Posted on 08/28/2007 9:51:44 PM PDT by LdSentinal
Last summer I was the poster girl for New Orleans . My picture ran in the Sunday paper with the headline Generation K. I smiled, flanked by hot pink oleander and golden hibiscus.
In the interview I praised the city for its social warmth and tropical elegance. I declared my goal to tell stories about its stumbling, slow recovery. I'd quit bussing tables at an Uptown bistro so I could report full time.
I've reported for this network and others on crime, housing, insurance and tourism. But unlike most reporters who fly in for a few weeks at a time, I've LIVED here. So, when I go to the drug store, and chat with the drug store clerk ...she recognizes me. Last year on Labor Day she was crying. In the past, she'd have thrown the family picnic. Her house flooded to the roof. Some of her family died; the rest, left. No more family, no more picnics. Then there's the family I met at the mechanic. They were waiting for an oil change. They were part of the crowd at the Superdome after the flood. A bus took them to Arkansas. That's where they live now. They had a cooler of andouille sausage to bring back. No more hot dogs in the gumbo!
I've taken fierce pride in being a local. When I travel I'm a junky for talk about the city. Someone will ask "So, how is it down there?" I launch into a litany. There are busted traffic lights, leaky sewer lines, mountains of debris, the skyrocketing murder rate, miles of desolation, and the levees still aren't fixed. But you should come, I say. It's like a battered beauty queen. Hard to look at, and messed up even more on the inside, but still so regal and charming. This is where the listener I've taken hostage turns away slowly to engage someone less insane.
They don't understand that I'm in love. I talk to friends about New Orleans like a dysfunctional romance. I gush over it one day, then call up bawling and heartbroken the next. Why can't it change? Stop being self-destructive and violent? It has so much potential.
Recently, my blinders started to come off. It was building for awhile. My friend Helen Hill was murdered in her home;other friends have been mugged. We don't go out much any more...
But then there was this hot Friday night last month. I went on the perfect date with New Orleans . Saw live, local music, danced with friends on the stage, then headed home through my neighborhood of craftsman cottages and angel trumpet trees.
A block from my door, I was attacked from behind by a stranger. I escaped, with the help of my roommate. The case is moving forward, so I can't say much more than that.
Now I'm a jilted lover of the city. I'm angry and confused. Which is the real New Orleans? The one that's violent and desperate? Or the one that coos softly, and caresses me? The answer, of course, is both.
I just hauled my things out of New Orleans in a big truck. I am still in love with the city, but it's hard to trust it. Maybe we'll both heal, and the relationship will rekindle. I don't know what - or how long - that might take.
That’s what happened when the levees broke...it was the local governments that screwed the people...not Bush [as hard as Bush tried to prevent the suffering of those people].
I adore New Orleans.
My grandparents and parents honeymooned there, and I planned to take Xena’s Guy there for the Jazz Festival in 2006 as our honeymoon (yeah, eight months after our wedding, but who cared?).
Preservation Hall, the Morning Call, Jackson Square with the psychics and the bands, the street parades, the Cafe du Monde, the jazz museum . . .
As a former resident, I also can tell you that she nails the analogy.
That’s why I did.
***********************
As Louis sang.....
DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT MEANS TO MISS NEW ORLEANS?
Do you know what is means to miss New Orleans
I miss it, each night and day
The longer I stay away
Miss the moist covered vines
The tall sugar pines
Where mocking birds use to sing
And I like to see the lazy Mississippi
Are hurrying to spring
The Mardi Gras memories
Of creol tunes that fill the air
I dream of oleanders in June
And soon I’m wishing that I was there
Do you know what is means to miss New Orleans
And there is something more
I miss the one I care for
More than I miss New Orleans
I’ve seen bigger idiots in life, but you’re in the running.
“You did not go to the right places and do the right things.”
Actually we were there for a week long visit (Metterie) and incrementally toured the City, but as I recall we blew past Bourbon St. as our tour guide (a relative) didn’t want to linger there. Most of our time was spent in a car traveling about with lifelong local relatives providing history etc., but we had the opportunity to borrow a car and drive about ourselves as well. My statement and opinion of N.O. comes from having been out by ourselves and seeing, and smelling is believing.
I know an architect I worked with many years ago, when things were marginally better, in San Francisco, who sacrificed his children (literally) to multiculturalism by sending them to the local public school.
Beatings, muggings, rapes, constant intimidation and substandard education but--- they got a giant dose of "multiculturalism".
I often wonder how they fared as adults, or if they even got there.
Sad.
“But if New Orleans is ever going to be a decent place for people to live and not just a great tourist spot, the people will have to stop embracing corruption and cronyism as a way of life.”
Hard to imagine, but during the “reign” of the Mafia Godfather Carlo Marcello things were better.
Sorta akin to Buddy Cianci’s terms as of Mayor of Providence. Not the most ethical guy (Yes, he did a stretch in Club Fed) but he did turn the city into quite a jewel of a place.
“But New Orleans seems to embrace it in a way I’ve not seen elsewhere.”
For sure. That’s why they need a Don Corleone to keep them in line. (Ouch. I’m making my head hurt.)
Lets also not forget the proliferation of hustler hotels, er, arcades in and around time square, and the pre-gentrified East Village/Alphabet City, and one can see that even Manhattan was not immune to the problems of the outer boroughs.
Seems to me that things are under control in and around the Douglass Houses and the other projects in Manhattan. Any idea what happened?
Are you sure you’re on the right thread?
Nah, she’s cute. Not guilty.
Remember when the city laid off 6,000 NYPD? There were entire Pcts with fewer than three radio cars on the street during peak hours. The Patrol Division made allowance for this by throwing two or three guys into roaming 'anti-crime' cars, usually livery-cab looking vehicles. They'd hit the hot-spots. Now NYPD is an army of nearly 40,000 sworn-to guys.
Rudy changed the tone of permissable civility and swept the streets of low-level criminals, changing the perception of the quality of life almost overnight. This stemmed the exodus and opened the doors for new comers.
The nineties happened and the city was drowning in cash. The 'good' neighborhoods filled up and the money looked for other areas to put their money. Shitty old nabes where your life was in jeopardy on a Sunday afternoon now have blonde women pushing their strollers while sipping Starbucks.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
agreed
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