A chapel with heart … and feet, and brains
There are 38 cemeteries in New Orleans. Most visitors will venture into St. Louis No.1, where Marie Laveau is buried in the second most visited gravesite in America (Elvis’ tomb in Memphis is the first). Actor Nicolas Cage will one day be interred in St. Louis No.1. His chosen vault is easy to identify because of the lipstick kisses blanketed across the front. Film studios seem to prefer Lafayette No.1 in the Garden District, which has been used as a ready-made set in many movies, including Interview with a Vampire.
But one of the coolest, if lesser known, spots is the grotto inside the chapel found in the St. Roch Cemetery. The small room is filled with tokens of gratitude for illnesses that have been cured: plaques etched with “Thanks” or “Merci,” ancient abandoned leg braces and crutches that look more like torture devices, plaster and cement statues of previously afflicted body parts—hands, feet, hearts, brains—all healed through prayer at St. Roch’s. There are often left-behind silk flowers, handwritten notes, and photographs of loved ones.
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Address 1725 St. Roch Avenue, New Orleans, LA 70117 | Hours Mon–Fri 8:30am–4pm, closed Sat and Sun| Tip The Sunday mass at the adjoining church, Our Lady Star of the Sea Catholic Church, is quite an experience. Priest Tony Ricard is a huge NFL Saints fan. During one mass, he ripped off his clerical robes to reveal a Saints jersey, and the choir broke into “The Crunk Song”—the football team’s anthem. The congregation popped open their black-and-gold umbrellas, and the whole church did a second-line parade down the aisle.
In 1867, Father Peter Leonard Thevis arrived from Germany to minister to the neighborhood’s predominantly German parishioners. The area was once called “Little Saxony.” Yellow fever had killed more than 3000 in New Orleans that year. Father Pete gathered his congregation and together they prayed to St. Roch, the patron saint of dogs, plague, and pestilence, to intercede on their behalf. When not one parishioner subsequently contracted the disease, he began raising money to build a shrine to the saint. It was completed in August 1876.
The cemetery outside the grotto is lined with 14 tableaus representing the stations of the cross. Life-sized and brilliantly white statues are set against teal-painted backgrounds. Bring your camera and, if you’re suffering from a hangover, may I suggest a plaster cast of a brain?
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