The loss of Mary’s on Bourbon seemed like a larger loss than just a store. Seemed like a layer of usefulness for the Quarter had been lost as well. So, the new location on Rampart and Orleans (with parking!) seems like something more gained than just a place to buy keys or nails; maybe a sign that the Quarter isn’t done yet as a place for neighbors and small businesses.
Canal street needs to add a diverse set of residents and this project may be the kick off to that.
In any case, it has long been my contention that tax credits for Canal building owners that renovate their largely empty upstairs floors should be considered; those tax credits would be given with rent controls so that regular people can animate our main street.
However, the Texaco building has been empty for far too long-I wonder how long it will really take to renovate it? I also wonder if this is the beginning of the end of the Iberville housing; this article talks about moving seniors from there. Besides high-rises being sometimes difficult for seniors to navigate it makes me wonder if moving people from there is to change the community aspect of Iberville in order to hand it over to developers.
A classic version found on the corner of St. Ann and Chartres (aka Jackson Square). Stanley’s gumbo has loads of meat and seafood amid a nice dark roux that’s not too thick. That they offer the added potato salad is nice: I have turned some heads in parts of the city that don’t believe in potato salad in the gumbo, but once in a while I like it. I learned about it at a demonstration at the old Wednesday Crescent City Farmers Market by Wayne Baquet, the Creole restauranteur of Lil Dizzy’s and Zachary’s fame even though he says in this interview with Sara Roahen that he doesn’t use it.
Southern Gumbo Trail oral interview
One of the city’s most original writers, CW Cannon takes on the curfew in this piece from non-profit journalism site The Lens and I think, nails it.
Here is the piece I’ll quote to those who argue for keeping kids out:
“This law isn’t about protecting them, it’s about protecting tourists from seeing them. If the price for getting people to come to New Orleans is hiding my actual New Orleanian family (or moving to a family-approved residential zone), whatever is left of New Orleanian “authenticity” will finally be dead.”
For anyone who wants to maintain the Quarter as the vibrant middle of the city, rather than as a genteel police state for visiting consumers, this curfew is a warning shot. I’d also add that the assault from the NOPD on informal gathering and cultural camps throughout the Quarter and the larger city has done little to nothing to reduce the heavy crime in the Quarter and beyond.
As someone who grew up in the Quarter and would walk to see my hard-working mom while she was still at her office at 8 or 9 pm, or walk to the schoolyard and play basketball at Royal and St. Phillip after dark (since we didn’t have a TV or even a yard), I would hope that those few kids being raised in the area could feel that the city center is as theirs as their own residential block when needed. To limit the Quarter to less hours for youth is to limit future residents and workers from becoming acquainted with their own town square, which could be its demise.
The Lens
The streets of the Quarter on the Monday morning of the BCS championship. Eecchh.
This is where the action is in NOLa tonight. Decatur and St. Peter.
Photo courtesy of Roy Guste, amazing local photographer.
French Quarter block by block 
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