Bourbon St.
Also known as Home of the Drunken Fratboys
So, as a freshman in college, I asked a campus police officer what was legal at Tulane. I wanted to know whether it was okay to skateboard, because it is illegal at the last University I was at (UT). A friend of mine had also told me that at UNT, smoking cloves was illegal. So, with this in mind, I wanted to get the straight record on these activities at Tulane. He proceeded to tell me that as long as I was drinking from a paper or plastic cup, not a can or bottle, I was okay. I didn't even mean to get this information, it's not like I wanted to be one of the campus drunks or anything.
Anyway, Bourbon Street is just silly during the night. First off, no cars go there unless the driver has lost his everloving mind. People roam around in the streets, trashed beyond recognition, and stagger from balcony to balcony to participate in the cheapest form of prostitution available, bodies for beads. I can't say it hasn't been fun at all though. I saw my first violent arrest there, where a drunk at a strip club (a transvestite strip club, even) had put his hands in the wrong place. The police officer dropped the guy to the curb for taking a swing at an officer, blood was everywhere, it was insane. Later that evening, I was witness to a woman walking straight into a lamp post. The funny part is that afterwards, she looked at it, as if to say, "Why are you in my way? Who are you... to challenge me?"
I've gotten crocked there, and no, I shouldn't have been able to do so, but nevertheless, I advise drinking the 'Blue Crack' if you're into that sort of thing. It's fruity delicious, and since I have a low alcohol tolerance, one big-gulp sized cup of this stuff and I was floored. Luckily, I still haven't been one of the people to vomit all over this street, or piss on it. So yay for me.
A lot of people mention the positive aspects of this street, but one thing makes me shy away from it when I haven't been there in a while. The smell is intolerable. If you hit Bourbon four days in a row, you tend not to notice it anymore. But for those four days, it's like being locked in a port-a-potty after Rockfest. "No, it can't be that bad!" you may say, but you're wrong. There's just something about congealed curbside beer and puke, and the smell of the presents left by the horse drawn carriages that parade around the French Quarter that create an entirely disgusting aroma of decadent filthy nastiness.
In the daytime... Well, in the daytime everything just seems so eerie. People are all on the sidewalks, they're sober. The drunks stay inside the bars. Cars drive down the street. And it still stinks. It's almost too scary to think about...