BBC: French Quarter keen to open for business

[kskiska]

The BBC News website's Richard Greene discovers how the heart of tourist New Orleans, largely untouched by Hurricane Katrina, is looking to the future, despite the mayor's order to evacuate the city.

Finis Shelnutt is enjoying a beautiful September day. The sun is blazing hot, the sky perfectly clear, and he has a table with a tidy white tablecloth all to himself in front of Alex Patout's Louisiana Restaurant.

(snip)

Sitting on high ground, the Big Easy's main tourist destination was almost entirely untouched by the storm.

And now, with the city evacuated and shut down, it is entirely untouched by tourists. The streets are empty.

Mr Shelnutt doesn't expect that to last long.

"We're ready to open up," he says confidently, as two restaurant employees haul containers of rotting meat out of the building.

more…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4222054.stm

[aquart]

1. Gonna be a lotta hungry, thirty sanitation engineers. Guardsmen, soldiers.

What are they gonna do? Drive to Gulfport for relaxation? Biloxi?

The French Quarter knows its business.

[GeorgeGist]

2. One sick fuck IMHO... /eom

[sui generis]

8. incorrect

the first jobs coming back into the city are going to be in food service and construction. The first revenue that doesn't require tremendous infrastructure changes coming back into the city will be in tourism. This isn't "sick". It's practical. Bad timing maybe, but the idea is practical, and sooner or later the French Quarter IS going to be among the first districts to reopen.

My not so humble opinion.

[Name removed]

18. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Thtwudbeme]

19. I hope you see this before the mods delete it

Fuck you, and the horse you rode in on.

Go home: www.FreeRepublic.com ....home of the racists.

Mods...PLEASE leave his post so visitors can see what racists "Conservatives" are.

Stephanie

[rene moon]

20. You are evil

go away

[krkaufman]

21. Personally, if deemed feasible, I'd like to push for 2008 conventions...

... in New Orleans. Shouldn't it be possible to get basics up-and-running for a sufficient portion of the city to be able to host a political convention by 2008?

[donheld]

17. Explain please

Why is it "One sick fuck?"

[Laura PourMeADrink]

3. I wonder, is it possible to open up the FQ before the rest of NOLA

is drained and cleaned up? Or these restaurateurs and business people may feel differently if they uncover the 10,000+ poor dead souls?

May be a dumb question, but where does NOLA get its drinking water? From Ponchartrain?

[kskiska]

6. Drinking water comes from the Mississippi River.

Most people drink bottled water.

[GeorgeGist]

4. One sick fuck IMHO... /eom

[Puglover]

15. Yeah we heard

you the 1st time. Give it a rest.

[whatever4]

5. To retract

I saw the French Quarter on tv, and for what I said about rebuilding New Orleans somewhere else, a long post the other day that got me yelled at a little...the tv showed the French Quarter and the people and it made me think I didn't know what I was talking about. Were it not for the flood, they'd have never even closed the bars. They're there still, supporting each other and even cleaning up.

So, it's a given on rebuilding New Orleans. Maybe move the residential inland, I don't know enough to postulate further. I just know enough, now, to think it was silly to say it has to be rebuilt elsewhere. Maybe be rebuilt elsewhere, part of it, but only part of it. The brick and iron grating is still there. New Orleans isn't gone. I was wrong to think it was, and I'm SO thankful for having been wrong.

[tanyev]

7. I'd prefer a restaurant with a functioning toilet, thanks anyway.

[rox63]

9. Once they restore water and electricity

It would be a great place to start the revitalization of New Orleans. It's one of the few areas of the city where they had little or no flooding. There are lots of great restaurants and hotels in the Quarter. The people coming in to rebuild the city are going to have to eat and sleep somewhere. Why not in the French Quarter?

[losdiablosgato]

11. I wish them the best in getting it up and running

I have a warm spot in my heart for the quarter. I proposed to my wife on Royal street.

[The_Casual_Observer]

10. Probably some of those neighborhoods around the levees

will never be rebuilt. I'll bet that they will target Mardi Gras 2006 for completion of a lot of repairs.

[krkaufman]

22. Or Dem and/or RNC conventions in NOLA in 2008 ??? n/t

[Selatius]

12. When we rebuild NO, can we rebuild it without RACISM???

There was a study done. Many nightclubs and bars in NO charged higher prices with black people than with white people.

http://www.amren.com/mtnews/archives/2005/04/study_finds_rac_1.php

FUCK YOU RACISTS.

[gauguin57]

13. This is where the Bush twins can help ... "Daddy! Can you please reopen

the French Quarter? Pleeeeeease??? We wanna par-taaaaaay!"

[krkaufman]

23. Ok, THAT was funny. Thanks. n/t

[Spinzonner]

14. "Would you like a broad-spectrum antibiotic with that dish ?"

it's the specialty of the day.

[AndyTiedye]

16. Let Them Open!

The people who will be repairing and rebuilding the rest of New Orleans deserve to eat well!