Pirates Alley

Pirates Alley is a narrow stone passage running along the side of the Saint Louis Cathedral. Local legend insists that Jean Lafitte and his crew plotted their smuggling routes in the dim light of these buildings, though historians suggest the alleyway mostly served as a quiet place for cathedral clergy to walk and pray. Regardless of the pirates, the damp walls have hosted writers like William Faulkner, who rented an apartment here in nineteen twenty-five to write his first novel, Soldiers Pay.