Ah my favorite weekend is here. Time to head to the Quarter and immerse myself in all things literary and of Tennessee. 4 days of workshops, plays, walking tours, shouting contests and mint juleps.
Hope to see you there, and if not, look for my blogs from the Fest.
http://www.tennesseewilliams.net/festival/schedule
One of the longstanding needlepoint shops in the city has moved-slightly. Quarter Stitch which had withstood the Alpine Bar as a neighbor, the on again off again repairs due to a historical building owned by the state, has finally moved into new space right across the street from their old location. You can now find them on the “lake side” of Chartres between Wilkinson and the Square. The new location seems more spacious and certainly is no worse than the last as far as location, and once the gutting and constructing of Dickie Brennan’s new restaurant at Le Petit Theatre is over, things should be delightful for the wonderful yarn store we all love.
The shock of coming across their empty location was the subject of an earlier post back in September… Their website shows them now on Royal, which makes me very glad…
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.
There is often a bittersweet air to these posts that I find reporting the loss of one of the bygone characters of the Quarter and the Marigny. When you read the details, you can almost hear and see the late nights and shared experiences in these groups of friends having fun while also struggling to find their own way. In this blog piece are the names of some of our literary folks who, back in the day, were working toward something, something that they achieved in this case.
It’s the same as when I read about the group that started the Arts And Crafts Club back in the 1920s, or the friends who began Southern Decadence or Barkus or Tiptina’s; I can hear the laughter and fun that they had while doing it.
I’m glad that camaraderie is alive and well with new groups of friends and colleagues in the Quarter working on their own future.
Local photographer Roy Guste shares another gem
Besides the many places to rent or buy a bicycle in New Orleans, it seems that bike sharing has finally come to the Crescent, at least for a short time. Check out Canal or Julia Streets for a chance to see how this works-I love using this system in cities that I visit, like Toronto and Washington DC.
French Quarter block by block 
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