New Orleans: Dark End of the Street

[babylonsister]

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/7269
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/7269

New Orleans: Dark End of the Street
by RJ Eskow | May 5 2007

Four days in New Orleans to attend a conference, hear some great music, and see the city for the first time since Katrina. My impression? It's a theme park in the middle of apocalypse. They're using music more than ever to sell the place and it seems to be working, even as the Lower Ninth Ward continues to rot. America apparently loves the music these days and it makes you wonder: If we love the flowers so much, how can we watch the garden die?

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You need to search for the real story of this damaged city when you're inside the tourist bubble. You need to talk to people, get out of the central city, and keep a sharp eye. Or you can even take a three-hour Katrina bus tour, an idea that horrified me at first but I realized it made some sense. At least it reminds people of the damage we still do far too little to repair. The real city is dying, and it's been replaced by a synthetic version of itself.

I looked for signs of damage on the drive in from the airport. Those telephone poles leaning crazily on the side roads off I10: Were they always like that? That fractured sign, those broken windows, that torn-off roof - is that just wear and tear?

The only sign of Katrina downtown was in the IMAX Theater at the Aquarium, where Dr. John music lures tourists to the waterfront. Once in the theater, child fiddle prodigy Amanda Shaw and Cajun bluesman Tab Benoit are featured in a documentary on the eroded wetlands and their role in permitting the devastation of Katrina. I felt tears in my eyes when they cut to the ruins of the Ninth Ward. I wasn't the only one.

But then the show was over, the lights came up, and dried our eyes and we filed out. It was early in the afternoon, after all, and the shops would still be open for hours.