The Party's Over In New Orleans
"Ladies and gentlemen, Mardi Gras 2007 is over. Good night!"
With that announcement from a police bullhorn in New Orleans, revelers moved out and sanitation crews moved in.
Police shut down the Mardi Gras party at midnight every year as Ash Wednesday and the Lenten season arrive, reports . Massive crowds partied all day, parade after parade, thrilling revelers. Then the party moved to the French Quarter.
Thousands of hurricane-weary residents joined with rowdy visitors for Fat Tuesday, taking a break from rebuilding New Orleans to put on wild costumes and celebrate the second Mardi Gras since Hurricane Katrina.
John Ferguson, who is still rebuilding his house almost 18 months after the storm, said of the celebration: "We never needed it more."
"I work all day at my job; then I work all night and all weekend on my house," Ferguson said. "I just want to eat, drink and have fun today."
Many spectators spent the day along the parade routes or in the French Quarter, where the first Mardi Gras parade of the day was staged by the 1,250-member Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club, a predominantly black group that wears grass skirts and black face makeup in parody of stereotypes from the early 1900s, when it was founded.
"I'm hyped up," said Ike Williams, a 42-year-old Atlanta contractor who is black, marching in his first parade as a member of Zulu's Walking Warriors. "I couldn't sleep last night. This is the center of the universe right now."
The annual free-for-all party ended at midnight when police — some walking, some on horseback — followed by street sweepers marched down Bourbon Street declaring Carnival is over.
"We're going to make it happen," Nagin told the crowd at Gallier Hall, which served as city hall for more than a century. "We're going to rebuild this city regardless."
Nagin urged tourists to spend money. "We need the tax revenue bad," he said.
Thousands packed the 12 blocks of Bourbon Street, and more flowed into the French Quarter as the parades wound down with the setting sun. Police said there were three shootings and one fatal stabbing, but they occurred far from the parade route and were considered unrelated to Mardi Gras.
The crowds appeared larger than last year, when an estimated 700,000 people were in the city for the final weekend and Mardi Gras. The city's 30,000 hotel rooms were 95 percent occupied, according to Fred Sawyers, president of the Greater New Orleans Hotel & Lodging Association.
Along some parade routes, crowds listened to Pete Fountain's Dixieland jazz as his Half Fast Marching Club kicked off the day. It was the 46th time the Grammy-winning clarinetist had made the march from Commander's Palace restaurant in the uptown section to the Mississippi River.
"This is like old times," said Fountain, 76, who lost his house along with his gold records and collection of instruments in the hurricane. "New Orleans will always get ready for a party."
Corinne Branigan, 40, wore a brown T-shirt with the slogan, "New Orleans. Established 1718, Re-established 8-29-05," referring to the date Katrina struck the city.
"This is everything that's great about New Orleans rolled into three days," Branigan said. "Food, music — we've got the best marching bands in the country. It's like a big neighborhood. Everything else is forgotten for the time being."
In the French Quarter, the celebration was more raucous as revelers swapped flashes of flesh for beads tossed from balconies.
Costumes ranged from the glamorous to the satirical.
Judy Weaver, 49, and R.M. Elfer, 50, wore nuns' habits with camouflage capes as the Angry Little Sisters of the Apocalypse. They carried rulers bearing the slogan "weapons of mass instruction," and what they called novena bombs — originally, toilet floats — and rapid-fire rosaries.
"We are cleaning up crime in the city," Weaver said.
But Jeff Friedland couldn't disguise his frustration with the slow pace of post-Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts. In fact, he chose to wear it on his sleeve.
The 57-year-old joined the celebrations Tuesday at the Mardi Gras carnival by donning a low-budget costume of a house painter's jumpsuit wrapped in red tape.
"Abysmal. Uncaring. Bordering on immoral," is how Friedland, 57, described more than 17 months of haggling with five different insurance companies and three mortgage companies over damage to his home and two rental properties he owns in New Orleans.
"No leadership from government. That's my biggest complaint," he said.
Many of the revelers vented their frustration and anger in a humorous way, donning homemade costumes with themes that were far more political than prurient.
A popular target for their sly jabs was Gov. Kathleen Blanco's grant program that offers eligible homeowners up to $150,000 in compensation to get back into their homes. Checks have been slow to come, say critics.
Allen Bender dressed as a housewife with a bathrobe and curlers in her hair and held a fake, oversized check for $150,000 signed by "Goobernor K. Blanco." He was flanked by two friends wearing jackets that said "LRA Prize Patrol," a reference to the storm-spawned Louisiana Recovery Authority.
Bender said his grant application was rejected because it concluded that his $70,000 flood insurance payment should have covered all the damage to his home. But Bender said he only got half of what he needed to rebuild.
"It's a hit this year," he said of his costume as other revelers snapped his photograph. "Last year we dressed as insurance adjusters from hell."
Even a tourist like Annie Clowes, 43, of Newburyport, Mass., found the political-themed costumes more amusing than the flesh-baring ones. Clowes said it's impossible to celebrate Fat Tuesday in New Orleans without thinking of Katrina.
"They didn't let it get them down. They still have Mardi Gras," she said.
In addition to the political costumes, revelers' outfits ranged from the glamorous to the satirical. Five women dressed as NASA astronauts wearing diapers.