Category Archives: ain't dere no more

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Not seven hills, just seven districts in our history

Another practical history lesson from Richard Campanella, a geographer with the Tulane School of Architecture and a Monroe Fellow with the New Orleans Center for the Gulf South, is the author of “Bienville’s Dilemma,” “Geographies of New Orleans,” and the forthcoming “Bourbon Street: A History” (2014). He may be reached through rcampane@tulane.edu or @nolacampanella on Twitter.

Until just a few years ago, each of the seven districts elected its own assessors, who staffed their own offices and assessed taxes independently — a system unique in the nation. It took civic intervention after Hurricane Katrina to finally consolidate those political redundancies.

Plantations, faubourgs, Creoles, Anglos, competition, expansion, drainage, politics, taxes: embedded in that seemingly mundane map are sundry episodes in the human geography of New Orleans, going back 200 years.

Seven

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Gentrification and its Discontents: Notes from New Orleans

I’d like to call attention to this thorough piece by one of my absolute favorite thinkers in New Orleans: Rich Campanella, geographical historian and bike riding New Orleanian.
Gentrification is the opposite of community; it is the warning bugle call from those who used to wear armor and thunder into your town on horses, trampling the less fortunate and sticking their flag on your home. It’s war and those of us who want a city and not fake facades aren’t going quietly.
As you can see, my definition of gentrification is entirely negative and has to do with the imposition of new values and traditions on top of existing ones. It also is entirely tied to the commodity of place, and the dollar value rather than any other.

Love Rich’s analysis of N.O. gentrification in this piece (which sparked a very lively discussion for months around town) even though I don’t necessarily agree with his timeline. Gutter punks as the start of gentrification? I don’t think that group has anything to do with this topic) and then hipsters second? I’d say hipsters come much later in the game, maybe right after the gentry actually. The use of bourgeois bohemians is spot on (as is their attendance at the farmers market on Saturdays!), but where are the up and coming artists (who sometimes become the gentry by the next generation) or the gay urbanists or even the temporary natives who land in gentrifying spaces when they first come?

Gentrification and its Discontents: Notes from New Orleans | Newgeography.com.

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Johnny White’s

As someone who had a family member who was associated almost daily with JW’s bar, I have a hard time understanding the confusion over WHICH Johnny White’s were talking about, when people read stories like the current one on the “closing” of the Sports Bar.

Closing Sports Bar
The one on St. Peter is the “real” one for lots of full-time Quarterites, and not just for motorcycle riders. It exists as a home away from home for many, and are treated as family like when the fine folks on St. Peter gave my family member an honored send off when he died last year. Those who frequent the St. Peter one (and probably hung out at Johnny’s Annex too) usually also believe that the “Sports Bar’ on Orleans is pretty bad and not one to hang out in with friends. It, like a lot of things directly on Bourbon, is too full of, well lets just say there’s too much potential for a bad time.

there are 4 places with Johnny White’s name on them in the Quarter and the ones managed by the family of Johnny White are the three BESIDES the Sports Bar. The family is taking control of that space again and probably reopening it slightly altered, which is fine with lots of us.
JW website

There. hope that helps. Now, let’s get a drink.

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Dig uncovers burial ground

St. Louis Cathedral recently finished their own historical archaeological dig, finding among other things, a flower market and toys. Now, a storied name in French Quarter history has his own dig discoveries: Vincent Marcello wanted a pool in his backyard on Rampart and has found some older “residents” back there, probably from the time the area was St. Peter Cemetery in the 1700s.. Let’s hope he doesn’t want back rent…

Marcello uncovers old bodies

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Joy returning to Canal Street sooner or later

As a French Quarter teenager, I might have been the last of those who saw first-run movies at the Joy Theater. It gave downtown living another facet, long before Canal Place and even way before Black Pearl’s now-defunct Uptown Square movie house. Yes we had Prytania, but that was about it.

I welcome more activity to the American Sector to build more everyday life for the French Quarter.

WWL story about Joy