Meanwhile, In New Orleans...
As Fat Tuesday jiggled and giggled its way into Ash Wednesday, the scene on Bourbon Street was a carnival of sound, smells and sights: It was Mardis Gras - the climax of Carnival.
“This is the one day a year where I, as a New Orleanian, feel superior to everyone else in the country who are at their desks checking e-mail and voice mail,” said Lloyd Webre, a New Orleans native who lives in Atlanta.
Promptly at midnight, a phalanx of mounted New Orleans police officers, street sweepers and garbage trucks moved down Bourbon Street to restore order after a weeklong party Big Easy style.
The drinking and dancing continued into dawn, but many of the estimated 1 million or more people who converged on the city had begun returning home, leaving New Orleans to clean itself up.
No major problems were reported and police were expected to release arrest figures Wednesday. The ankle-deep trash will be weighed to get an idea of whether the enormous crowds set a record.
The scene was less amusing in Philadelphia, where a dozen stores were looted and more than 200 people were arrested as police tried to clear thousands of revelers from a popular entertainment district.
Crowds smashed the window of a liquor store and broke into a boutique, a record store and other businesses on South Street, a trendy stretch of barrooms and shops at the edge of downtown.
“Disappointing is the only word I can think to say,” Joe Martz, the city's managing director, said as he walked down the trash-strewn street early Wednesday. “It's disgraceful.”
Seattle police made a handful of arrests Tuesday night as hundreds of revelers partied in the Pioneer Square area. TV cameras picked up a few scuffles but no significant violence was reported.
Authorities in Austin, Texas, preemptively canceled their Mardi Gras parade after 69 people were arrested and 31 others injured in an outbreak of violence by partygoers over the weekend.
But in New Orleans, the crowds began growing by 7 a.m. Tuesday in anticipation of the day's lavish parades on the final day before Lent. Families became picnickers, munching on gumbo and po-boy sandwiches.
By midmorning, the narrow streets of the historic French Quarter were filling with revelers. One man came dressed as a Florida ballot with a pot belly and a sign declaring himself a pregnant chad.
Others wore very little indeed.
Ellen Simmons, a 37-year-old accountant, wore only a thong and her shoes. To cover her chest, she wore strings of beads the plastic trinkets tossed from balconies and parade floats. Going topless in public isn't something she would do at home in Irvine, Calif., she said.
“But this is a real anything-goes atmosphere,” Simmons said.
“This is amazing,” Marilyn Campbell of Fairborn, Ohio, said as she watched the costumed and sometimes barely clad show go b. “You just stand there and laugh.”
By nightfall, many of the morning revelers were still in the French Quarter and still drinking. Smoke swirled in the air, mingling with the stench of stale booze. The gutters were filled with food and discarded cups.
The Quarter's famous iron-wrought balconies overflowed with partiers who tossed necklaces to those on the street. In exchange, many women gladly exposed their breasts and were quickly surrounded by men with video cameras, intent on capturing the image.
“It's like nothing else in the world the world's biggest freak show,” said Wolf Martin, 57, a Los Angeles software engineer who was attending his first Mardis Gras in New Orleans.
Much later, a man was spied sprawled out on the sidewalk, reeking of alcohol. Trying to wake him up, a trombonist jumped up and down and played “We're in the Money.”
But even with the serenade, the man remained in a stupor.
Mardi Gras was over.
By DOUG SIMPSON
©MMI The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed