TUSooner
1/12/2006, 10:28 AM
First, I have been in touch with Bourbon St Sooner and am sorry to say that his house went for a little swim. Keep him and Mrs BSS in your prayers and thoughts as they deal with contrators etc. and try to get back into their home ASAP.
I had started getting used to my own little post-K world: the moderate damage in Algiers, heavy West Bank traffic - especially rush hours to and from downtown, and the moderately diminished activity downtown and in the French Quarter (where I made only a brief visit at lunch time this week). Then today, I took the old familiar "back way" to my kids’ school uptown, and, man, it was sad.
In case you are familiar with the city, I got off the bridge onto Earhart and turned uptown on Broad and Fontainebleau to Nashville St, and then over to Claiborne Ave. Every New Orleans neighborhood has a name, but I can't remember this one's. It’s not a really nice area, most of it. But today it was block after block after block of emptiness. There weren’t even many tell-tale signs that buildings had been gutted and were under repair. Even down the side streets I saw nothing - no cars and no people, except for one lady standing beside her car and just looking around. At a corner where I was used to seeing busy crowds waiting for buses, crossing the streets (in disregard of the lights, of course), or going in and out of the corner stores, there was not a single person. Not even one, and I was looking. The usually packed mini-mart gas station didn't look open, because nobody was around it. Heck, there weren't even traffic lights, just the stop signs on short tripods that are all over the East Bank these days. The emptiness dropped my jaw. I think this area is one of the “on the bubble” sections of town where there may not be a decision for 4 months on how or if to rebuild and repopulate. Anyway, this morning was a stunning reminder that this city is a long, long, long way from being OK.
I had started getting used to my own little post-K world: the moderate damage in Algiers, heavy West Bank traffic - especially rush hours to and from downtown, and the moderately diminished activity downtown and in the French Quarter (where I made only a brief visit at lunch time this week). Then today, I took the old familiar "back way" to my kids’ school uptown, and, man, it was sad.
In case you are familiar with the city, I got off the bridge onto Earhart and turned uptown on Broad and Fontainebleau to Nashville St, and then over to Claiborne Ave. Every New Orleans neighborhood has a name, but I can't remember this one's. It’s not a really nice area, most of it. But today it was block after block after block of emptiness. There weren’t even many tell-tale signs that buildings had been gutted and were under repair. Even down the side streets I saw nothing - no cars and no people, except for one lady standing beside her car and just looking around. At a corner where I was used to seeing busy crowds waiting for buses, crossing the streets (in disregard of the lights, of course), or going in and out of the corner stores, there was not a single person. Not even one, and I was looking. The usually packed mini-mart gas station didn't look open, because nobody was around it. Heck, there weren't even traffic lights, just the stop signs on short tripods that are all over the East Bank these days. The emptiness dropped my jaw. I think this area is one of the “on the bubble” sections of town where there may not be a decision for 4 months on how or if to rebuild and repopulate. Anyway, this morning was a stunning reminder that this city is a long, long, long way from being OK.