The Big Easy Does It

What social distancing? Frenchmen Street on Saturday (WSJ photo)

New Orleans is coming back.

Indoor dining, restaurants and bars are allowed to operate at 100% capacity with distancing and masks, though dance clubs are closed...

The Royal Frenchmen’s April occupancy rates are 72% of what they would ordinarily be, up from 56% in March and a low of zero during the pandemic’s peak, general manager Tyler Daly said. The hotel has sold out every weekend since the beginning of March.,,

At many downtown and French Quarter hotels, overall occupancy has been 90% or sold out on weekends and about 40% overall throughout April.

I visited New Orleans once (on business), had a great time, took a leisure day with the family, promised myself to come back, yet never did.

If I did have a bucket list, a return to the Big Easy would be on it.

Mr. P likes this couple's porch.

Note: New Orleans visitors and residents need to watch out for Mr. P, a peacock, who has no fear of humans and takes over spaces that he takes a fancy to.

The neighborhood peacock, also known as Petey—or, sometimes, Picasso, for the abstract designs his pecks leave on cars—showed up in Pigeon Town around 2008. Mr. P found a special tree to call home until last year, when Hurricane Zeta felled its roosting branch.

“He freaked out when he saw,” said Lisa Palumbo, a University of New Orleans marketing instructor. “He either honks like a goose or heehaws like a donkey when he’s upset.”

...Pigeon Town had divided over Mr. P a few years back. Some residents complained to the city about the bird screeching all night, damaging the paint on cars and terrifying those going about their workaday lives. Peacocks are known to be aggressive and territorial, especially during mating season. In response, the Louisiana Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals tried to trap Mr. P. The peacock kept a low-profile until the trappers gave up and left.