Live music is back, but the problems haven’t gone away. Live music has returned with an ever-growing tsunami of performances, not only in New Orleans, but throughout the country. Touring acts are now back on the road. In one day, we heard of at least six shows passing through New Orleans beginning in September. So that’s a really good thing.
What’s not good about this is that in New Orleans, nothing much seems to have changed. The old problems are still there. Pre-COVID, Frenchmen Street, the city’s most (in)famous music street, was pack-jammed with tourists enjoying the opportunity to hear live music by simply walking up and down the two or three blocks of Frenchmen Street.
They’re back, in droves.
During the pandemic, some of the business owners on Frenchmen met frequently via Zoom to exchange ideas and concerns (obviously they had a lot of time on their hands, since the pandemic had shut down all entertainment).
The city had been (and ostensibly is still) looking at the possibility of making the vast majority of the French Quarter into a pedestrian-only mall, an idea that caused the majority of residents who still live in the Quarter to scream bloody murder, as the concept didn’t address the issues that would arise if residents could not park on the streets, or leave in their cars, or get deliveries. Frenchmen Street was also considered in this proposal, as the street—which is still open to one-way traffic and parking—experiences major traffic jams. People who go to Frenchmen are now so plentiful that they walk in the street, as there’s no real room on the sidewalks, thus exposing a lot of Frenchmen Street patrons to the possibility of being rammed by cars passing through the streets (I would assume that anyone who tries to drive on Frenchmen between Decatur and Royal Streets has to either be insane, or on an emergency—good luck with that—or an Uber/Lyft or taxicab looking for a fare.)
The Frenchmen businesses were open to the idea of closing down the street for safety reasons, for the most part—although some feared that making the street pedestrian-only would make it even more like Bourbon Street. In my opinion, Frenchmen is already a hipper, more original version of its storied predecessor. Declaring that Frenchmen isn’t like Bourbon is, at this point in time, a pretty ridiculous concept. That ship sailed at least a decade ago, as Frenchmen changed from the place where locals could hear great music in several different music venues in close proximity, to a place where visitors could celebrate the “party” and drinking culture rather than the uniqueness of New Orleans musical culture. I’ve written about this before, but the biggest reason why Frenchmen lost its attraction to local music lovers is that in the “olden days” Frenchmen was truly a music destination. Most venues charged a cover for the music/band, thus giving the music on the street much more perceived value than it currently seems to have: if people are willing to pay for the music, there’s a perception that the music is worth something intrinsically and isn’t just “background noise” to draw in tourists so that they can spend more money drinking.
The same scenario occurred on Bourbon, which used to be an entertainment street for locals, who trekked to Bourbon Street and paid for entertainment. That concept ended, though, when Bourbon Street became more of a pedestrian mall and a drunken party where people were there for the anything-goes and definitely not for the entertainment. Let’s face it: musicians need to be paid; bands are a nuisance—but necessary—to lure in drinkers. It’s easier to pay the bands poorly (because they’re just the background noise to the party) rather than charge a cover…when no one else is doing it.
The problem that most Frenchmen venues had with the potential street closure was more related to the fact that Frenchmen Street has infrastructure problems (flooded nasty gutters are commonplace), and the street is not patrolled by the NOPD on a regular basis. In fact, there was a business association that attempted to get the venues and businesses to pay for a for-hire patrol to keep the insanity on Frenchmen to a dull roar—since the nOPD could or would not provide police protection and enforcemnent on a regular basis.
I’ve had business owners describe Frenchmen as the “wild,wild West” in terms of what happens there on a regular basis. As a former business owner on Frenchmen, I can tell you that anything goes, including cooking and selling food (and beverages) on the streets, drug deals, break-ins, property damage, blatant theft from businesses, and of course, violence, too. Unless those problems were solved, especially the lack of regular police patrols and enforcement, that closing the street down was a dream and nothing more.
Another issue is buskers playing on the street (or doing stuff like writing “poetry” on typewriters on the sidewalk in front of Frenchmen businesses). The businesses on Bourbon ban live music performances after 8 p.m., but that doesn’t happen on Frenchmen. Bourbon also has regular police stationed on Bourbon. No such thing on Frenchmen.
To go a step further, a bigger issue on Frenchmen has been the presence of a brass band, the Young Fellaz Brass Band, who played for years on the lot at the corner of Frenchmen and Chartres. When Dat Dog was constructed on the lot, the brass band had no place to go that was off the street, and they began playing on the sidewalks, causing them to become so jammed that pedestrians couldn’t pass, and had to stand in the street to hear them, causing further congestion and dangerous conditions on the street.
In addition, the brass band was directly responsible for at least two businesses closing because their music was so loud that it disturbed customers in those businesses. The city has never addressed this issue, for fear that if the brass band was shut down on Frenchmen, media and social media would cause the general public to go ballistic against the city’s stance on cracking down on street musicians and culture bearers. God knows, no politician wants the wrath of social media accusing it of trampling the rights of musicians (no matter that the venues on Frenchmen were the only reason the brass band showed up on the street to begin with, because the venues attracted crowds who leave tips for the band in the first place).
The most recent brouhaha over the brass band occurred a couple of years ago, when the Young Fellaz set up shop on the corner of Frenchmen and Chartres, playing loudly and blocking the entrance to the Frenchmen Art & Books (FAB) store. The owner of the business asked the band to move out of FAB’s entrance, and to consider playing at different times to allow his business and others nearby (Favela Chic, Dat Dog, Willie’s Chicken Shack) to be able to service their customers (the music was too loud), and customers couldn’t get into FAB.
After requesting many times that the band cooperate as a good neighbor, (which the owner, David Zalkind, had every right to do: remember, business owners pay rent, utilities and taxes, unlike the brass band), he reluctantly called the NOPD to intervene.
The NOPD asked the band to relocate elsewhere on the street. Apparently the money they make in tips on Chartres and Frenchmen—and the city’s lack of police presence and enforcement vis a vis the band—created a bravado and lack of consideration in the band members, who “pretended” to move on, until after the NOPD left the scene, when they moved right back to where they were. The NOPD almost immediately came back to the location, saw the band, and demanded that they move. In the melee, a young mentally-challenged band member was handcuffed and arrested.
All hell broke loose on social media, accusing Zalkind’s actions as being racially-motivated (understandable, given the reputation of the racial injustice that young Black men endure in this city and throughout the rest of the country at the hands of the police).
But the facts were that Zalkind had asked on many occasions for the band to respect his business, and they did not. In fact, many of the venues had also complained vociferously about the brass band’s disruption of their businesses over the years.
With Frenchmen open again, the brass band is now back on the street. Nothing has changed. There’s still no police enforcement. The police and the city are afraid of being accused of racial motivations, and the police department, for the most part, has taken a hands-off policy on anything to do with music (remember, they don’t want that social media push-back). We’re back where we were pre-pandemic.
The Young Fellaz need a place to play where they can entertain the crowds of people who come to New Orleans looking for music. They need a place where they can make enough money on the street. The venues on Frenchmen (and elsewhere) need to be able to present live music in a safe environment for their guests and the bands alike, and to be able to make ends meet too. Can’t the city come up with a plan to create a safe (and lucrative) space for brass bands to play on a regular basis?
I’ve suggested in the past that the French Market’s Flea Market area—which is covered and lit, but basically deserted at night—would be an ideal place to create a “Brass Band Alley.” The more music, the better. The more that business and artist businesses (which the brass band is) can cooperate so that the culture is preserved and appreciated, the better.
