Tag: New Orleans
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A Racehorse That Was as Fresh as Gambino’s!
Springtime is the Louisiana Derby, one of the country’s most popular horse races, and a key competition on the road to the iconic Kentucky Derby. In 1994, a champion racehorse from Lake Charles and a local rock legend resulted in an unexpected nod to Gambino’s Bakery! When we began looking through old Louisiana newspaper archives…
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Tutti, Gambino’s most colorful customer, goes missing!
Next door to our Baton Rouge bakery lived a beautiful, two-foot-tall macaw named Tutti. The rare parrot was valued at $3,000 in 1992 and was kidnapped that year. This is the harrowing tale of how Tutti was recovered. One of the most enjoyable aspects of our 75th anniversary has been rediscovering three-quarters-of-a-century worth of stories!…
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Home Sweet Home: Gambino’s Locations Over the Last 75 Years
As part of our 75th anniversary, we’re digging through the archives to find everything we can about our history. In the process, we’re learning things even we had lost to time! Today, we’re looking at all of the locations that Joe Gambino’s Bakery has occupied in Louisiana since its founding in 1949. We wanted to…
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How 75 Years of Help Wanted Ads Tell the Story of Gambino’s and the Wider World
In celebrating the 75th Anniversary of Joe Gambino’s Bakery, we scoured local newspaper archives to see what we could learn about our past. One window into that past was through Help Wanted ads. They tell us a lot about our bakery, as well as how much our world has changed these last seven-and-a-half decades. It’s…
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The New Orleans Bridge That Has Spanned Bayou St. John for More Than a Century
Whether you call it Magnolia Bridge, Cabrini Bridge, Bayou Bridge, or Old Bayou Bridge, this is the story of the beautiful blue structure that has spanned Bayou St. John and several generations of Louisiana residents. If you spend time around Bayou St. John, you most likely have noticed Magnolia Bridge. Blue and beautiful, it’s also…
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How the Horses in City Park’s Famous Carousel Learned to Fly
As the weather cools down, New Orleanians everywhere can finally return to outdoor activities! City Park is a favorite with more than 16 Million visits annually. The 20th most visited park in America has tons to do. A walk through the peaceful Couturie Forest. A kayak on beautiful Bayou Metairie. A round or two of mini-golf…
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Madame X: The New Orleans Mona Lisa Who Created Scandal in Paris
Surely there are loads of New Orleanians counted among New York City’s 8.5 million residents. But I’d bet few, if any, are so scandalous as Madame X. To be fair, she doesn’t live in New York. She doesn’t live anywhere, actually. She passed away on July 25 of 1915. But a painting of the controversial…
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Discovering Relics from the 1884 World’s Fair Inside and Outside New Orleans
Recently, we wrote a blog post about the 1984 New Orleans World’s Fair, known more formally as the 1984 Louisiana World Exposition. If you talk to New Orleanians who were in the city during that time, the six-month-long event was a memorable one. In fact, you can still find relics — both in New Orleans…
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Demourelles Island: The Story of New Orleans’ Little-Known Island on Bayou St. John
You most definitely know about Bayou St. John. It’s one of New Orleans’ treasures, a sanctuary along which you can sit with friends for a drink, jog, or — if the season’s right — maybe even boil some crawfish. But did you know Bayou St. John is also home to an island, called Demourelles Island,…
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Rediscover the 1984 World’s Fair in Present Day New Orleans
For a long time, hosting a World’s Fair was an extremely big deal. People would travel across the globe to a host city to experience the newest, cutting edge technologies and learn about different cultures. New Orleans hosted its first World’s Fair in 1884, mostly in what is now Audubon Park. But our fair city…
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The New Orleans Streetcar Through the Years: Part 1
When the sun is shining, there’s hardly an image more iconic in New Orleans than that of a streetcar rumbling down St. Charles Avenue. Tennesee Williams knew it when he wrote his 20th century masterpiece, A Streetcar Named Desire. By then, railway technology had already been spreading across the globe for a hundred years —…
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Boeuf Gras: Get Your Carnival Fill Before Lent
If you’ve seen the Rex parade on Fat Tuesday it’s likely you’ve noticed the enormous white bull sitting atop one of the iconic parade’s signature floats. And you’re not alone. Decades of New Orleanians have seen the same bewildering sight. Welcome to Boeuf Gras. The massive creature is known as Boeuf Gras and is one…
