NEW ORLEANS — On Saturday night at the Howlin’ Wolf club in downtown New Orleans, they gathered to say goodbye. There were newspaper hats, brass instruments, toasts, rants, old friends who had not seen one another in years and recent co-workers who might not be seeing one another for a while.

New Orleans is famous for marking death with a celebration, and this was no different. More than 300 current and former colleagues, family members and well-wishers gathered to raise a final glass to The Times-Picayune’s 175-year run as a daily newspaper.

“A lot of these people might not have come back for a regular funeral, but they came back for this one,” says Rebecca Theim, a former Times-Picayune reporter who founded DashThirtyDash (from the newspaper code -30- marking the end of a story), the organization that held the event as a way to raise money for laid-off staff members. “Everyone’s scattered to the winds. But we came back for this.”