While these Past Tense articles are usually focused on the Florida Parishes, I thought we’d take a little trip south this month, back to the mother ship of many of us northshore aliens. I justify this by telling myself that the subject matter is appropriate because we are all connected at the hip to New Orleans by many things other than the Causeway. And, in fact we are – by history, culture, cuisine, as well as geography – much, much more than just a bedroom community. However, the real reason I’ve chosen the subject is probably more related to sloth. I’ve resolved to check each of the seven deadly sins off of my bucket list this year, and since I had to travel into the city this month for other reasons, and wouldn’t have to do any additional research, this seemed like a good opportunity to address this particular character flaw.
The real reason for my trip relates to an upcoming national conference for which I have volunteered to serve as a guide on orientation bus tours for out-of-town visitors. I had to go in for a training session that involved taking a similar bus tour myself.
I grew up (a process that some would argue is not yet complete) in New Orleans, and following military service and short job stints elsewhere, returned to the northshore and commuted to the downtown CBD for almost 25 years. However, I really never got back into the culture of the city that I had enjoyed so much in the 1940s and 1950s. It was just basically a place to pick up a pay check and scamper quickly back to Mandeville. Like many, I had come to focus on the crime, corruption, Katrina, and other downside news and lament that what was once a great city had been irretrievably lost.
Let me tell you, after the tour, I will tell you that New Orleans is still a great city. And that’s not even counting events of this past February 7th in Miami! The orientation tour I went on highlighted some 128 points of interest … and they were all truly interesting and significant. We’re talking events, people and locations important at the national and even international level. Any Dorothy attending this conference and taking this tour will know she is no longer in Kansas.
New Orleans is still a great city – smaller than in its heyday, and much smaller than most “must visit” metropolises, but the core of the city is great by almost any measure. That’s why you have a city population of a quarter million or so with one of the largest convention centers in the country. People want to come to New Orleans. It has architecture, parks and open space, magnificent boulevards, entertainment, history, geographical points of interest, one of the most unique cultures in the world, cuisine, and an overall attitude that visitors want to experience. I think we locals forget that at times. I’ve attended conferences in some of the other great American cities in recent years – Boston, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Seattle – I don’t think any of these have the total package New Orleans has, and this bus tour drove that point home to me again.
A great deal of the three-hour bus trip unfortunately was spent passing through areas devastated by Katrina. I’ve had mixed feelings about the prospects of most of these areas ever fully recovering, and I guess I still do. Some residents certainly seem determined to rebuild and stay, but the overall picture in St. Bernard Parish and the sections of New Orleans that were inundated for so long is just bleak and depressing. There are pockets of redevelopment, however, that are very encouraging. A lot of money and effort is being expended. Brad Pitt is certainly to be commended for his generosity in rebuilding a neighborhood, if not for his architectural tastes. The houses are functional, energy efficient and much needed, but they’d rate pretty high on any international ugly scale. However, a neighborhood redevelopment called Project Home Again funded by the Barnes & Noble Foundation and an adjacent $138 million project called the Columbia City Residences at Bayou District that replaced the former St. Bernard housing project are just incredibly well done.
One of the highlights of the tour for me was the Chalmette Battlefield. Although it occurred after the War of 1812 was “officially” over, the Battle of New Orleans was arguably the most important engagement in our national history. It cemented U.S. control of the vast Louisiana Territory and ended British colonial aspirations across most of the country. It also made Andrew Jackson’s reputation, and his presidency greatly influenced the governmental institutions and processes we live with today. This is the kind of place entire populations would make pilgrimages to in other countries.
Another high point was seeing the comeback of City Park. This is one of the largest such parks in the country – much larger than Central Park in New York. It, as well as Audubon Park, was designed by Frederick Law Olmstead, one of the early gods of landscape architecture and urban planning. Not many cities can claim two Olmstead parks. City Park is once again becoming a great local amenity and tourist attraction with its museum, sculpture garden, golf courses, large event venues, the largest collection of large, ancient live oaks in the world – just a great urban public space.
The segment of the tour along Lake Pontchartrain was a reminder to me of the pre-causeway connections between the north and south shores. Biloxi Schooners and steamers handled the very active commerce and travel between the Tchefuncte ports, Mandeville and Bayou Bonfouca in St. Tammany and Bayou St. John and the New Canal at West End. The early south shore resorts and casinos that prompted Bernard Marigny to develop Mandeville were located along a stretch between West End and the lakefront airport. What I had forgotten, or perhaps never thought about, is that this historic shore no longer exists. The south shore of Marigny’s day was somewhere around where Robert E. Lee Boulevard is today. In the 1920s, a seawall was built 3000 feet into the lake, and fill was put behind it to build the existing park areas and subdivisions like Lake Vista. This occurred to me when I realized that the Old Spanish Fort built to defend the entrance to Bayou St. John is today more than a half mile back from the lake.
Another pleasant memory tweaker was the trip through Carrollton and down St. Charles Avenue - the trees, streetcars, grand homes. St. Charles has been named one of the ten great streets of America by the American Planning Association and named “The Jewel of America’s Great Avenues.” Small wonder we have so many gawking tourists.
I was reminded that the name of this avenue was initially Nyades Street ... which sounds a little like Dryades Street, doesn’t it? It should: both were part of a street-naming scheme used when the area around Lee Circle was initially developed. They were named for Greek Nymphs – Nyades, the water nymph; Dryades, the woods nymph. This is just one example of why New Orleans just has to have the most interesting and entertaining street names in the world. Tourists can learn a lot about history, mythology or other bizarre subjects just by walking around. We’re not talking about 1st and 2nd Avenues crossing Main and Elm Steets in Anytown, USA here; we’re talking about Napoleon’s great battles, Greek Muses & Fates (usually mispronounced badly), emotions, obscure colonial period references, the whimsical, bawdy street names of the Faubourg Marigny – New Orleans streets tell a story. Everyone visiting New Orleans should carry a copy of John Chase’s Frenchman, Desire, Good Children … and other streets of New Orleans!, which gives the background of just about every interesting street name in the city.
With apologies to Thomas Wolfe, maybe you can’t go home again, but I sure did enjoy looking at the old place with a set of fresh eyes during a bus tour down memory lane.