St. Charles streetcar

The news about made me cry as I scanned headlines before sleeping last night:

The St. Charles Streetcar is back on track!

The grinding wheels, the tourists, the route running all the way from Canal on the Quarter uptown to the Riverbend on Carrollton, just past Tulane and the Audubon Zoo. There was a La Madeleine on that corner, right around the bend from one house I inhabited in my years in N'awlins.

I first arrived in N'awlins having little to no idea of what the city was all about. I was: 1. from the West Coast so San Francisco, LA, Seattle or Vegas was more likely of a vacation destination. 2. fresh back from 3 years, the real beginning of my adult life, in Japan which greatly influenced my frame of reference. I have, in fact, a 3-7 year block of American pop culture...I have very little to no idea what happened during those early to mid-90s years here in the States. I really had no idea what N'awlins would be like, but could tell you all about Roppongi in Tokyo on a Saturday night. 3. I had no place lined up to live. I was starting the PhD program in mid-year and thus the graduate residence was already full. So one of my profs offered up his 1853 house just off the Quarter on Barracks St. to me. Another puertorriqueño was inhabiting the "slave quarters" in the back. So I thought, "why not?"

I was persuaded to leave my new car behind in Oregon, as N'awlins streets are notorious for being really hard on cars. It is true that there are drive-through daiquiri stands. It is also true that one of the biggest sobriety tests is just watching to see what cars drive straight on the roads and what cars swerve radically to miss all the potholes.

Tulane was, of course, way uptown from where I was on the far end of the Quarter. I had to walk 10 blocks just to catch the bus or to take the Streetcar, either way. I normally taught in the morning hours, held office hours in the afternoon and had my own classes in either the afternoon or the evening; evening classes normally let out between 9 and 9:30. Then back to a bus to get me back down to the Quarter, then walk back to my home along Rampart Street, too tired to deal with the drunks on Bourbon Street but still having to maintain my guard as I walked along what the local police calls "Louis Armed-and-Strong Park" trying to act crazier than the crazies so that nobody would touch me..I would just sing to myself.

I lived in a very gentrified, very black area. I didn't mind feeling the minority; indeed, that's how I spent the previous three years as a gaijin in rural Japan. Once I was recognized for living in the neighborhood, I felt protected and watched out for to a certain degree. There are places I would not set foot, sure; common sense must always reign. But there were places that I just kind of stumbled upon and, with a smile and some polite manners could figure my way back home.

As I met other classmates in the Department and they came to realize where exactly it was that I lived (one was engaged to a local and he was horrified that I would actually walk alone where I lived) the pressure began to get me to move uptown. If you're a gay puertorriqueño, no problem. The Quarter is a heavily gay district. I actually preferred to walk the gay streets than the drunk streets (N'awlins was not a good city to do actual serious graduate study in...undergrad could have been fun, but I did not have a lot of time for fun as a grad student). My name got out in the Department as "a housesitter" so I was offered another home by another professor leaving on sabbatical, and he was uptown just down the street from the University.

I had my car then. A Japanese friend and I went back to Oregon and he and I made the road trip all the way back down along the I-10 to Louisiana, stopping to see the Grand Canyon and various sights along the way; I had to be back to work so time was a bit limited. That fall the streets flooded up to my waist on Broadway Street, the water actually picked up my car and moved it, having filled it up to the steering wheel with filthy floodwater. I called class off early, even though school hadn't officially cancelled classes yet, but by then the damage was long done and the frat boys were already out kayaking down Broadway Street.

I then moved into the house of a friend of my husband's, who was leaving her Navy post in N'awlins and moving up to Long Island for a new post there. She had a half-shotgun just off Magazine Street, just a couple blocks down from the Audubon Zoo. It had the porch swing and everything...I fell in love with the porch culture, sitting out on the porch with a glass of something in hand, chatting with the neighbor on the next porch over--it was a real community. I also became heavily addicted to the café culture. Walking down to CCs Coffee on Napoleon--or was it Jefferson?--and Magazine (I forget...it's been almost 10 years!) for Saturday and Sunday morning bagels, coffee, neighbors, chatting and culture. It is something I truly miss; Starbucks dates with the monitos are nice but they are not even comparable to coffee mornings at CCs.

I'd hop the Streetcar with my Japanese friends--I lived with N, a Japanese who was studying English at the time and who has now established himself as a professional photographer in New York City--down to the Quarter to hit some of the great jazz joints until the sun came up the next morning and we would stumble back home. Whenever friends or family came to visit, the Streetcar was there to provide a nice link to the Garden District, the Quarter, the Mall down at the end of Canal, and home. There were times you could close your eyes and hear Marlon Brando yell "STELLA!" even though the Desire Streetcar was no longer in service; pre-Katrina talk was to try to reinstate the Desire service but I'm not sure if the lack of popularity of the idea came from the part of town that the Streetcar would have to run through, namely the Desire projects.

It was nice to read that story last night. So many memories evoked. N'awlins really does have something for just about everyone. I would go back for vacation, but I've done 3 Mardi Gras and wear my chosen earned beads with Pride every year no matter where I live. I earned that right.