New Orleans – The hookers are back on Bourbon Street. So are the drug dealers, the strippers with names like Rose and Desire, the out-of-town businessmen, the college students getting blitzed on candy-colored cocktails and beer in plastic cups.
But a closer look reveals things are not back to the way they were in the French Quarter. Sixteen months after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans’ liveliest, most exuberant neighborhood is in a funk.
“The money’s not the same. I remember when I made $1,200 a night,” said Elizabeth Johnson, a manager and dancer at a Bourbon Street strip club, frowning at another slow night. “I know girls who used to never let people touch them, and now they’re resorting to prostitution.”
Robert Boudreaux, a beefy hotel bellman in an olive green vest, scanned the street with folded arms and said, “Very boring.”
The Quarter still has its characters – palm readers, magicians, street musicians, mimes. But the cheap fun is largely confined to the weekends these days, and seven-day-a-week stores, restaurants and clubs such as Preservation Hall are cutting back on their hours. The nonstop party is no more.
The “cams” – real-time camera footage of Bourbon Street, shown over the Internet – are dull on weekdays. Dixieland bands play to empty barrooms.
“The Quarter rats are drunk and high still, but they’re less drunk,” said bartender Dawn Kesslering.
In the Lower Quarter, the district’s residential half, where people walk poodles and neighbors share clotheslines in galleried courtyards, old-timers do not see as much zest around them.
“It’s become far more homogeneous, far more middle-class than working-class,” said John Dillman, who sells used books. “It will look like Boca Raton. A version of Boca Raton that has risqué.”
In 2004, the last full year before Katrina struck, about 10 million visitors came to New Orleans, most of them drawn by the French Quarter. In 2006, just over 5 million came.
“Every time they’d see CNN, Fox, they’d show flooded streets. Everybody thought there was nothing to come back to,” said Earl Bernhardt, owner of several Bourbon Street nightspots.
In truth, the French Quarter was largely untouched by Katrina’s fury. But it suffered financially anyway. Without the tourists, even Mardi Gras, which falls on Feb. 20 this year, will do little to balance the books at many businesses.
