St. Louis Cemetery No. 2

Please go here. This was one of the most amazing things we have ever done in our life.
We showed up, and they were turning people away at the entrance. But we went across the street and there was a sign for Cemetery Tours on Demand and we met the most amazing woman, Denise, who gave us the best tour in all of New Orleans. She knew the Cemetery like the back of her hand, and she provided so much information it was almost overwhelming. Find her, she was the best.

I’m a sucker for historic places, tours, museums, etc. So this was a must see when we visited New Orleans. Several friends who’ve been to New Orleans told me we could come by and walk around, but this is not true. As of March 2015 you MUST be accompanied by a licensed tour guide during open hours only.
We showed up, a group of 10, on a cold Friday afternoon in January 2016, about 40 minutes before they closed for the day. The security guy at the entrance gave us a list of tour guides we could try and call to see if someone would drop by and give us a tour. Luckily, there was a tour guide just finishing a tour and said she would take us in. It would normally have been $ 20 a person, but since we had at least 8 people she gave us the group rate of $ 10 pp. Not sure what company she worked with or if she did our tour «on the side». We didn’t care since we were able to get in.
There is also no video recording allowed in the cemetery since a film crew came in and destroyed some graves back in the 1960’s. Since then, no video allowed. Photos are ok.
Highlights:
— There are a few spots where Marie Laveau is reputed to be buried
— Nicholas Cage’s future tomb
— Homer Plessy (Plessy vs. Ferguson) is also here
— The Protestant section is completely under ground since the cemetery is sinking
— Some tombs are pristine condition and others are crumbling, either way they are really neat to see
I loved the historical facts and legends of some of the people buried here.
Overall it was a good 40 – 45 minute tour. Got some cool photos and took in the culture.
I would say this is a definite must see at least once. I would suggest going on a weekday to try and avoid crowds and be able to linger instead of being hurried about.

Not worth the money! So first off it’s a very short tour. 2^nd, there is no truth to anything that your guild tells you. Let me try and explain! We walked through the cemetery on a very busy day. Our tour guide stopped on the way and told stories about all the different famous grave sites. Then as you walk around you stand next to and near other tour guides and you hear a completely different and almost opposite story about the same gravesite. It’s absolutely ridiculous.
Don’t get me wrong it’s a sight to see. Understanding how the wet soil in the New Orleans area affects the dead is very interesting. Some of the facts that you learn about the history makes everything worth while however it’s not worth the cost of the admission and unfortunately the lies and stories that are being told really ruined the expectations I had of this place.

I didn’t go into St Louis Cemetery #1 because it costs $ 20 to enter. You need a tour guide according to some city ordinance. Instead I went to St Louis Cemetery #2 which was very interesting. Lot of old crypts and wall vaults. Some of the plots are in disrepair and some are maintained through perpetual trusts. One wall vault in the center vault was open so you could see inside. Overall an interesting place to explore with lots of old Louisiana family names.

We took a tour from the voodoo museum and it was awesome. Nate is the perfect tour guide and kept us well entertained. It’s $ 25 per person and there were only 2 of us on that particular tour so it was great!

Ok, so this was interesting. I had never seen an over ground cemetery, and maybe giving it 5 stars sounds morbid, but you need to experience it.
We did not take a tour, but I think it would have been cool to do it. Walking around the dead for about 30 minutes was weird, a little scary, but a great experience.
Finding out why they don’t bury the dead was cool, I don’t want to spoil it have a tour guide tell you why…

«Just keepin’ it real»

Note: This review is for St. Louis #2 — not #1. This is not the more famous one with Nick Cage or Marie Leveau’s grave.
Due to completely idiotic and disrespectful people, tourists can no longer enter St. Louis #1 more a licensed guide. Yup, too many dickheads vandalized the tombs there are ruined it for everyone.
The guard at the gate of #1 mentioned that #2 is right around the corner so we came here instead.
You don’t get the glitz and fame of the other cemetery, but I enjoy the quiet and the under stated quality of #2. It’s interesting to look at the dates on the tombs and note how some have deteriorated so much more than others.
It’s a peaceful experience, albeit a bit morbid, to walk through the tombs and I think it is a nice place to take personal inventory and reflect on life etc etc etc blah blah.

This cemetery is really neat! We stopped by on a voodoo tour with Bloody Mary’s guide. Nicholas Cage has his family tomb here, and Voodoo Queen Marie Leveau is rumored to be buried here in about 10 different spots.
Also the LaLaurie couple responsible for all of those heinous experiments on slaves are rumored to rest in this cemetery as well.

Amazing experience. A must-​see when you’re in New Orleans. Very very cool to see Marie Laveau crypt. Seeing gravestones dating back to the early 1800’s

# 2 spans a three block area. #1 is a couple of blocks down, Marie Laveau and Nicholas Cage are there. Many tombs are deteriorated with missing names. Many are beautiful, even in their decay. Definitely worth looking and donating to the Save Our cemetery foundation. Memento homo, quia pulvis es, et en pulverum reverteris.

While in New Orleans we thought we have visited St. Louis Cemetery #2, but it looks like we made it to #1. We passed this cemetery while traveling through and it was packed, so it will be a stop on our next road trip.

Some people may feel weird about writing a review for a cemetery. But I don’t. So maybe I AM a weird one. There’s just a sort of tranquility I find being in a cemetery. But there was a different quality to this place. It felt alive, in a sense. It’s really hard to describe, and not really a spooky feeling, just different than what I’ve experienced at other ones.
I wandered here randomly around noon on a Sunday, and there were TONS of tour groups. Maybe 4 – 5 different ones, and of course people venturing out on their own as well. You could easily do what I did, and just piggyback on a couple of stories from experienced guides. I don’t think there’s any harm in listening to them talk about a grave, then moving on for some independent exploration.
I learned about the Voodoo Queen’s grave. There are multiple graves around this cemetery «for her», decorated with X’s and little trinkets: playing cards, flowers, coins, seashells, pieces of rope. He explained that multiple graves were dug for her so as to confuse any potential grave robbers. Her bones would do doubt be powerful for a voodoo spell, being the priestess that she was. He said that he’s been doing tours for a while, and he’s seen some expensive trinkets as offerings, like $ 100 bills, diamond wedding rings, pearl necklaces. And he advised, «If you want to leave a trinket, I suggest something small and simple. Because there are crackheads in the area at night and they WILL take your valuables.»
Another tomb of note is, of course, Nicholas Cage. He has an unusually shaped triangular tomb (Illuminati much?) that actually had a few lipstick kiss marks. Are there people that ACTUALLY love him that much? It was particularly interesting because his shiny future crypt is right next to a jumble of graves hundreds of years old and so weathered it’s hard to read the names.
I loved the way so many of these sites were laid out: stacked one on top of the other in above-​ground vaults (due to so much flooding in the region?). Since New Orleans has experienced multiple natural and unnatural disasters (yellow fever, floods, fires, hurricanes, etc.), they’ve had to build tombs up like apartment floors. I think there’s something fascinating about a place that has to consolidate their dead like that. Thousands of dead within a block. Now that’s efficient.
The overall look of the cemetery isn’t exactly nice… There are a good many fading and weathered tombs, and even a few broken headstones. There’s a semi-​pathway around the area, though. And by this, I mean there are some cobblestone paths, some hard dirt paths, and some gravel paths. That means that even after a rain, you’re able to keep your feet relatively dry if you pick out your pathway. There were a few places stretched between graves that were obviously homeless residences at night, since there were empty liquor bottles and piles of clothes. I didn’t actually see any homeless people when I went, though the rain might have had more to do with that than anything else.
PROS:
Interesting cemetery. If you’ve been to the run-​of-​the-​mill cemetery that’s 20 acres with lush bushes and fountains, this places is very unique in that it’s nothing like that.
There are random pathways of gravel and cobblestones, and most of the ground is hard dirt, so even after it rains, you can navigate around.
The Voodoo priestess Marie Laveau has a few tombs here (they’re the ones covered in Xs and trinkets), and there’s something delightfully creepy about them.
Coming in the afternoon on the weekend means you can piggyback or, ahem, eavesdrop on a tour guide, and learn some interesting facts for free.
Some really old sites that have aged beautifully and still get trinkets from family members, even though the tombs are hundreds of years old. You don’t see people caring about their ancestors like that at many other cemeteries.
There was a really cool plot that was strictly housed «for musicians, for free». Though they weren’t familiar to me, I know how many incredibly influential jazz musicians have called New Orleans home at one point.
CONS:
Even though there’s an effort to preserve this cemetery, a lot of tombs are cracked and/​or destroyed.
There’s not any kind of self-​guided tour that I’ve seen at other cemeteries.
Since there’s thousands of bodies in a block, it can be cramped and difficult to move around, especially if there are other people on the path.
THE VERDICT:
If you appreciate aged cemeteries (this one has been around since the late 1700s), with a unique concept of burial, you’re sure to appreciate this place. It’s small, but you can still (easily) get lost in the jumble of family plots and tombs stacked so high you can’t see any other tombs around. It’s a beautiful place, in the way that slightly dilapidated, over-​visited cemeteries tend to be. I love it in the sense that it’s got hundreds of years of history, and a dilapidated, fallen beauty about it. But there could definitely be some improvements.

We purchased a Groupon for this tour and got a good deal. Our group met at a coffee shop called PJ’s near Jackson Square. The tour guide was friendly, knowledgeable and personable. He gave us a good history of the whole area and architecture. We had a bit of a walk down to the cemetery and spent about an hour inside the cemetery. Lots of cool information about families buried there and why cemeteries are the way they are in NOLA. The Voodoo Queen Marie Leveau is buried here and Nicolas Cage has a tomb here waiting for his demise. A must see!

It’s weird to rate a cemetery? But trust me, it’s really cool!
So cool that Nicholas Cage wants to be buried here? Okay, he’s not that cool, but his grave is… interesting. Just check it out, trust me. It’s really crazy to see the type of decay versus the newer graves here. Plus, they’re all above ground, so it’s a totally different look than the cemetery’s elsewhere in the country.
I liked seeing the voodoo queen’s grave and seeing all the things left by people. Crazy to think of people drawing on the actual grave, but I bet she would have appreciated I t! Even if you’re not going through an official tour here, it’s worth it to walk through!

Yes Yes Yes!!!
So Cool.
So Creepy.
Wish I had time and money for a tour guide. I did listen in a bit as they past by though. I love all things haunted, scary, and ghost related so this was just the best. This is exactly what I would picture as a very old, run down cemetery in a movie… which I do believe it has been used in movies.
You will see some Voo Doo tombs, family tombs old and very new, and even Nicholas Cages future tomb… that ugly pyramid thing in the front… typical Nicky.
For any photographer, this place is a gold mine! I can’t explain what it is that makes this place so eery cool… but it is just super neat to wander alone down the rows of tombs and get lost. I can’t imagine how super it would be to do a night time tour! Ahh, get me back to NOLA!

So first things first, yeah this cemetery is located in a pretty sketchy part of town so you have to be careful when you go. With that said, it really should be counted among the historic cemeteries of New Orleans.
It is not PERFECTLY well kept, so a lot of the tombs are falling apart, while others are in pretty good condition. This isn’t as nice one of the fancier cemeteries like Metairie cemetery or something, but it still has it’s own charm nonetheless.

I had a conference I was going to all week, so I ran to get to this place on time!
I received a private tour. The guide explained the history, showed me Marie Laveau’s Tomb, took some photos for me, and showed me Nicolas Cage’s Family Tomb.
All the tombs look so different, and have so much history! I really enjoyed learning about how the flood affected the area, and how cemeteries are so different in NOLA.
He explained that people made wishes with XXX on Marie Laveau’s tomb, and if they came true, the came back and circled the XXX. However, I didn’t see any circles. I guess only tourists really make wishes.

I guess it’s kinda cool to see some of the scenery in person that you see in every single movie and TV show that is shot in New Orleans.
But at the end of the day, it’s still a dreary, pretty depressing activity. Some of the tombs are definitely very cool to look at. If you are nearby, I would definitely suggest walking through for a few minutes, but I wouldn’t bother making the trek here if you are coming from somewhere farther away. I dunno, add a star I guess if you really appreciate architecture and stuff like that, which I am too antsy to really stick around and look at for too long.
If, like me, you are looking for a way to kill time after a meal before it is reasonably acceptable to eat again, then this is a decent option.

What would William Carlos W. Unilocal?
The white stones
So much depends
upon
pale white
stones
crouched in
prayer
beneath the darkening
skies.

Perhaps it is morbid to review a cemetery, much less give it a five-​star rating. Okay, there are dead people in that place. Duh! What is interesting to me is the story about the people buried in there. So what if they are dead now? They lived once and their stories matter. Plus their final resting places have intricate and interesting architecture and design. There is also the fascinating Louisiana funeral traditions and practices to learn about.
I went here on a walking tour on a rainy day. One would think that this would distract from the experience but the story of the deceased captivated me so much that I ended up ignoring the weather for the most part. There is the tomb of Mr. Homer Plessy (look him up if you don’t know his name. He is very important in American history.). There is the future pyramid tomb of Nicolas Cage (really!). And of course, there are the purported tombs of the Voodoo Queen, Marie Laveau (don’t settle for the sensationalized history — Marie Laveau is a much more interesting character than the usual portrait of her.).
A note on the Laveau tombs, though. It is said that marking the tombs and making offerings will secure a wish. But please do remember that even though the cemetery is a tourist attraction, it is still a final resting place and is therefore sacred. Please show some respect. Don’t deface her tomb and don’t litter. The same rules should apply for all the tombs in there, as well.
Visit St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, but please bring your manners with you.