On a post-Mardi Gras whim to escape the promise of a rapidly
approaching Canadian cold front, my partner-in-crime and I took the
17-hour Interstate challenge and decided to drive from Detroit to the
other former French colony that Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac was
charged with mismanaging, the battered city of New Orleans, LA.
The Big Easy charmed me first while I was in college and enthralled
with Anne Rice's accounts of vampires traipsing around the French
Quarter and Garden District, two neighborhoods in this unique American
city that are pretty easy to fall for. Over the past decade, I've found
myself walking and streetcar-ing the live oak lined streets during at
least half a dozen trips, each time more intrigued by the personality,
soul and depth of the place. Of course it's the intersection of the
place and the polyglot New Orleanian culture that gives the city its
special
je ne sais quoi —a swamp-infused mélange of Creole and Cajun, French, Spanish, American and African blended in delicious proportion.
No doubt, New Orleans is a fun town, where masses converge to party and
pretend that women's t-shirts should be worn in a perpetual state of
coming off. It's a musical, rollicking,
laissez les bons temps rouler
kind of spirit that is infectious and refreshing, especially if you've
become accustomed to other parts of the country where prudish vestiges
of the Puritans reach out across the centuries to keep your clothes on
and thinking wholesome thoughts.
But there's a dark mysteriousness too that's equally alluring. Being
from Detroit I appreciate the vibe. Maybe it's the fact that all of the
city's cemeteries are above ground where neighborhoods for the dead vie
for space among the Spanish moss and shotgun cottages. Maybe it's the
creeping sense that the built environment and the natural environment
are as much at odds with one another as they complement one another.
Underscoring this tenuous balance was the vicious one-two punch of
hurricanes Katrina and Rita six months ago that rocked New Orleans with
a dose of Mother Nature of epic scale. As it passed midnight and we
hurtled down the last stretch of lonesome I-59 through the Mississippi
lowlands, the first signs of Katrina's damage were evident in the oddly
bent and misshapen trees scattered along the roadway. Familiar green
signs for freeway exits were blown over, plywood cracked and contorted.
Crossing the Louisiana border and skirting Lake Pontchartrain into St.
Bernard Parish was the first real indication we had of the scope of the
devastation. As we passed through Lake Carmel and Lake Willow and
approached New Orleans proper, the odd darkened gas station evolved
into mile after mile after mile of strip malls, housing developments,
and motels that appeared in form but were literally shells of the
things they had been … with no indication that they were to be
re-inhabited anytime soon.
A crescent moon shone high above the Crescent City's squared and stubby
skyscrapers when we finally got off the freeway and headed downtown to
the cottage in the hip Marigny district that our friends in Detroit had
so kindly lent us for the weekend. Driving down Elysian Fields towards
the Mississippi River revealed a quiet and weird landscape, one of
distressed housing, shops, and infrastructure where most everything was
in place, but oddly "parked" cars, white FEMA trailers, huge piles of
debris, broken windows and strange, spray painted markings indicated
that there had been an upheaval and a stark break from the normal order
of things.
As we neared our final destination however, a little life seemed to
return each block we got closer to Royal Street. To be honest, by this
point my co-pilot and I were pretty delirious after the long haul and
we were giddy with the notion that at 2 a.m. it was still well over 60
degrees outside. By the time we found our accommodation, we slunk into
bed, exhausted, with strange, post-Katrina visions interspersed with
anticipation for fresh beignets and a couple of shots of espresso the
next day at
Cafe Du Monde.
Waking up to a warm March morning in New Orleans after being in Yankee
country for a few months was sheer delight. The sub-tropical light
exposed rows of colorful, tightly spaced cottages, coffee shops and
intimate streets of the
Faubourg Marigny
that allowed us to ditch the car and walk, walk and walk. Incredibly,
many of the oldest sections of the city we discovered, hugging the
Mississippi and ever so slightly above sea level, while damaged, seemed
to survive the hurricanes remarkably intact. These areas eluded the
extensive flooding so prevalent and pervasive in less fortunate areas
such as the infamous Lower Ninth Ward, whose population has been
largely decimated and scattered across the United States.
And so, despite the widespread loss (and still potential loss), New
Orleans has managed to retain much of its urban character. The Marigny
still leads to The
French Quarter, which still leads to the
Central Business District, run by a
Detroiter. And that still leads to the trendy warehouse district, which still leads to antiques and boutiques galore along
Magazine Street,
which is still near St. Charles Avenue and the beautiful homes of the
Garden District, which still lead to the eclectic Uptown and Carrollton
neighborhoods. All of these areas are working hard to rebuild, often
with the guidance of groups like the
Preservation Resource Center, one of America’s most effective preservation organizations, with a staff of over 20.
It struck us almost as deeply as the sad swaths of near-ghost town
ringing the inner core. In the face of calamity, New Orleans is doing a
remarkable job of reestablishing itself, especially in the most heavily
visited part of the city, the French Quarter. The old city’s
centerpiece, Jackson Square, is alive and well, and music fills the air
after a highly successful and odds-breaking Mardi Gras celebration.
Moreover, there is an almost palpable sense that the city's cultural
identity is far too deeply entrenched in the landscape to simply be
washed away by an “overblown thunderstorm." Of course it won't be an
easy process and there's no doubt that the city is a fundamentally
changed place. While it will probably be a smaller city, I predict New
Orleans will be stronger and wiser.
Detroit can learn much from its sister a thousand miles to the south.
Our histories of music, cultural collusion, collision, innovation and
transformation have much in common. But Detroit has yet to capitalize
on its culture and heritage as much as a place like New Orleans. As we
re-imagine ourselves and evolve into the "Next Detroit," our search for
answers should include the Big Easy. The City that Care Forgot has not
forgotten its cultural heritage. New Orleans embraces and celebrates
its rich history to such a degree that people from all over the country
and all around the world are drawn here for a slice of that special
something.
Believe it or not, Detroit is older than New Orleans by more than a
decade and has been imprinted with the footsteps of as many cultures.
In his recent State of the City, Mayor Kilpatrick referred to having
great love and appreciation for Detroit’s own special “flavor” — a mix
of peoples and culture that produced visionaries and built a great
city. There is no doubt that Detroit is, in its own right, as unique
and culturally important a city as New Orleans. Yet in recent decades,
it seems our own self-prescribed hurricane has left Detroit adrift and,
until recently, without the will to rebuild. Our identity and potential
as a strong, vibrant urban city is absolutely a selling point to
ourselves and to the world. Fully convincing ourselves of this singular
fact is one of the best things we can do right now as a region to
better leverage a brighter future for everyone.
Francis M. Grunow is executive director of Preservation Wayne.
Photos:
Downtown New Orleans
Hurricane Damaged Street
Farmer's Market
Jackson Square
All Photographs Copyright Francis M. Grunow