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Some holdouts seem intent on keeping alive the distinct and wild spirit of this city. In the French Quarter, Addie Hall and Zackery Bowen found a unusual way to make sure that police officers regularly patrolled their house. Ms. Hall, 28, a bartender, flashed her breasts at the police vehicles that passed by, ensuring a regular flow of traffic.
NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - There's no water for the "wash the girl of your choice" service and there aren't any girls either, but Big Daddy's strip club on New Orleans' Bourbon Street is getting ready to bring back erotic spectacle to the devastated city.
Friday night on Bourbon Street, usually a throbbing artery of the party-going French Quarter, was pretty grim this time around in what has become a foul-smelling ghost town partly covered with a swamp of filthy water.
Police patrol cars and military Humvees made up most of the traffic on the street.
But Big Daddy's general manager, Saint Jones, and a band of helpers defied an evacuation order by arriving to clean up their premises in the historic French Quarter, which escaped largely unscathed from the floods.
Jones told Reuters he would open for business as soon as he could get electricity, water and dancers.
He was already had electricity from a generator, which was moving a pair of robotic woman's legs, in stockings and pink high heels, waving invitingly on the street by the sign for Big Daddy's.
He also had plenty of bottled water.
But his former employees had been evacuated, so his main problem was convincing girls to come to a town without services and supposedly off limits to most civilians.
Judging from the number of military and police vehicles which stopped or slowed passing Big Daddy's, they'll have plenty of customers. It didn't seem to occur to the men in uniform to enforce the evacuation order in effect on the city -- they preferred to ask when the strippers would be back.
Jones gave them vodka on the rocks in plastic cups, which they enjoyed before hopping back in the Humvee.
NEW ORLEANS — You know a city has legs when three or four dozen of them are parading down Bourbon Street — some clad in tutus and grass skirts — six days after the most damaging hurricane in American history.
But the annual Southern Decadence parade through the heart of the French Quarter stops for nothing — not even Katrina.
"Hey, we've got to keep our morale up, too," said Jill Sandars, aka "Jelly Sandwich," her "Quarter" name
In some parts of New Orleans, locals seem unabashedly optimistic about the city's future, despite the bashing it took from Hurricane Katrina, reports The Early Show National Correspondent Tracy Smith.
And there are some signs of progress. Among them: the Crescent City's port and airport both partially reopened Tuesday.
Smith was on the first commercial flight into New Orleans since Katrina.
The pilot said on the plane's speakers, "Calm winds clear skies; pretty much a nice day if it wasn't a flooded city down there."
It was, Smith says, a trip both routine and remarkable.
On board were relief workers, and residents determined to return.
The plane holds 148, but on that first flight back, only 37 seats were filled.
But the small group got a huge welcome, in a city clinging to any sign of recovery.
Then Smith was taken on a mini-tour by New Orleans City Councilwoman Jackie Clarkson.
They began on the famed Bourbon Street.
Clarkson proudly showed off downtown, where once-flooded streets have become streets again.
"It's one of the most classical cities of the world, and it has a spirit second to none," Clarkson proclaimed. "We've lived through many things. Yellow fever. The rising tide. We've been here before. We've never quit, and we're not gonna quit now."
Her district includes the French Quarter, considered the heart of New Orleans, and known for both sinners and saints.
Clarkson pointed to the historic St. Louis Cathedral, which she called "the statement of the city." It remains intact.
She promises the Quarter will be open in 90 days.
Asked what she thinks it will take to fill the area with people again, she quickly responded, "Nothing. Nothing. Open the door and say, 'Come home,' and, I promise you, it'll fill up overnight."
"You don't think you're just a little bit optimistic?" Smith inquired.
"No," Clarkson said. "Watch. Come back in three months."
Clarkson says she gets calls from restaurateurs every day, asking how soon they can return.
"We wanna keep the spirit of the French Quarter, and New Orleans, alive," says Larry Hirst, who tends bar in an eatery that never closed. "The tourists that have been here will come back again. And the ones that haven't will be curious."
While there's still a mandatory evacuation, customers keep coming in, Smith points out.
"Everybody actually loves this city," says French Quarter resident Terry Leonard. "They love this city. And they'll do anything to keep it going.
Spirits of all sorts survived, Smith notes. A voodoo shop is still in one piece, waiting to reopen and, thanks to a generator, a gentlemen's club downtown is still doing business.
Mardi Gras is still a long way off but, in the spirit of New Orleans, the party planning has already begun.
stormie_skies wrote:NEW ORLEANS — You know a city has legs when three or four dozen of them are parading down Bourbon Street — some clad in tutus and grass skirts — six days after the most damaging hurricane in American history.
But the annual Southern Decadence parade through the heart of the French Quarter stops for nothing — not even Katrina.
"Hey, we've got to keep our morale up, too," said Jill Sandars, aka "Jelly Sandwich," her "Quarter" name
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