Initial Reactions from NOLA

Finally arrived in NOLA (New Orleans, Louisiana) after a tortuous trip down from Providence which involved getting my bags lost and missing connections. Walk off plane and....WHAM! HUMIDITY. This simple desert dweller is coming up with clever solutions to cope which I shall share in future posts.

It seems that the city of New Orleans has rightly invested millions of dollars to restart the tourist economy, which makes up a huge percentage of city revenues. You can get off your plane, take the taxi to your hotel, explore the French Quarter/Canal Street, go back to your hotel, and return to the airport without ever knowing that Katrina happened. However, if you walk a single block outside of these areas, it becomes very noticeable. Many homes and businesses still have boarded up windows and doors. Empty lots on which homes used to stand seem like holes torn in the urban fabric. Many supermarkets remain shuttered with their attached asphalt deserts sprouting weeds. You can still see the haunting spray painted "X"s on front doors indicating date searched, numbers of survivors/corpses found, and if there were any pets.

It's a hard judgment call to make. How can you justify spending millions of dollars to replant massive palm trees in tourist areas when city roads are riddled with potholes and infrastructure is crumbling elsewhere. I suppose it comes down to the simple economic fact that one has to spend money in order to make it. It's a very fine line to walk between pampering the largely Caucasian tourists and leaving the largely Black residents of the Lower Ninth and other neighborhoods out in the cold (or heat and humidity as the case may be, but I digress).

Musealification and the Outrage du Jour

Taking the train through Penn Station in New York is a claustrophobic experience. You step off a regional train and you're welcomed to NYC by this veritable dung-heap. No doubt, the station felt ultra modern back in the 60's but now it's low ceilings feel like they are going to crush you.

But oh! How nice! While waiting in line, they decided to treat you to a taste of what you missed. To the left is the photo framed on the wall. It's the old Penn Station which was torn down in the 60's when we descided as a society that our historical architecture was not worth protecting. Below is an image of what it was replaced with. Which one doe you prefer?

Scale and The City

I arrived in New York this morning around 5:30 and was greeted by an amazing sunrise. I have flown to and from New York area airports on numerous occasions however this one struck me as unique. Seeing something from overhead provides a shift in perspective. I recall thinking of New York and the surrounding boroughs as overwhelming leviathans. This morning, however, I looked out the plane window and was shocked to see what I could identify as the island of Manhattan, the Hudson River, and Long Island stretching off into the Atlantic. Perhaps it was the early morning light but everything looked like I was over a map of lights with the buildings removed. The strange trick of light made everything appear to be 2-D, like on a map. This experience made New York City seem much less daunting. Interesting how “stepping out” of an environment can make it virtually “snap” into scale.