The city of New Orleans is one of those “love it or hate it” kind of towns. (Perhaps, at times, it’s also one of those “love to hate it” kind of towns too.) With its relaxed liquor laws, flagrant sexuality, flagrant corruption, blatant police brutality, and and a murder rate far in excess of most of the United States, it is easy to see why the excellent anthology “Doctors, Professors, Kings & Queens: The Big Ol’ Box Of New Orleans” kicks off with the words, “Welcome to New Orleans, home of the hits. And if you’re from out of town, welcome to the Third World.”
If the sentiment “Welcome to the Third World” did not always ring true, in the wake of Katrina, those words ring more painfully true than ever. New Orleans has always felt a like A Place Apart. It is a gumbo stew of European and Carribean flavor in the gulf coast of the United States. Despite (or perhaps because of?) the surface level grit, the city has always been a cauldron of creativity. Never before in history, however, has the future of this culturally rich city been so much in question.
New Orleans is known as “the birthplace of jazz” and it has a music culture that is as vibrant and influential as any city on the planet. The word that most comes to mind when describing the city’s music scene and the annual Jazz and Heritage Festival which pays tribute to it, is “authentic.” In a time when festivals are contrived by promoters to find niche markets, the New Orleans Jazz Fest (known by its enthusiasts simply as Fest) seems to have grown up organically as if from the roots and swampland of the city. And while the jamband scene owes a huge debt to the distinctive New Orleans sound, it should be remembered that the New Orleans music scene evolved organically from the city's unique culture while the term “jambands” is little more than the prepackaged jargon of music industry execs eager to create a marketing niche for a vast array of improvisational music styles.
This year marks the completion of the 37th annual Jazzfest. Producer Quint Davis called the event The Miracle Fest. But the story beyond the miraculous festival is the story of a city whose fate is entirely unknown, giving the event an atmosphere of fierce determination to celebrate in the face of looming disaster.
“Recover. Rebuild. Renew orleans.” The bumper stickers are everywhere and the sentiment is strong. The citizens of New Orleans want their city back.
The devastation wrought on the Gulf Coast by Hurricane Katrina is perhaps too big to wrap one’s head (or heart) around. Eight months after Katrina blew through and took out several levees, New Orleans is only beginning to assess what will be required for the city to rebound.
Perhaps foremost among the questions that loom large over the city is whether the levee system, so completely destroyed by Katrina, will be in working condition by the time hurricane season begins again.
Though the bulk of the failure seems to fall on the federal government and the US Army Corps of Engineers in particular, Mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco are far from blameless. And while the political blame game may seem beside the point, without accountability for the errors leading to the levee breach and the inept response to the crisis, there is little hope that a viable alternative will be in place to protect the city in the future. Thus the city is in a Catch-22 scenario. It needs to begin rebuilding immediately and attracting its tourist economy, but with so many people displaced by the hurricane, and so many regions unable to be developed without assurance that the city’s levee system will be better prepared to handle any coming storms, people are reticent to begin the extensive rebuilding efforts.
As an out-of-towner who has been visiting the city since ‘92 (and paid rent for a couple of three month stays in ‘92 and ‘95) it was immediately apparent to me that the city has changed drastically and in numerous ways. Driving into town for Jazz Fest, we went through nearby Chalmette and the city looked ravaged by war. The lower ninth ward was even more devastated. All over town, buildings are boarded up. Heiroglyphs are spray painted on the sides of many homes indicating whether humans or pets were found in the buildings. Other areas are spraypainted with ominous messages like, “you loot, we shoot.”
We landed in the city on Thursday, the day before the first day of Fest, visiting Flora’s Coffee Shop in the Marigny, a neighborhood located between the French Quarter and the Bywater in what is called the Upper Ninth Ward. The Lower Ninth Ward was the neighborhood in New Orleans which took the most severe damage when the levees along the Industrial Canal were breached and a barge broke through the levee system, flooding much of the city and demolishing the Lower Ninth Ward.
Flora’s and the Marigny / Bywater in general have become somewhat bohemian enclaves where many of the younger hipsters converge and plan artistic and political events, a small return of the days when Bob Dylan sang of living on Montegut Street (in the Bywater) in a basement down the stairs and “there was music in the cafes at night and revolution in the air.” Only today the “revolution” in the works is the one that is needed to bring the city back to pre-Katrina levels of vibrancy.
In many respects, the city felt like a ghost town...a shell of its former self. Many businesses were open for the Jazz Fest crowd but the streets themselves were quiet. The stores that were open had reduced hours and were often closed by seven or nine pm, very atypical hours for a city known for its vibrant nightlife.
The performance by Bruce Springsteen seemed to sum up the sentiments of many in the city. Speaking to the destruction in the ninth ward, he said, “I saw sights I never thought I’d see in an American city,” and added: “The criminal ineptitude makes you furious.”
With that, he launched into a song titled “How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live?” dedicated to “President Bystander.” Its lyrics included the lines: “There’s bodies floatin’ on Canal and the levees gone to hell...them who’s got out of town, and them who ain’t got left to drown, tell me, how can a poor man stand such times and live?”
It remains to be seen how the city will respond to the numerous challenges it faces. The city needs a flourishing economy, a large population willing to return to the city and work for low pay in the service industry, and affordable housing for the service workers. Unfortunately, none of this will happen without a dependable levee system. And if and when a dependable levee system is put in place, questions will emerge regarding the best method of attracting the service industry work force now that many of the city’s lower income residents have been relocated.
Years ago, the city’s favorite son, Louis Armstrong, sang “Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans?” Those words ring truer now than ever, as many contemplate the future of the city. |
