One of the French Quarter’s most storied addresses is filling its fall calendar with stories that belong to New Orleans itself. The Historic BK House & Gardens, the 1826 Creole townhouse and National Historic Landmark at 1113 Chartres Street, is hosting two standout programs this season: Katrina’s Classroom, running October 16 through 20, and a Mardi Gras Indian presentation with Big Chief Darryl Montana on October 21, 2026.
Katrina’s Classroom grows out of a remarkable piece of citizen history. In the months after Hurricane Katrina, French Quarter resident Peter Schock, his wife Susan, and neighbor Chris Kientz documented the storm’s aftermath on 27 hours of community-shot video, a project that became the documentary ‘RESCUE’ and a segment in the national ‘America 250: The Power of Place’ initiative. The BK House program shares that material and the lessons of neighbors helping neighbors rebuild.
Days later, the house turns to one of the city’s most radiant traditions. Big Chief Darryl Montana of the Yellow Pocahontas Black Masking Indians will share stories and insight into thesuits, beadwork, and neighborhood pride behind the Mardi Gras Indians, a culture carried by New Orleans’ Black community for generations.
The house itself is part of the pleasure. Once home to novelist Frances Parkinson Keyes, whose name it still bears, BK House preserves a walled garden, period rooms, and two centuries of Quarter life. A visit this fall pairs that beauty with programming that celebrates how New Orleans remembers, creates, and comes back together.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
