Posted on 09/05/2005 8:38:32 AM PDT by Melpomene
caption: Barry Maturana hangs his artwork up Saturday on the fence behind St. Joseph's Cathedral in Jackson Square. Maturana tries to move on with his life and show his pride in the city of New Orleans by cleaning up the area around his home and continuing to display his work.
NEW ORLEANS -- On the black wrought-iron fence behind St. Louis Cathedral, Barry Maturana hung his $400 paintings.
Military choppers buzzed back and forth over the French Quarter. Fires raged in the Sax Fifth Avenue store on Canal Street and an industrial district across the river. Anyone who hadn't already fled by bus or by boat was trying to stay alive.
Nary a tourist was in sight.
Still, the 43-year-old artist with a studio above Pirates Alley was doing just what he's always done on his Saturday mornings -- hawking culture in the Crescent City.
"We'll get it back," Maturana said. "New Orleans will be back -- and the sooner, the better."
Less than a week after Hurricane Katrina had pundits declaring the city dead, there are signs of resurrection in its heart and soul: the French Quarter.
Its only five-star hotel has construction crews busy with saws and hammers. Merchants are sweeping sidewalks as though it were just another busy night on Bourbon Street. And a frame-shop owner was back in the office.
At Jackson Square, two couples, who dubbed themselves the Krewe of Nagin, donned matching red t-shirts, took up straw brooms and garbage bags and started sweeping the black-tiled sidewalks along St. Peters Street where a little over a week ago, carriage rides lined up.
"The pearl of the city is the French Quarter, and the center of that is Jackson Square, so we thought we'd start here and work our way out," said Ty Waterford, 40, who lives on Dumaine Street and runs a moving company for art work.
"We want business owners to get back in and get back to work so the city can come alive again," he said. "We're getting the debris out so people can come back and go shopping."
Down the street, broken glass tinkled like chimes as Ashley McCoy pushed it away with a broom.
In a few hours, she planned to return to Brilliant Inc. -- the frame shop she manages -- and start cutting glass and mats so they'll be ready when the electricity is restored.
"I've already fallen so far behind -- I have months' worth of work to get finished," the 29-year-old said. "We've got to start some time, and it might as well be now."
It's still too early to estimate the years and dollars it will take to rebuild New Orleans. As of Saturday, the city remained under tight military control -- but that didn't stop out-of-state contractors from rolling in.
At the luxury Windsor Court Hotel, 300 Gravier St., the usually pristine, brick courtyard was coated with sawdust. Instead of limousines, wheel barrows and stacks of plywood were parked outside the entrance.
The hotel survived not one disaster but two -- first, Hurricane Katrina; later in the week, flames lapping at its back side after a building caught fire across the street.
Through it all, the Windsor continued serving guests cold beer and wine, flame-broiled filets and pasta in cream sauce in the dining room.
Assistant General Manager Ashish Verma said the hotel is rebuilding even as others still are being evacuated, to "send a message that New Orleans has the will and determination to come back."
Both Windsor and the Marriott Hotel in New Orleans and a Home Depot in Slidell have hired Houston-based Cotton Restoration to start repairing and rebuilding their properties.
Assistant Project Manager Trace Brooks said the company established a command center in Hammond last week and already has begun its work.
"The damage in this city is really bad," the 35-year-old Brooks said. "It's horrible. There's no saying how long it will take to rebuild."
Some things just can't be fixed. Ellen Harris, a fifth-generation New Orleanian and location scout for the motion picture and television industry, said her current project -- The Guardian, a Kevin Costner flick -- already has moved on to another locale in Louisiana.
Still, no one seems surprised that the Crescent City resurrection already is in the works -- or that the French Quarter is driving it.
Finis Shelnutt, a 53-year-old real estate broker, credits what he calls "Quarter characters."
"You have to be a little eccentric to live here," said Shelnutt as he sat outside Alex Patout's Louisiana Restaurant, 720 St. Louis St., which is in a building he owns. "Everybody has their own quirkiness and weirdness. You have to have a different personality to live here-- and we're used to the carnival life."
Screw all the handwringers. New Orleans has work to do.
And thanks to everyone here. This has been a very emotional time for many, and your words and works of support are truly humbling. You have helped prove that New Orleans is NOT the city that care forgot.
"Screw all the handwringers. New Orleans has work to do."
That's my America.
May God be with you.
St Joseph's Cathedral? I thought it was St. Louis'.
prayers and support to everyone in these difficult times.
Thanks. I'm just hoping that, this time around, New Orleans can get out the message that walking the streets with an open container is fine; peeing in the streets is not! :0)
The French Quarter will drive the recovery, and the areas that stayed dry will thrive in the near future. But the flooded and contaminated areas will be years in recovery.
N.O. will survive, the french Quarter will be the French Quarter, Cafe Du Monde will be serving again, but the city itself willbe only about half the size/population it once was.
And in reality that may not be a bad thing.
God bless you and yours. We're all in this together, no matter how many thousands of miles away we are.
You're right! St. Joseph's is in Baton Rouge; I'll email the editorial staff right now.
If they rebuild everything just like it was, exactly where it was....they deserve whatever hapens to 'em in the future.
Considering that it took 15 years and $15 billion to build a mile and a half of road in downtown Boston, and that the resulting Big Dig tunnel projects are now full of leaks since being opened to traffic, I would say that rebuilding New Orleans will take a very, very, very long time.
My understanding is that the French Quarter is on higher ground than the rest of the city. Screw rebuilding the city itself, they ought to reconstruct the French Quarter and just leave it at that.
Thank God some sanity prevails. I've been watching Fox News and the cameras have shown houses and areas where there is no standing water and the houses are somewhat intact. No one has mentioned that as the cameras roll. All of America prays for you and your city. It's truly a shame that the lowest of the low have been raping, killing, and looting. The few give the many a bad wrap. The ungrateful, too, are hard to listen to and look at. New Orleans will be rebuilt better and safer than before. Many who had nothing, hopefully, will gain jobs and a purpose to rebuild.
Great uplifiting article, full of the positive American spirit that made America Great! And you seem possessed of the same Spirit!
Prayers for you and NO!
What a mistake to rebuild in that location and every taxpayer in the United States will be on the hook for this folly. Dennis Hastert is right to question rebuilding there. Only the port should be rebuilt
I would trade peeing on the street for cleaning the city of the crime. Since I was old enough to own a gun, I never went into New Orleans with a gun.
Lets hope the New-New Orleans will be better than the Old New Orleans.
Every time we have an earthquake in southern California, the phone lines fill up with relatives and friends trying to see if we're still alive.
All they see is a close-up of the damaged areas. They think all of the landscape must be strewn with that sort of damage. Well, it isn't. Most places are just fine, or may have suffered only a little damage.
The problem is, unless you live in the area surrounding the event, you don't know how much of the region looks like what they camera shots do. That's why I tend to take coverage of such events with a huge grain of salt.
I know it's bad for the affected people. That's all I need to know.
I'm glad to see that you're doing fairly well.
Hopefully, the people who go back will be the ones with the drive and committment to make New Orleans the city it should have always been. I get so frustrated with New Orleans' negative reputation, because I see the great things about it. It's our chance to shine. Pray we don't blow it.
I'm hoping every single rapist/looter/urbanterrorist/drug dealer, etc. has a terrible case of gangrene and that their slow and painful deaths are to be assumed.
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