When my parents were teenagers, the place to go hear music and party was the French Quarter, on Bourbon Street. Pete Fountain and Al Hirt’s place, the Famous Door, Maison Bourbon and many more all had live music: live R&B, trad jazz, Dixieland jazz and a lot more, plus, of course, an array of burlesque clubs. Strip clubs weren’t really all that risqué back in the ’50s and ’60s, but somewhere along the line the character of Bourbon Street all began to change, from burlesque and exotic dancers and local music to strippers, lap dancing and cover bands.

I—like many New Orleanians who hadn’t traveled much as a youngster—perceived Bourbon Street as the ultimate “sin city” because of its reputation for becoming a street of strippers (notice I said strippers, not “exotic dancers” or “burlesque”). Imagine my immense surprise (I was in my twenties) when on a trip to Colorado, my boyfriend took me to a so-called “strip club.” The young lady performing didn’t wear pasties (like they were required to in New Orleans). This chick was nude. But she was also really pretty—if I remember correctly—and she was a great exotic dancer. Oh what a shocker to a naïve little southern girl like me! I remember thinking at the time that Bourbon Street was going to have to have a game change because the rest of the country had learned Bourbon’s tricks and actually improved on them!

But—and this is my own personal observation—instead of taking the high road and bringing in more actual burlesque acts and maintaining the street as a mecca to hear great music, in other words, making Bourbon Street a unique destination, Bourbon devolved into a place where there’s less music, more skin (and not necessarily pretty skin either); less real entertainment, more crap. Bourbon Street seems to exist to suck as much beer and liquor money as possible from tourists without much thought as to the quality of the entertainment that’s provided.

Granted, there are a few bars that offer any music other than cover bands played as loudly as possible (since the city can’t enforce any sort of noise ordinance), which is a crying shame since New Orleans is the birthplace of jazz and there are hundreds of talented musicians who need gigs. The strip clubs are, for the most part, really nasty, and appeal to the lowest possible denominator. There are a handful of places on Bourbon that provide high-quality entertainment, and those are not to be faulted.  But for the most part, the merchants who own and operate most of the bars and clubs on Bourbon Street have turned it into Fat City. For those readers outside the city, “Fat City” was a district in Metairie that was set up to try to compete with Bourbon Street. It quickly became an area rife with crime, drugs, crappy strip clubs and bars with cover bands. Sound familiar? Bourbon Street has become…Fat City! Now officials in Jefferson Parish are trying to clean up Fat City. How ironic.

I think that most people who read OffBeat could agree that Bourbon is not where it needs to be in terms of music and entertainment. The question is: what can be done? The city of New Orleans is ineffective in enforcing laws that curb some of the biggest problems on Bourbon; most pressing are safety, sanitation and noise issues. Noise on Bourbon is totally out of control; it’s detrimental to the people who patronize the street, to the employees of businesses who have to work there; and to other businesses on Bourbon who can’t properly function because of overwhelming noise. This is something the city and the police department can and should control and enforce.

Forcing local merchants to feature quality entertainment, music and food is not something the city can possibly dictate or legislate; that has to come from the merchants themselves. As long as people come to Bourbon Street and the merchants don’t care about the quality of the street itself and its importance to New Orleans tourism, then it’s never going to change; it’s just going to get worse. One of the biggest problems this city faces, in my opinion, is the revamping of the Bourbon Street “brand.” It’s one of our city’s most well-known attractions, and it’s time for a re-evaluation, a revamp and a re-examination by tourism officials on whether or not Bourbon Street is an asset, rather than a liability, tourism-wise.

Frenchmen Street band (Courtesy http://www.frenchmenst.com)

The merchants and business owners and operators on Frenchmen Street have banded together to form a group that they hope will prevent the deterioration of the quality of the music, food and entertainment there. They may have a tough time, because most of the major music clubs, bars and restaurants are constrained by what’s called a “cultural district overlay,” a special zoning that only permits a certain number of licenses, particularly for live music. Since there was no Frenchmen Street association that represented the merchants when the cultural overlay was put into place roughly 10 years ago, compliance within the zoning district is “policed” by the Faubourg Marigny Improvement Association. The FMIA—whose orientation is skewed towards residential, not commercial interests in the Marigny—is not the proper group to police the businesses on Frenchmen Street.

The formation of a Frenchmen Street business association is a hopeful sign that local business owners who truly are interested in preserving the music and culture of the city and the quality of life on Frenchmen for commerce and residents, are serious about taking the street’s destiny into their own hands. Working in tandem with FMIA, the business association must control businesses on Frenchmen and should have a voice in any zoning changes, processes or permitting on the street. I doubt seriously if the FMIA was even aware of the problems experienced by Frenchmen Street business owners over Halloween weekend. But the Frenchmen Street businesses were.

Let’s see if, given the opportunity, Frenchmen Street businesses can do a better job than Bourbon Street in keeping New Orleans’ music and traditions alive.  One thing for sure I know is that there won’t be any strippers on Frenchmen…