(Historic) Faces of the Square
Tag Archives: Jackson Square
Super Toll
Listen we get it. The French Quarter seems LIKE Disneyland to a lot of people. Certainly since the 1950s, it has grown more for tourists than for locals.
The difference is that it is still a real neighborhood of entrepreneurs, families, senior citizens…And it also has a whole other group of “residents” who are out on the sidewalks 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, hustling, hanging, and taking a breather outside during a long work shift. All of them belong , and truly, curious, so do fun-loving visitors are as well. Visitors are, although 10 million of them every year to our 300,000 residents is taxing especially the destructive bros and the overly pushy whoo-hoo girls staying in illegal short term rentals who are always too many and too much.
But still, here we are, gladly once again kicking off a massive tourist season: the LIX Super Bowl followed by Carnival, then French Quarter Festival, then Jazz Fest, then Essence, all before peak summer. We’ll count the coins and sleep in August.
The city has hosted a number of Super Bowls over the past 50 years, 2025’s Lix will be the 11th time for us, which puts us in a tie with Miami for the most hosts.
So we expect it: the city in a snarl over the last 2 months to get contractors to feverishly try to throw some asphalt on long-broken concrete, rounding up all of our unhoused and sticking them in warehouses, public space rented out to the highest bidder, security tactics that don’t make anyone feel safer only that their rights are trampled upon, 10 story high projected advertisements on buildings….
Sigh. We deal. We fight some of it, we accept other parts. it is part of our reality.
But this pic below is one that is just odd. They decided to cover the Cathedral, Cabildo, and Presbytere with this projection every night.
Not only does this projection hide the most beautiful historical buildings from being seen properly, it also highlights odd flaws, and makes one expect to see a Disney princess emerge, waving her dime store wand at bystanders standing around with plastic Tropical Isle grenade sugar drinks, confused and disoriented.
The blanked out windows make it seem even more fake, and the colors are horrific. I wonder if this is supposed to be Mardi Gras colors?
Even more oddly, we actually have a great illumination event called Luna Fete over the holidays that does some gorgeous projections about history, culture, and holiday cheer.
But this is not THAT. Visitors, you don’t even get that.
You might be a first time visitor, end up in the Square, and think you are looking at three hastily erected buildings with plywood behind their garish displays. You would then walk away thinking, what the heck was that about? (I heard someone actually say that as I left after taking this picture).
And you’d be right to think that.
And you would miss out on how gorgeous the Square is at night, as the birthplace of this 300 + year city, and not be able to view its public space that remains vibrant and used by locals and visitors alike, and which still has residents in the Pontalbas on either side and along the nearby streets.
The toll is one we have seen before: that the fakery becomes reality to those experiencing the city for the first time who then leave, thinking what was that?
So visitors, do your best to see behind the facades, and experience a city, not a projection, to talk to kind locals and have some real fun. We don’t want you to pay that toll.
Slow Quarter
Its been 10 days since New Orleans shut down restaurants and bars and 6 days since our mayor issued an early stay-at-home order. On March 23, the state followed suit. Since then, watching the wheels of commercial life slowly grind to almost a complete halt here in the French Quarter has been absorbing and sobering. At first, most places tried to stay open even though the bulk of their business had always been visitors, both those visiting from other places as well as the daily visitors who work in shops, in offices and have so many lunch meetings. Some places did their best to drum up local take-out business via social media and word of mouth, but one by one, almost all in my quadrant have closed. Boards across windows and doors started going up at shops and galleries first, and then hotels and bars and cafes followed. It’s startling the first time you see the dark lobbies and gated and locked parking lots 24 hours a day of a hotel normally lit up and staffed. You think about those workers that you saw 5 or 6 times a day for months or years and wonder if they will be back. (The bell captain at the little hotel down the street told me he had 120 days of PTO to use, but was still angry that he had to go home.) Yet even when the businesses began to shutter, some street traffic continued, albeit lighter than normal for a few more days. Then one day this week, I walked to Jackson Square and there was not a single person there. At 2 in the afternoon. You’ll still see people walk a few times a day with their happy dogs, (saw a guy with his leashed ferret a few days ago), a few tourists, and always some street people. The Mayor is slowly moving the homeless into hotels; the guy who lives in the window recess of the Presbytere told me today that he had just missed the cut off to get in the Hilton Garden Inn by 6 people. (I’d say the best way to describe his reaction was slightly stung. I told him they’ll find a place for him soon; he seemed to brighten at that.) I think he looks forward to that mostly because he misses talking to people, he misses the hustle. Even the silver guy’s paint is almost entirely worn off. The musicians who are staying in the apartment across the street come out to the balcony in the afternoon and play music quietly but seem to have little of the animation and long jams that they offered in the first days. I run into neighbors and we talk for a few minutes but then move on more quickly than previously. You make eye contact with strangers, but there is a bit of a hesitation in being too chummy; you don’t want to encourage them to slow down and stay around here. Some neighbors have chalked “Go Home; Be Safe” on the sidewalks; but those who get it are already home, and those who don’t get it, won’t. It’s odd to see the energy seep out of these entertaining streets, but at least we have a strong reason to believe much of it will return. In the meantime, we can save ourselves, our friends, and our neighbors by killing as much as of it as we can.
89th Pirate’s Alley Art show April 6, 7
Apr 6- Apr 7
What: an art event featuring exciting artwork by regional artists ,plus an opening parade, food and beverages for purchase, and painting demonstrations by some members of the association.
Visit noartassoc.org, or contact Wanda at noartassoc@yahoo.com for a prospectus, if you want to be an artist- participant.
Working artists
Today, I ran across two old friends, both working in the Quarter. The great photographer and musician Zack Smith was doing a shoot for Dirty Coast on Royal. His photography spans all of the different cultures that Southeastern Louisiana encompasses, and his work with the indie rock band, Rotary Downs is worth a deep listen. It’s on my regular rotation.
Sam Mee is someone I have known since I was a teen, when I used to run with his old employer, Roger Simonson. (Sam worked at Roger’s Royal Street store, A Better Mousetrap which had its heyday in the early 1970s.) Sam has been a working artist for decades, and shows up on the Square from time to time. As these things usually go, I had just been thinking about him recently, realizing I had not seen him in some time. And then, there he was.
I even bought an original of his today:
I talked to both of them about how they are doing with the “job, gig, hustle” lifestyle we have here in town. Zack is doing well, but still takes the cycle of business very seriously; Sam is a little less sanguine about sales, but still very good at keeping it going after all of these years.
Eleven million visitors and less than half a million residents — and most still struggle. Since the levee breaks, the cost of everything has been doubled, tripled and the number of opportunists arriving has easily quadrupled.
It is in everyone’s interest to see our creative community succeed, yet the very infrastructure works against it.
Botton line: if you see an honest hustler or gigger, pay your respects in some way.
French Quarter block by block 
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