That feeling turns 300 this year, which marks the anniversary of when Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville founded the French Quarter. From the sense I got on the ground, though, the tricentennial ranks pretty far below Mardi Gras as a thing the city is excited about. Already on St. Charles Avenue, where I was staying, ladders were set up for the purpose of viewing parades that were two weeks out, and strings of beads from years past were dripping off every oak tree like moss. “We’re so cool, even our trees have bling,” I overheard someone say.

Many people I talked to didn’t even know the 300th was happening. “Should I be excited about it? I guess I’m part of this 300 years celebration in that I was born and raised here, and I’m 54, so of that 300 years I’ve got half a century,” said Curtis Walker, an Uber driver who loves music and recommends the late-night club Seal’s Class Act. “I mean, I’m not getting no money from it. But maybe I’ll get a lot of rides.”

Still, 300 years is a significant milestone for a city that often seems to be at risk of sinking into the sea. That it was so very nearly lost 12 years ago during Hurricane Katrina — or that there’s another one coming — is not lost on residents, who defend their home turf with fierce pride. I experienced that pride a bit when I wrote something offhand on Twitter about how locals were ending conversations by telling me to “be safe,” and that I got the impression that no one walked around after dark. It was a badly worded tweet, though not entirely off base. People were indeed telling me to be safe. New Orleans has a notorious violent crime rate, one that predominantly affects black men, but that sometimes spills over to tourists and residents. (Solo women travelers, as always, should exercise extra caution , no matter the outcry of locals. )

But the city also has, I’ve learned, a very forgiving spirit. The same people who sent me angry messages had turned warm within minutes. One woman I met at the Pinettes show, Renee Lapeyrolerie, wrote me, “Badly worded, not a crime, just a sin lol enjoy the rest of your stay,” and then advised me to put my phone in a zip-lock bag in case it rained.

The city is certainly in the midst of a post-Katrina upswing, with plenty of new dining and drinking spots (the St. Roch food market, Latitude 29, for instance ), but there are still boarded-up houses in many neighborhoods and a kind of lingering sadness about the hurricane’s most lasting impact, which was a loss of community. Almost every New Orleans native I met told me about friends and family who fled flooded homes and have yet to be able to return.

Among residents’ other regular complaints are the roads, which often seem to be more pothole than concrete, and the water quality, which had much of the city on a “boil water” advisory ( including for bathing) due to frozen pipes just days before I arrived. At the satirical Krewe du Vieux, the first major parade of Mardi Gras season, most floats were rebukes of the Sewerage & Water Board, whose failure to maintain drainage pumps resulted in damaging floods this summer. (Other targets were President Trump and the celebrity chef John Besh, who stepped down from his local restaurant empire in the wake of sexual misconduct accusations.)

What is thriving is the arts scene. There are, of course, world-class art museums, the slavery-themed Whitney Plantation Museum, and the international arts fair Prospect 4 (which ends on Feb. 25), not to mention the wig artists at Fifi Mahony’s in the Quarter. But it’s school-level performing arts where the most exciting work is taking place. I got a chance to visit ReNEW Cultural Arts Academy, a public arts magnet middle school in Irish Channel, as their marching band got ready for Mardi Gras. They were as impressive as any professional musicians you’ll find on Frenchmen Street. “A lot of these kids, their parents weren’t in a band because of the migration to other states,” said Tenell Moore, the band director. “So we’re building new ‘bandheads,’ what we refer to them in New Orleans. We’re pushing hard to get it back.”