Letters to the Editor
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NEW ORLEANS IS NOT DEAD
I have been living in the French Quarter of New Orleans, full time, for the past 15 years. I first came to the city in 1964 and lived here for 1 year. That was the beginning of my love affair with the city I have been coming back on and off for years . I finally moved here for good in 1991 ...let me assure you that New Orleans is not dead...On the contrary, most of the people that came back are some of the most eccentric people in the Quarter and the craziest never left...the were home waiting when I returned on October 5th 2005.
"Old New Orleans" ...the FQ and Uptown... is the part of the city the flood spared actually. Also, for your information, Perdido Street is not a part of the Quarter and never has been or could be...It is a seedy part of the CBD (Central Business District) that was filled with illegal gambling and "cribs" during the depression and before. It was a left over "red light area" from the Storyville days.
Even now Perdido Street still has a few creepy massage parlors.
It really isn't helpful for you to proclaim our city "dead" . Almost everyone I know in New Orleans is back. Old timers and their kids in their 30's and 40's.. 4th and 5th generation, rebuilding. Their love for their city, the saltiness of these people to stay and stay is what makes New Orleans. Our city has been proclaimed "dead" before... after the fire in the 1790's...the yellow jack epidemic that decimated the population in the 1850's and the Civil War. Well you couldn't kill us then or now. So please get a map ,find out where Perdito street really is and STFU.
Oh ......A WALK ON THE WILDSIDE...is a beautifully written book.
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Beaten to the punch
as to the character and location of Perdido Street. Ain't in the Vieux Carre.
Ah, well. I'll have another cup of Community dark roast and wish for Morning Call.
(A former NOLA resident - pre-emptively evacuated myself one year before Katrina thanks to the Times-Picayune.)
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Wow, it's so instructive
To be told all about the city in which you live by someone who doesn't even know the blocks of the Vieux Carre. To be honest with you, I'd hoped to be able to vent some of my truly simmering pot of rage at another ignorant "truth teller" who'd knock down the city I love from the stunning heights of his towering intellect, and with the icy cool sang froid of an east coast/west coast hipster, but I just can't get the will to do so. Takes too much effort, and I'm saving that for loving this city and it's ways, and to spending my time sharing my joy with those who've never been here before and Don't know that how quiet it is now is Not the norm, but rather the result of the ignorance of those who say we're gone and will never return, and an incompetent and immoral administration. On the other hand, if you'd really like to see a depression era city, now would be the time to visit.... By the way, was that a book review, an opinion piece, or were y'all just sharing the enlightement received at the top of the mountain?
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Add to your list of Hollywood betrayals of great novels
The Sound and the Fury with Yul Brynner, of all people, as Jason. It's years since I saw the movie, but I believe I am correct in recalling that they had the gall to give it a happy ending. It turned out Jason wasn't really mean -- he was using tough love on his wayward siblings, which was exactly what they needed.
It reminds me of the story about Flannery O'Connor selling the rights to "The Life You Save May Be Your Own" for a t.v.adaptation. Gene Kelly(!) plays Triplet (Shiftlet in the story), Lucynell is not retarded but just simple and pure, and in the end, after abandoning Lucynell at the diner, Triplet has a change of heart and goes back and gets her. O'Connor's friends asked her why she sold the story knowing what a hash t.v. and movies usually made of literature. She said she knew they were going to ruin it, but she needed the money for a new refrigerator.
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I meant to mention that WUSA
is a truly terrible movie, but if you are a fan of performances, it is worth watching for Cloris Leachman's supporting performance.
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a knack for stating the obvious
Is there any city that is the same as it was in 1930? Yeah, New Orleans has changed over the past 75 years, though less, I would argue, than any other North American city. This is neither here nor there, of course, as this is a book review. Reviewer needs to pick his leads more carefully. Maybe we're all just a little sensitive after Katrina. But the subhead for this article is complete bullshit: "The 1956 classic 'A Walk on the Wild Side' captured the Crescent City as we'll never see it again -- seedy, brutal, alive." Not seedy? Have you been down here? Not brutal? You must not read the Times-Picayune. Not alive? Go to hell.
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great book, bad review
Mr. Barra, whose work I enjoyed many times in Salon, fails as bad as any outsider. A-number-one, not a year ago, a ninety-year-old man was arrested for running a scam on Bourbon. He even had a crooked cop helping him.
To hear the Morning 40 Federation is to know that Algren still lives in New Orleans, just now he's in the 9th ward instead of the Quarter.
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No. It's much the same.
I lived there for five years recently and let me preface this by saying I love the city, all the good and bad. Sure, it’s changed from what I’d heard from long-time residents. But there was a seediness and brutatlity to when I was there. Perhaps the author of this article isn’t taking into account that like everything, seediness and brutality take different forms as time goes by. Everything modernizes to some degree. Bar flies, drugs (sales, down-and-out-addicts, party-addicts), hustlers…you don’t need to scratch the surface hard to find it and it often finds you. And it’s probably not going to melt away anytime soon. When I went back to visit friends eight weeks after Katrina we joked about the seeing the same alcoholics and addicts affixed to a bar stool in front of a video poker/crack machine. These folks were among the first back and they’re not going to leave anytime soon.
When I talk to my friends still there I never get the impression the city is awash in optimism. People are pissed and tired at the lack of recovery but the apparent recovery of the seediness and brutality.
It helps to have people who visit the city before commenting on what it is and isn't.