hey that was pretty interesting man

Will, nice piece. For comparison, you should visit the Mississippi coast from Biloxi to Bay St. Louis. New Orleans must repair, Bay St. Louis, Kiln, Waveland, Pass Christian cannot be repaired, they are gone. They must be built anew.

I didn't know you were a New Orleans native. That explains a lot. My freak out moment occurred shortly after the city was re-opened and it was on Claiborne. I had driven to town to check on the family graves at Metairie Cemetary. I then drove down Canal to go to the Quarter. My jaw dropping moment occurred at the intersection of Claiborne and Canal. The lights were not working and they had stop signs placed at all the intersections. So here I am stopped at Claiborne and Canal and I was the only car there! Folks, this is a MAJOR intersection in the city! It felt like the world had changed its direction of rotation. Maybe the mind can only handle so much and it has to pick smaller things to react to when everything is so wrong.
As an aside, I know you are a Chris Rose fan. He had a good commentary today: http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/stories/05/8katrina_edit.html

I'm not a NOLA native; I've never even lived there, but I have visited so often I probably ought to start paying local property tax.

My college roommate and his wife lived on Carondelet near Pascale's Manale for six years after we finished school. I mooched off their place shamelessly.

Chris Rose is doing a book signing here (Atlanta) in a couple of weeks, I'm looking forward to seeing him. I'll write a little about his book later in the week. I'd have caught his signing at the Fairgrounds, but it conflicted with Dirty Dozen's set, and a man has to have his priorities.

Will!

Thanks for the pictures and report. I went down for Mardi Gras and was as dumbfounded as you to find the Camelia Grill closed. I was kind of hoping it would be open again by now. I used to live about five blocks up at Carrollton and Plum, one block from the K&B at Oak Street.

Reading your post gave me another flash of that panicked feeling I've been fighting since the storm, that feeling that I have to go get back there now. Anyhoo, I hope you had as much fun at Jazz Fest as we had at carnival.

yours/
peter.

I've used the The Rite-Aid you shot as my corner pharmacy/liquor store for many years. It still gripes me that I can't just drop in there to grab what I need in a flash, and have to go stand in line at the Save-A-Center on Tchoupitoulas.

You can get used to hanging by your thumbs, they say, and while I see the things you saw every day, often I can just not notice them now. Recently Chris Rose wrote about taking a visitor on the Misery Tour, in an area where he saw enough signs of repair among the ruins, compared to what he rememberd, to make him comment, "Looking pretty good." His New York visitor was shocked and said, "It does NOT look good!" Chris admitted he was right, it didn't.

I guess we need fresh eyes to see, now and then, and remind us.

Nice post - instead of pointing an accusing finger "America has forgotten," you very quietly describe what you saw...and we realize that we have indeed forgotten.

I guess I thought that since the city was reopened, that the cleanup and rebuilding was well under way. Thanks for the reminder.

Darn Will, had I known you were that close, I'd have invited you up to Baton Rouge to Mandina's. Yes, Mandina's. It's open up here with the kitchen crew from New Orleans. And the turtle soup is still wonderful!

I could have shown you round Lakeview (I am a native) if you really wanted to see that.

All the best!

.....CLIFF

Will - thanks for the pics and the story. Hope you had a blast at the Fest.

I recognized the Rite-Aid in your picture, as well as shots of Claiborne. I lived at Coliseum and Race St. for four years, not far from the Prytania Theatre, which recently burned down.

Sad to see that Camelia Grill is still closed, but as for diners, do you have any idea if the Bluebird Cafe on Prytania, across from Touro Hospital is operating? That was walking distane from my apartment and was a regular Satuday morning meal. Not as interesting as CG, but the food was fantastic and they played WWOZ on the radio.

Isn't that a hoot? Hundreds of thousands of people get run out of their homes, most of them won't ever have homes to return to, a thousand souls are gone, and what gets to me? I can't have breakfast in a diner.

Don't feel bad about that. My heart skipped a beat too, I loved Camellia Grill. But the scale of what happend is so huge that it can't possibly be real to us until one tiny little detail - like Camellia - hits us. Then it becomes real, and that's a good thing.

Flyer, that must have been a typo. It was the Coliseum Theater in your old neighborhood that burned down a month or so ago. The Prytania, on Prytania St. near Jefferson, is just fine and is currently showing, God help us, Mission Impossible III.

Just didn't want to alarm anybody.

Oh, and the Bluebird Cafe is open, at its usual erratic and unpredictable hours.

Steve, thanks for the correction. Typing faster than I was thinking and didn't go back to check the story about the theater. It was the Coliseum that was near me. My first four five there I lived at Bordeaux and Prytania, not far from the Prytania, though. After being gone five years I'm prone to a mixup.

Glad to hear The Bluebird's still serving. Sadly, I guess the usual line to get in isn't as long.

What really brought it home to me was learning that O'Flarety's wasn't reopening. That really hurt.