New Orleans for a Four-Year-Old, Mostly Streetcars

We came for jazz and gumbo. She came for the green streetcar, and won.

My daughter, now four and a half and therefore an expert, had one request for New Orleans: "the train on the street." So we rode the St. Charles streetcar, the green one, from Canal Street all the way up to Audubon Park, windows open, oak branches nearly brushing in, her face pressed to the glass the entire way. Forty minutes. Not one complaint. A miracle.

Audubon Park was full of joggers, ducks and a pelican who stared at us like a disappointed uncle. Then the Audubon Zoo, where the white alligators in the swamp exhibit lay so still she was sure they were plastic, until one blinked and she screamed with joy.

Lunch was food a child can approve of: fried shrimp and fries at Cantina Camarón Chico on Magazine Street, then a sno-ball from Sno-Ball Arcoíris, shaved ice under a syrup called nectar cream that is the colour of a flamingo and tastes like a birthday.

The nap happened on the streetcar back. In the evening we walked through Jackson Square, where a street brass band played "When the Saints Go Marching In" and she marched, very seriously, in circles, until the trumpeter bowed to her. She is still talking about it.

Lived April 18, 2026.