The Big Easy Revisited

 by Alec Newell



Photo by Newell - 2015

 

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  The earthy smells of stale beer, urine, garbage and horse manure that I'd remembered from years before, had been replaced by the smell of disinfectant, not just bleach, but floral scented disinfectant.

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  Many of the Quarter's old open-sided dive-bars had been replaced by trendy little eateries; the produce stalls and fish stands in the French market had been supplanted by smoothie stands and tee shirt shops; and the rare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.

 

Photo by Newell - 2015





Photo by Newell - 2015
 

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.

Photo by Newell - 2015

 

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.



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.



Photo by Newell - 2015
 

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."



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.



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."

Photo by Newell - 2015

 

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.

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."

Photo by Newell - 2015
 

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.