by Alec Newell
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Photo by Newell - 2015
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| Photo by Newell - 2015 |
The Big Easy Revisited: March 2015
My initial
reaction was bewilderment. The French
Quarter looked like someone had recently taken a fire hose and a paintbrush to
it. I began my self guided tour on a
week day morning and noted several merchants washing down the street gutters
with garden hoses. The earthy smells of
stale beer, urine, garbage and horse manure that I'd remembered from years
before, had been replaced by the smell of disinfectant, not just bleach, but floral scented disinfectant.
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| Photo by Newell - 2015 |
There were
other changes too. Many of the Quarter's
old open-sided dive-bars had been replaced by trendy little eateries; the
produce stalls and fish stands in the French market had been supplanted by
smoothie stands and tee shirt shops; and the rare cigarette butts to be seen on
the sidewalks, all seemed to be concentrated around clusters of the mostly
white, suburban pan handlers with the word NEED conspicuously scrawled on their
cardboard signs. Busloads of Asian
tourists with digital cameras, and tour guided yuppies on Segue scooters seemed
to have taken over the mostly vacant streets that I had remembered as once being
choked by throngs of boisterous drunken revelers. I was shocked. The bones of the Quarter, the buildings and
the streets, were all still there, but the spirit of the place seemed to have
evaporated.
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| Photo by Newell - 2015 |
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Photo by Newell - 2015
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What had
once made the French Quarter so appealing had been its unabashed grittiness and
the clear eyed, unapologetic humor about what went on there. I had also begun to suspect that the aura of
discomfort I was feeling had less to do
about changes in the Quarter than it was about changes in the guy walking
around in it. Time passes, people age, and
things change. So why had I suddenly
become so disturbed by cleanliness and order? With the onset of age I had acquired an almost compulsive
need to impose some measure of order on my world, if only to maintain the
illusion that I was still somehow in control of it.
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Photo by Newell - 2015
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| Photo by Newell - 2015 |
My first
trip to the French Quarter had been in 1970.
I'd come for Mardi Gras that year.
After a night of celebrating, I woke up early the next morning,
shivering on a bus stop bench. I
remember thinking that the whole event had seemed like an alcoholic version of
Woodstock. My second trip to New Orleans
had been in the late 1980s for a sporting event. The trip had been planned to avoid the Mardi
Gras crowds, but the culture shock I'd experienced on my first visit hadn't
diminished much. I had graduated from
sleeping on public benches to staying at a Motel 6, but by hometown standards,
the Big Easy was still a wild and crazy place.
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| Photo by Newell - 2015 |
I was
probably naive not to have expected the place to have changed, I certainly had. I had come to New Orleans this time, on a
plane with my wife. She was travelling
as a consultant to a national meeting for art educators. We were staying in a sprawling high rise,
convention center hotel on the riverfront, and were being treated to lavish
dinners at some of New Orleans finest restaurants. Her days were spent presenting workshops for
teachers while I was free to explore the city on foot. A day or two into our stay, I contacted Janet MacDonell, an
old Fletcher High School classmate who'd been living in New Orleans since 1966. It was a rainy day, and she graciously
offered to not only give me a driving tour of the Crescent City, but also to take me to lunch at a 'mom and pop'
eatery frequented mostly by the locals.
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Photo by Newell - 2015
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During lunch
Janet acknowledged that I hadn't been the first person to notice changes
in the Quarter. The culture there had
shifted some, but she was obviously quite proud of, and enthusiastic about, the unique
vibrancy that still animated a post Katrina, New Orleans. It was at this point that I began to loosen
up a bit and, as the natives say, Laissez les bons
temps rouler, or "roll with it."
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| Photo by Newell - 2015 |
By the
weekend major foot traffic had returned to the French Quarter and with it, some
of the old magic. There were Dixie Land
bands and open air art exhibits in Jackson Square, street performers, cathedrals, museums, and antique stores with
museum quality merchandise which the owners were perfectly happy to let you
handle or photograph.
In addition
to all the great eateries, I had stumbled across some the Quarter's more
interesting watering holes, like the bar in the Napoleon House, or the Carousel Bar and Lounge in the
Hotel Monteleone. The Carousel looks like a gaudy carnival ride
that makes one complete revolution every 15 minutes. It's the only rotating bar in New Orleans. Among some the bars more notable patrons have
been: Tennessee Williams, Ernest Hemmingway, Winston Groom, the author of Forrest Gump, and Truman Capote who was
proud to have once been a fixture in the place.
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| The Carousel Bar - Photo by Newell |
The French
Quarter is actually a relatively small place, but just to the South and West of
it is the Warehouse District whose old buildings host some the Quarter's overflow businesses. There are restaurants like Mother's, the Ruby
Slipper Cafe, Mulates, the "Original
Cajun Restaurant" with live Zydeco music and a large wooden dance
floor. There is Peche, a hot new seafood grill, and Lucy's,
which is a bar and restaurant with a beach theme. On one of the old brick buildings along Julia
Street, there is a bronze pack that reads,
"ON THIS SITE IN 1897 NOTHING HAPPENED."
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Photo by Newell - 2015
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| Photo by Newell - 2015 |
At 701
Baronne Street, just outside the Warehouse District, there is a neighborhood
grocery store and delicatessen called Rouses. It is open from 6:00-am to
12:00-am, and sells liquor seven days a week as well. The variety, quality, and prices of food and
wines there are amazing. It serves the
well heeled, high rise urban condo dwellers from just up the street, and it is a hang-out for
school children and street people who dine on take-out meals or snacks at
sidewalk tables just outside the store.
Strolling
down a street in the Quarter later that week,
I noticed that the service door to one of the restaurants was standing
wide open to take advantage of the beautiful spring morning air. Inside, the kitchen help was busy prepping for
lunch so I paused to take a picture. One
of the prep cooks held up a hand with five extended fingers and waved it. I raised a hand and waved back in acknowledgement.
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| Photo by Newell - 2015 |
"No,
no, man," he said still waving the five fingers, "Five dollars!"
"Five
dollars?"
"Yea
man, five dollars."
"You
want five dollars for me to take your picture?"
"Yea, man."
I paused a
second then started laughing, "That ain't worth five dollars." I
lowered the camera and still laughing, waved again, "Later."
The prep
cook laughing too now, waved back, "Yea man, later."
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Photo by Newell - 2015
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I'm glad to
report that after my initial misgivings, the humor and spirit of the Big Easy are
still very much alive, and doing well.
If you ever get a chance to visit the place, don't pass it up.
