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French Qtr, CBD Update

Doc'sWife

By Doc'sWife,
in New Orleans

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Doc'sWife

Doc'sWife

Posted
Posted

Mayor Ray Naguin (New Orleans Mayor) just announced in his morning press conference that starting this Sat., all business owners in the French Quarter, CBD, Uptown, and Algiers (across the river) are going to be allowed to come back in to inspect their businesses.

 

On Monday (9-19), residents of Algiers are allowed to go back home to stay.

On Wed. and then Fri., residents of the CBD & Uptown are allowed back in to stay.

On Monday 9-26, residents of the French Quarter are allowed to go back in to stay.

 

These areas remained relatively dry throughout the disaster and are completely dry now. Electricity has been restored at 65% in some areas, and 90% in others.

 

This is awesome news. It is just the beginning of the re-birth of New Orleans. With the wonderful residents working together to get their businesses and residents back in working order, the city of New Orleans will hopefully be open for tourists far sooner than what was originally feared and anticipated 17 days ago.

 

Doc's Wife

Baton Rouge resident

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  • 2 weeks later...
mamatrouble

mamatrouble

Posted
Posted

Just made a delivery to Best Buy in Melairie, La and looks like if the businesses can get open they are....lots of traffic going across the causeway over Lake Pontchartin, had to go in that waY since parts of I-10 are closed coming from Mississippi. I even saw cars being washed in a gas station car wash, looks life is coming back at least to that part of New Orleans. Lots of trees, signs and windows broke in that area( no debris in the main streets).

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zydecocruiser

zydecocruiser

Posted
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http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tporleans/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tporleans/archives/2005_09_28.html#083283

 

 

BOURBON BUZZ

 

Candy may be dandy, and liquor may be quicker, but on Monday, when the juice again began flowing in the French Quarter, it was the power that re-energized happy hour

 

Curfew? What curfew?

 

 

By Bruce Hamilton

Staff writer

 

 

For the first time since Katrina, the streets of the French Quarter didn't go dark Monday as night fell.

 

 

Streetlamps and neon signs glowed, loud bars stayed open past midnight, and carousing patrons cheered the LSU Tigers on television. Local eccentrics were back in their element. And there were tourists, even if most of them were relief workers or law enforcement personnel.

 

What was strangest about the scene was that it was so strangely normal. But in the wake of two hurricanes, restoration of electricity in the city's oldest and most cherished neighborhood was like finding a pulse on a patient who was thought to have flat-lined.

 

"When the power came on, I said, 'Yea!'" said Bonnibel Byars, a part-time Ursulines Street resident who had just returned from her other home in Minnesota. She was impressed by the activity in the Quarter, the lodestone of New Orleans' tourism industry.

 

"I was skeptical," she said, having expected things to be "kind of desolate."

 

Byars was enjoying a cold beer with a friend at Stella, a Decatur Street establishment that was serving up smoked sausage sandwiches, cheeseburgers, salads - and blessed air conditioning.

 

On the upriver end of Bourbon Street, music, strobes and barkers lured passersby into several fleshpots and honkytonks that were back in business.

 

Rock reverberated from the Famous Door, where Deborah Richard, Heineken in hand, was one of a handful of patrons. "I'm surprised. I didn't think anything was open," said Richard, an off-duty corporal with the Department of Homeland Security. She had just arrived in the city from Philadelphia and had yet to learn her assignment.

 

Richard said she got the mistaken impression from TV media that New Orleans was flooded throughout. "The way the news explained it, I thought it was all under sea level," she said.

 

Famous Door manager Art Irons said the bar opened a week ago, only to be quickly shuttered by city officials and Hurricane Rita. "We had people. We had cold beers. We decided to see if we couldn't get back to normal," he said.

 

Irons said he wanted to give people something to do "besides looking at damage."

 

A block away, at Bourbon Street Blues Company, a female bartender climbed on top of the bar and gyrated to music before an enthusiastic crowd of about 18.

 

Another bartender, Bridgett Derdin, sang the praises of local residents. "During the summer, the local people pay our bills," she said. "We're trying to get Bourbon Street going again. New Orleans takes care of New Orleans."

 

Customer Wayne Williamson was happy to lend himself to the cause. "It wasn't a whole lot of fun until power today," said Williamson, a credit union manager who returned late last week to his French Quarter apartment. "The place has been dead," he said. "We can start the comeback now."

 

Along the Quarter's largely car-free streets, many storefronts and homes remained darkened, but streetlamps gleamed throughout the district.

 

Sidewalk trash bins had been emptied, but the stink of piled garbage was still inescapable. Closed pubs and boarded-up shops far outnumbered bustling businesses, but some, such as The Original Dungeon at 738 Toulouse St., posted signs promising a Tuesday reopening.

 

A small crowd gathered around the Royal Street Grocery, apparently the only store in the area selling staples such as cigarettes, aspirin, batteries and insect repellent.

 

Owner Robert Buras, wearing a Saints cap and a T-shirt with an alligator on it over the words "Cajun yard dog," said he left only briefly about four days after Katrina hit, when looting and lawlessness were at their peak.

 

"We had separation anxiety," Buras said.

 

After numerous trips in and out of the city to restock his wares, Buras was back in business within a week of Katrina, serving crawfish etouffee as well as red beans and rice.

 

On Monday, his wife, Fahreena, worked the kitchen and the counter, and their 3-year-old daughter, Ava, dashed around customers' legs and played drums on a plastic can.

 

One of his most loyal customers, James Stephan, 58, pronounced the chicken "delicious," then washed it down with a Coke.

 

The shop's inventory offered long-deprived locals such surprises as Starbucks coffee, lemons and peaches, postcards, and pints of Wild Turkey.

 

"I'm going to be resettled in the first place that's a community again," Buras said of the French Quarter, crossing himself as an expression of gratitude that the electricity was back on.

 

On Decatur Street near the Quarter's downriver boundary, laughter and conversation spilled from Molly's at the Market, a watering hole that, like Buras' grocery, had been operating even without electricity.

 

Before the power came on, Molly's honored the official curfew and closed at 6 p.m. On Monday, the bar stayed open until a more civilized 2 a.m.

 

"It's a regular Monday night crowd," said Uptown resident Greg Ensslen, who rode his bicycle to the bar with two friends and dined on donated burgers.

 

Ensslen said the bleak state of the city had been depressing. "It felt like when you break up with a girlfriend because you've done something wrong."

 

Shortly after 9 p.m., two New Orleans police officers pulled up to Molly's in a motorized cart. The crowd of about 18 grew hushed, and the jukebox stopped playing a Van Morrison song. Whether the bar was being shut down seemed an open question.

 

A moment later, the jukebox cranked up again and the officers were mingling in the crowd. Asked what time the curfew kicked in, officer S.M. Smith exhaled a cloud of cigarette smoke, shrugged and said, "Whatever."

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selucrey

selucrey

Posted
Posted
Cafe du Monde says it will be open in 10 days to 2 weeks !!!

 

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Zydeco, have you ever seen Cafe du Monde as empty as this...?

http://community.webshots.com/photo/440556720/467339941ueMgyy

 

My DD was in the FQ Saturday. She said there were several bars and shops up and running. Still a lot of debris and a "different" smell but it is coming back!

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selucrey

selucrey

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I got an e-mail from the Inn on Bourbon this week and they will not re-open to the public until January. It almost sounds like they are housing workers in the meantime.

Deb

They are. My daughter is in the French Quarter now. I will be posting some pics tomorrow.

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zydecocruiser

zydecocruiser

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Zydeco, have you ever seen Cafe du Monde as empty as this...?

http://community.webshots.com/photo/440556720/467339941ueMgyy

 

My DD was in the FQ Saturday. She said there were several bars and shops up and running. Still a lot of debris and a "different" smell but it is coming back!

 

No sir. Have not - until today, that is. Dang it - thought they would be open.

 

Should be back to broadband tomorrow - will try to post some also. Lots open for biz, lots not. Almost made it to Ecstasy, but not quite. But did get a pic. ;)

 

 

For quarter update of what's open or not:

http://www.innthequarter.com/cominghome.htm#cominghome

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Rowan555

Rowan555

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I can't thank you enough for your photos. I am actually back home, but currently without a car, so I haven't gotten to explore downtown and the french quarter yet. Seeing those photos warms my heart after all the HORRENDOUS photos and videos we had to witness while evacuated. I'm just patiently (ok, not so patiently) waiting for Gumbo Shop to reopen - I want to be there the first day they're back in business.

 

My husband and I spent the night in the Quarter on August 10th for our anniversary - we had such a wonderful time, and I'm SO glad we did it, since things probably won't ever be quite the same. Next year will be our tenth anniversary, and I think we'll do the same thing again. We had talked about going out of town for a few days, but in all honestly, there's no place like the quarter, and it will be nice in 10 months to hopefully see things much more back to normal than they are now.

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melizard

melizard

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Posted

I love the Gumbo Shop. It is my absolute favorite place to eat. I was in New Orleans 2 days before the hurricane hit. I meant to buy the cookbook from the Gumbo Shop when we ate there but I forgot. I figured we'd eat there again after we got back from our cruise so I could buy one.....Yeah right. We had to go back to Galveston. I did eventually find one online but it just isn't the same as being there. We do have to go back to NOLA sometime to get our other vehicles and maybe they will be open again.

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zydecocruiser

zydecocruiser

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intro_header.gif To Employees and Friends of Cafe Du Monde

We are opening the Cafe Du Monde on decatur street on

Wednesday October 19th.

It's been more than six weeks since Hurricane Katrina attacked our city. We are still trying to make contact with many members of the Cafe Du Monde team. If you are an employee of Cafe Du Monde please E-Mail us (by clicking on the Employees link below) to let us know that you are O.K. and fill us in on your future plans.

To everyone that placed an Internet order from August 27th to today we are pleased to report that your package is on the way. For those of you that placed an order by mail, I'm sorry to report that as of yet we have not received the bulk of our mail. It is starting to arrive a few pieces at a time, but our main post office was damaged and no one at the temporary post office can confirm when the bulk of our mail will arrive. If you would like to speak to a representative regarding your order, please feel free to call 1-800-772-2927.

Finally, to the hundreds of you that have phoned and written to us in the last six weeks expressing your concern and support, the Fernandez family would like to thank you. The City of New Orleans, including Cafe Du Monde, will bounce back. The first three weeks following the storm were filled with shock and awe at the power of Mother Nature. The next three weeks were spent on clean up and restoration. You never know how exciting electricity can be until you are without it for a month. Looking ahead, more time will be needed for rebuilding. We know that many members of the Cafe Du Monde team have lost their homes and will need time to rebuild their lives. Some parts of New Orleans were less affected than others. Fortunately, the French Quarter was one of those areas and life is starting to get back to normal. More French Quarter attractions are opening every day and by the end of October we believe that the vast majority of businesses will be open. So please spread the word that Cafe du Monde is back and would love to have visitors return to enjoy all the sights and sounds that make New Orleans such a wonderful place to live.

 

Laissez les bons temps rouler!

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