Mobile Realtyreality

This article is more than just about Mobile although I have only posted some portions that mentioned the city. The writer also discusses Monroeville, New Orleans, and other surrounding areas. We have always thought Mobile was a locale not familiar to a larger portion of the US and even the rest of the state of Alabama It’s our ‘little secret’ that Mobile is always hopping with plenty to do socially with hardly ever a dull moment and thriving despite a downturn in the economy on a national level.

Many of the more than 30,000 tourists who trek up to Monroeville each year start out in Mobile. The city has a population of 200,000, or double that if you include the suburbs. That is more than enough to support a lively gay scene. New Orleans is a little more than a two-hour drive away. After Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, thousands of evacuees permanently relocated in Mobile.

Seated on Mobile Bay, which opens onto the Gulf of Mexico, Mobile very much resembles New Orleans. In fact, Mobile is the birthplace of Mardi Gras in the United States, not New Orleans. It began there in 1703, 15 years before New Orleans was founded. The city celebrates Mardi Gras with a series of celebrations, including 34 Mardi Gras parades in the two-and-a-half weeks leading up to Fat Tuesday. The most sought-after of all the Mardi Gras balls is the one put on by a gay organization, the Order of Osiris (http://www.orderofosiris.com). The event has been growing in popularity since it began in 1980. It is usually held around the beginning of the city’s Mardi Gras celebrations. The city’s gay pride celebration is in April and it is marked by a series of activities and events spread out for three days and highlighted by a parade. This year, it featured a concert by Jennifer Holliday.

Despite the recession, tourism has remained strong in Mobile because it is still an easy and inexpensive drive for people coming from nearby cities and towns throughout the Gulf region. And unlike marquee cities like Las Vegas, New Orleans, or even San Francisco, which can raise public relations issues for executives spending corporate money for conferences, Mobile is seen as a more modest place to host a convention.

All of downtown Mobile is easily walkable and the gay bars in the downtown rainbow district are all within steps of one another. Mobile bars are allowed to stay open around the clock and it is a very late night scene. The only exception is on early Sunday morning when bars are prohibited from serving booze from 2 a.m. until noon. But many are licensed to as private clubs. That means they can stay open all morning on Sundays. You have to be a member to buy a drink at a private club but you can buy a one-day membership for as little as $1. The rules say you have to be sponsored by another member, but they can arrange that on the spot. For the full story in the Bay Area Reporter, see Mobile and beyond: Surprising Alabama.