. One such resident is Sarena Teng, whose house float on Laurel Street at Napoleon has its own Instagram account (@queenofbouncehouse). Her Queen of Bounce House uses the same Big Freedia figure from 2021, but added a twist, based on the KoHF theme “Vaccinate, Decorate, Celebrate.”

“It is still and always will be the Queen of Bounce House, but this year, it’s ‘Big Freedia Saves the World’ against viral invaders,” Teng said. 

Playing off the popular 1980s “Space Invaders” video game, she made coronavirus germs out of lime green paper lanterns with hot-glued red glittery pompoms to look like spike proteins. Her Big Freedia has a giant vaccine syringe with a light-up laser gun that shoots down the germs. Nighttime viewers can see the vaccine explode in a fireball of green flashing lights.

Krewe of House Floats

Yardi Gras Stories: Touro, Milan and Bouligny still love a parade (of house floats)

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It’s almost unimaginable to think of Uptown New Orleans without Mardi Gras parades in February. But with parades canceled due to COVID, residents have imagined a new tradition – creating wild and whimsical Yardi Gras house floats all over their neighborhoods. Yardi Gras, organized by the Krewe of House Floats, is a safe alternative to Mardi Gras parades in the coronavirus era. Instead of congregating in large groups to watch floats go by, people have decorated their own houses and turned the streets of New Orleans into a giant, stationary parade. 

In normal times, the residents of the Touro, Milan, Bouligny and Uptown areas enjoy their easy access to Carnival parades, as reflected in their subkrewe’s theme: “Celebrating Uptown Parades.” Notable house floats include a “catnival” filled with feline puns on the 2200 block of Marengo Street and “Chewy’s Guide to the COVID Galaxy” on the 4700 block of Camp Stre

et, where giant letters spell out the much-needed message “DON’T PANIC!” 

Residents are also working to help their neighbors in need and support the artists and musicians who make Mardi Gras possible.

business

Dolly Parton tribute and a king cake cartoon grace Magazine Street businesses

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Scriptura and Parcels & Post have both installed storefront floats to bring the Carnival spirit to Magazine Street. And together they represent some popular images in the house float craze: oversized flowers, king cakes, alligators and Dolly Parton. 

Scriptura has a 25-year history at 5423 Magazine St. It started in just the front room, and gradually grew into the owners buying the building and taking over every square inch. They have their letterpress studio in the back, retail in the front and offices on the second floor. 

Scriptura’s storefront “house float” is dedicated to the country music star because of the inspiration she provided during the difficulties of last year. The year 2020 was full of personal loss for the owners of Scriptura.

Krewe of House Floats

Yardi Gras Stories: University area gives its regards to Broadway

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The pandemic may have upended the city’s traditional Mardi Gras plans, but the show must go on. Residents of the University Uptown neighborhood have raised the curtain on a fleet of Broadway-inspired house floats, following the theme of “2020: The Musical!” This Krewe of House Floats has stepped in during a Carnival season of no parades, no bars and no partying in the French Quarter after curfew. 

“Krewe of House Floats has really been building the plane while flying it. The humor and the whimsy of our neighborhood really shows through with our theme,” said Jenna Rockett, captain of the University Uptown subkrewe. “It’s that ability to look around and laugh and make it work.”

Krewe of House Floats

Yardi Gras Stories: Broadmoor and Fontainebleau enjoy a ‘staycation’

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Plans to travel the world in 2020 and 2021 may have been put on hold, but you can always make your own “staycation” at home. That’s the theme that neighbors in Broadmoor, Fontainebleau and Marlyville chose for their Yardi Gras house floats. 

“We’re aware of the irony and the reality that we can’t have Mardi Gras in its normal incarnation. We can’t just go on vacation if we want to model good public health choices,” said Caitrin Gladow, captain of the neighborhood subkrewe. It’s part of the larger Krewe of House Floats, a citywide effort to encourage people to decorate their own houses as floats since parades cannot roll because of COVID. 

The goal of the house floats project is to have fun, support artists who are out of work, and help neighbors in need. “One of our obligations as neighbors is to look out for one another,” Gladow said.

Mardi Gras

New storefront floats in full bloom on Magazine Street

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The New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts and Sosusu Boutique on Magazine Street have storefront floats that add to the Carnival spirit on Magazine Street. Both of these professional creations light up at night. 

In more than 40 years of being in the same building at 5256 Magazine St., never did the nonprofit New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts imagine that they would be turned into a house float. The school located on the route of many Uptown parades usually has a viewing stand. This year, school officials had planned to turn it into a fundraising event for the institution and charge admission. 

But the pandemic and canceled parades changed all that. “We wanted to have our installation look like a real float,” said school President Dian Winingder about the creation entitled “Gogh Mardi Gras.”

It is of course an homage to Vincent Van Gogh (they call the tractor driver “Vincent”) and, Winingder said, his imagery is easy to recognize and simple enough to make into float props and decorations.