Red Dress Run 2023 (PHOTOS)

All photos by Eric T. Styles
Crowds of people wearing red dresses flooded Marigny, Bywater and the French Quarter on Saturday for the annual Red Dress Run. Usually held on the second weekend of August, it’s technically a race that you register for, with the proceeds going to support charity — although no registering doesn’t necessarily preclude participate.

Many just said “fuck it,” and decided to don a skimpy red garment and proceeded to get wasted early this morning. Were you one of those people? Let us know.

Hurricane Ida makes landfall in the French Quarter

Hurricane Ida has made landfall in the French Quarter. I produced a short video with some of the footage I filmed from the balcony of my Toulouse Street home. Thankfully, there was no major damage, although the storm gave us a pretty good scare.

Video by Eric T Styles

WWL shows naked guy in front of Lafitte’s bar on live TV

(Photo: @salobonavia | Twitter)
A naked man was filmed by WWL on live TV during a Saturday report on the Phase Two reopening of the French Quarter.

The man was completely naked, except for shoes and the surgical face mask, and briefly appeared during reporter Meghan Kee’s live Saturday late afternoon broadcast in front of Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop Bar at the corner of Bourbon and St. Philip streets (pictured above).

The man was a participant in the World Naked Bike Ride held in New Orleans on the same day the city entered Phase Two reopening from COVID-19 lockdown restrictions.

CDC warns public against “aggressive” rats looking for food

(Photo: Matt Baume | CC)
An advisory issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention earlier this month is warning the public about hungry and “aggressive” rats on the hunt for new sources of food.

COVID-19 lockdown restrictions closed restaurants and businesses in dense commercial districts, including the French Quarter, cutting off rats’ main source of food and leading to the “unusual” behavior of trying to survive, according to a May 21 CDC advisory.

Some jurisdictions reported increased rodent activity following the coronavirus restrictions, according to the CDC.

Days after the coronavirus restrictions took effect in New Orleans, a TV crew filming an empty Bourbon Street captured a congregation of rats, which share a symbiotic relationship with the French Quarter.

Additionally, the CDC warned against a decline, then a resurgence in rat populations due to events such as hurricanes and recommended control measures such as bait stations.

Efforts to eradicate rats in the French Quarter, however, have been unsuccessful in the neighborhood’s 300-year existence.

Read the CDC’s advisory here.