New Orleans Strong

OK, first of all, I’m not really from New Orleans, but just as after the attack on the Twin Towers we were all New Yorkers, in some ways, we are all New Orleanians after the New Year’s terror attack.

But I claim New Orleans as a second home of sorts.

My dad used to make business trips to New Orleans, and I’ve been going to the Crescent City since before I can remember. Ah, but what early memories I do have:? the sights and sounds of Bourbon Street after dark, the smell of the Quarter in the morning, the rumble of a street car making its way up the neutral ground.

Dad was friends with the owners of Preservation Hall, and I used to sit down front on a vinyl cushion on the floor, letting the Dixieland wash over me. When I was about four or five, the band let me sit in on the drums during a song. It was a sight gag, of course, a little white kid sitting in with these old black jazz musicians, but I thought it was about the greatest thing in the world.

On steamy mornings, we’d make our way through the French Quarter to Morning Call for beignets; that was before the coffee stand moved out to Metairie and Café du Monde took on the role of provider of beignets and café au lait to the world.

One of my favorite haunts was Le Petite Soldier Shop in Royal Street, where I could spend half an hour gazing at the lead soldiers lined up with military precision: grenadiers and hussars and lancers and Guards. Years later, I realized that my father never once bought me a toy soldier. I asked him why, and he laughed and said it was because I could never make up my mind.

We went to Felix’s for oysters… in New Orleans, you either went to Felix’s or you went to Acme Oyster House, right across the street from one another. Dad was a Felix’s man, so that made me one, too. But I was just as happy getting a Lucky Dog and a soft drink from one of the push cart vendors in the Quarter.

I saw my first naked woman on Bourbon Street, when I peeked into a strip club when I was about eight, but I had already been scandalized by a postcard that was popular in the New Orleans of the 1960s—a black and white shot of a sailor mooning the camera.

Over the years, my appetite expanded: I dined at Galatoire’s and Antoine’s, lunched at Mr. B’s Bistro or the Palace Café. I even ventured into the Acme Oyster House from time to time. There was breakfast at Elizabeth’s down on Chartres, a mufaletta from the Central Grocery, or a po’boy, a bag of Zapp’s and a Barq’s from the Verdi Mart. We went to Frankie & Johnny’s Uptown and R&O’s on the lakefront for the “Wop Salad,” and dozens of other great places.

I remember listening to a smoky-voiced crooner named Ellen Smith at the Palm Court. She had golden eyes and skin the color of honey, and the old jazz men sat up straighter and became clearer of eye when she sang a sultry rendition of “All of Me.”

New Orleans is not all pralines and chicory coffee and little kids tap dancing in the Quarter. It is, as I am fond of describing it, a great city with great problems: crushing poverty and crime and filth and corruption. A travel editor friend of mine used to refer to New Orleans the “northernmost Caribbean city.” I served with Navy units stationed in the New Orleans area during three different stints, and during those periods I had friends who were victims of crimes or who witnessed crimes; the news was full of tales of murder and violence and that would break your heart.

For all that, New Orleans holds a special place in my soul—and in the nation’s psyche. Just as the city dealt with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the effects of the pandemic, New Orleans will deal with this latest tragedy and come back stronger than ever. And I’ll be there to applaud it.

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Scott Rye is the author of The Best of Men and Ships, Men & Ships of the Civil War, and the forthcoming novel, Key Witness.

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