A very old friend and client of mine stopped by the OffBeat office this afternoon to drop off a couple of copies of an EP that he engineered for the New Orleans band Gravy Flavored Kisses (love that band name!).
We started discussing how difficult it is to achieve a balance in our neighborhoods (he owns a thriving restaurant and bakery in the Bywater). How do we achieve parity in our neighborhoods to keep them thriving and vital, with services for the people who live there (banks, groceries,restaurants, bars, entertainment venues, schools, markets, cultural events, etc.). You can’t just have a neighborhood of residents in houses with no services. It’s difficult to persuade people to live in an area where they can’t get gas, or go the bank or make groceries. Or be able to enjoy themselves.
When you live in an urban environment, those things are even more important. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that the main reason why people live in cities or move back to cities from the suburbs is so that they’ll have easy access to culture, restaurants, and other services. I know I did.
In New Orleans, we invest so much into our cultural assets, including food, music, art and celebrations, that in my (somewhat biased!) mind, it’s difficult to understand why anyone would settle for living in a suburb. I grew up in Jefferson Parish and have lived in the suburbs here and in other cities, and I know that this is not for me. Joseph and I live in Central City. We chose to buy a home there, and we knew going in that we weren’t going to be living in the rarified air of the Garden District. But both of us like “funky.” We expect there to be some noise when Mardi Gras Indians and second line parades march in the block near our house. We like our neighbors, black, white, rich, poor, educated and not. We like that we’re close to St. Charles Avenue Mardi Gras parades and we enjoy people watching from our front porch. We like being around local restaurants; we like that can be anywhere we want to be in the city in under 15 minutes, including Tip’s. the Maple Leaf, the Howlin‘ Wolf, the House of Blues, Frenchmen Street, the Quarter, suburban malls or the West Bank. We like the fact that we can wave to our neighbors every day on our way into work.
But there’s a price to pay for living where we do. We have to endure some things we’re not so happy about, like more refuse in our front yard than we’d have I we lived in Metairie or on the Northshore. We’d like to have a driveway instead of having to park on the street. We’d like to feel safer in our neighborhood.
What I’m trying to say here is that when you live in a city, there are trade-offs. If you live in the heart of the city, in the Quarter, Uptown, in the Marigny or Bywater, you should expect noise, tourists, music and maybe some activities that you’re not particularly fond of (like drunks sleeping—or worse—on your front stoop). That’s part of living in the city. You choose to live here, so deal.
If we could freeze-frame New Orleans and keep it like it was 50 years ago, that would be interesting, but not realistic. The point is that cities and areas of the city and activities in a city grow and change organically. Businesses are established in response to the common desires of the people who live in the vicinity. This is how Frenchmen evolved in a “music street.” This is why the Quarter, Marigny, and now the Bywater, have become places where creative and artistic people love to live. There’s a reason why there are music clubs in Bywater and the Marigny. It’s because the people who live nearby wanted them; they were culture consumers and patrons. The area developed organically. Yes, it’s changed a lot from what it used to be, but if you stop change, you stop development and growth and evolution.
I keep thinking about the apartment/mixed us complex that Sean Cummings proposed for the corner of Elysian Fields and Decatur Street, and how it was squashed by the very vocal residents’ association. From what I could see, Cummings’ proposal was sensitive to both its location and to the preservation of the low-scale neighborhood. A lot of thought went into the design of the Elisio Lofts. I think it would have been an interesting addition to the neighborhood and would have taken a derelict, dangerous location away and made it a thriving corner. It could have made a statement that New Orleanians are open to positive change, rather than having been depicted by the neighborhood association as an evil monolith that was going to destroy the character of the neighborhood.
Some of the crazy (almost fringe-y) reactions I’ve seen to changes in the cities’ neighborhood associations (banning music, protesting good thoughtful developments that would create positive changes, not destroy the neighborhood) just are not good for New Orleans. In the name of preservation, these people keep us in the dark ages.
After having spent most of my life here, I have seen us shoot itself in the foot time and time again. I’ve come to believe that we have myopia when it comes to improving the city. We’d rather keep a crappy derelict property than to let a developer build an extra story on the front of a building facing a major thoroughfare. I also believe that there are people who’ll swallow anything they hear from a neighborhood group because they’ve been sold platitudes or slogans (remember those “Bigger Isn’t Better” signs plastered all over the Marigny and Bywater?). Just the sign itself was deceptive. Ah, the power of emotion versus reason.
Which brings me to how these attitudes influence music in the city: I do believe that New Orleans’ government and tourism officials have not embraced music, and have not done enough to help promote music and cultural events in neighborhoods where most (not all!) residents welcome it. I just don’t think that a few residents should be able to keep an area from growing and changing organically. If most of the residents want and like music and don’t mind it in their ‘hood, the few should not be able to control its development or cause its demise.
I also believe, and I reiterate what I said last week: if music lovers and residents prefer that they have music in their neighborhoods, the city should reconsider its stance on zoning and the granting of music permits.
But once again: until an organized voice can and is willing to be vocal about sustaining the city’s musical heritage, the fringe groups will prevail. Make your voice heard!
