All of us New Orleanians treasure and savor each new small sign of our recovery and our return, as my son's parain says, to abnormal. The College Inn is reopening (in a new building) Tuesdays through Saturdays -- yay! Two young guys are working on renovating Charlie's Steakhouse and will bring it back better than ever -- yeah you right! The City Park Carousel will reopen -- hurrah!
Every little bit of our culture and tradition coming back to us is like getting pieces of ourselves back. We trade news with each other, and give the thumbs up. The happiness is shared, and gives us hope and strength for what we know is a very long haul indeed.
On Saturday, November 10, Big Man and I hustled to get from the Marigny, where the New Orleans Book Fair was held, to be at the Grand Reopening of the St. Charles Streetcar at the corner of Napoleon and St. Charles Avenues. (By the way, the Book Fair was terrific, with perhaps seven-eighths of the city's char-ack-ter population in attendance. After about the 5th booth, Big Man says to me, "I've never been to a Book Fair anywhere in the country where there were so many books about the city where the fair was held." We are pretty self-referential, but we just think it's normal. We think, who wouldn't want to write a book about New Orleans?)
By the time we arrived, a fair-sized mixed crowd had gathered at the starting point of the streetcar's reduced line. (The rest of the line, from Napoleon uptown to Riverbend and Carrollton, will open, they say, in 2008, after more work is done on the tracks and the electric wires.) The folks formed around the temporary speaker's platform were a microcosm of the city at her best -- white well-dressed Uptowners (with champagne glasses!), young white people with piercings and wildly colored or dreadlocked hair, some Latino families and singles, some black families and singles, a few Asian-Americans, children, youth, young adults, aging Baby Boomers, wise elders. The parents held their little kids up so they could see better. Many people held handkerchieves which they touched to their eyes; many eyes shone with happy tears, including mine.
There were speakers -- officials from the mayor's office, from RTA, from FEMA, from the City Coucil, even Bill Jefferson -- and the crowd was mostly polite (there was one heckler, over by Fat Harry's, but he was not very audible and was easily ignored). But we really didn't care about the speeches. All we wanted was our streetcars.
In front of the first streetcar -- there were 4 lined up altogether -- stood the Warren Easton High School Marching Band, complete with flag girls. Their uniforms were brilliant in the sun, obviously band-box new. ("Tipitina's Foundation," guessed Big Man.) When the time came to rewire and electrifiy the streetcars, the drum line did a roll, and a cymbal crash, and then we all applauded. The dignitiaries and officials got onto the first streetcar, as the band struck up a marching tune.
The rest of us regular folks pressed up against the next streetcar, including Big Man and I, since I wanted so much to be in the second streetcar in the little "parade." A young mom near me comforted her little girl, "Don't worry, honey, we'll be in this one." We climbed in and the love and nostalgia washed over us all. I was not the only one with tears in my eyes. The old familiar smell of a streetcar -- who knows what it's composed of? who cares? -- filled our nostrils.
Big Man and I got a seat, and he opened the window for me, clack-clack-clack-clack, all the way up. It was a glorious day, all blue sky and sunshine and warm. We could just barely hear the band in front of the streetcar in the lead in front of us and suddenly, we were off! but at a stately, parade pace. The St. Charles streetcar had returned, and we were on it! All of us screamed and cheered and clapped. Cars going by us blew their horns and the drivers and passengers grinned and waved, and we waved back. Our streetcar driver hit the bell, ding! ding! ding! Oh, that beloved sound!
We rattled down St. Charles, bodies moving in the old sweet rhythm, rocking back and forth. We were all so happy. At nearly every block along the way, there were little crowds of people waiting for the streetcar. They didn't want to ride, they just wanted to see and celebrate. At one swank St. Charles mansion, men in pressed khakis and women in dresses came onto the veranda and toasted the streetcar; we cheered. At another stop, a crowd of people held up home-made signs: "Boo Buses! Yay Streetcar!" "Katrina 0 -- Streetcars 1" and even "We Love RTA." We roared our approval and agreement. At another, the gathered group pelted the streetcar with beads. We cheered them too.
A woman stood up in the front of our streetcar and said, "Let's celebrate the return of the streetcar in real New Orleans style!" and she began to sing "The Saints." Everyone aboard joined in with gusto and cheered after. Cars on St. Charles paced us, the drivers waving. A woman came out onto her porch, holding an infant, who she held up to "see" us go by. An elderly couple sat on lawn chairs in their front yard to watch us. People came running out of banks and bars on St. Charles to cheer as the streetcars went by. Buildings like The Columns Hotel and the Tourist Commission were draped with banners, welcoming the return of the streetcar. Folks on the sidewalk held up their cell phones to take pictures, and all the TV stations -- NBC, CBS, ABC, WYES, FOX, and even Telemundo -- shot streetcar footage as we went by. It was a tremendous feeling.
As we passed Felicity Street, Big Man and I got up from our seat and walked to the front, having first made sure to pull the line to alert the driver that ours was the next stop. (I think we may have been the only people to disembark that day, but we had planned on purpose to do this, having preparked our car at my sister's, where I would pick it up that night after a party.) As we walked past a RTA official, I smiled and said, "Just using it for transportation, y'know" and she smiled back. We alit at Euterpe and walked the 6 blocks home from there, still on a high from the ride and the day. A day to remember and treasure.
The St. Charles streetcar is back!
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