Pirate's Alley
A narrow 600-foot cobblestone passage beside St. Louis Cathedral, Pirate's Alley was laid out as Orleans Alley South in the late 1700s and only officially renamed in 1964, its evocative title likely borrowed from a 1920s gift shop rather than any proven dealings of the privateer Jean Lafitte. Despite that romantic name, the alley sat hemmed by the Cabildo and the old Spanish prison, the Calabozo, whose stones still anchor the buildings that line it today. Local lore holds that in the small hours a lone figure can be seen walking the worn cobbles, some calling him the privateer Reginald Hicks, others the swashbuckler Lafitte himself, only to dissolve before anyone draws near. Visitors to Faulkner House Books report the phantom scent of pipe smoke left by William Faulkner, who wrote his first novel here in 1925, while passersby claim to hear the disembodied singing of Père Dagobert, the Capuchin priest who once buried the executed in secret. Whether privateer, author, or priest, the alley keeps its visitors company with footsteps that belong to no living person.
📍 Pirate's Alley, New Orleans, LA · Get directions