In New Orleans: The Allure of Disaster Tourism - Yahoo! News

In the days leading up to Mardi Gras a couple weeks ago, I fielded some strange questions from camera-clutching visitors to the city of New Orleans, where I've lived off and on the for past year and a half.  Though the post-Katrina streets of the French Quarter had grown encouragingly festive and rowdy in anticipation of Fat Tuesday, these queries had nothing to do with how to get to Bourbon Street, where to find the best gumbo, or when to head into the Faubourg Marigny to catch a jazz band.

Rather, the question at the front of many travelers' minds was this:  "How do you get to the Lower Ninth Ward?"

One year ago, before the devastation of the 2005 hurricane season, the Lower Ninth Ward (which lies well to the east of areas covered by local guidebooks) wouldn't have registered the faintest blip on the New Orleans travel radar.  After the flooding that followed Hurricane Katrina, however, the Lower Ninth Ward suddenly transformed into a tourist attraction.  Visitors were coming to the Big Easy to watch Mardi Gras parades and drink mint juleps, sure — but many people also wanted to see the working-class neighborhood that had become a symbol of human suffering in the dramatic images that filled TV screens after the storm.

On a certain level, of course, seeking to combine a Mardi Gras sojourn with a foray into the flood-wracked streets of the Ninth Ward smacked of voyeurism and vulgarity — kind of like traveling to Dresden to celebrate Oktoberfest in 1946.  After all, the ruined homes that litter the low-lying neighborhood aren't tourist attractions — they are a sad testament to the pain and loss of the people who lived there.

Still, in an era of global mass media and secondhand experience, a tourist foray into the flood zone promised something that has become increasingly rare: a travel experience that is vividly, irrevocably authentic.  Hence, despite the ethical complexities behind such an activity, journeying into to the Lower Ninth Ward carried a tantalizing allure.

I should know: After so many queries from other travelers, I picked up a camera and went there myself.

Crass as this might seem, it was actually in keeping with a time-honored travel tradition.  Indeed, the present-day notion of what defines a tourist attraction might revolve around monuments, culture, and nightlife, but it wasn't so long ago that travelers found interest in the most basic realities of a new place.  In the nineteenth century, tour groups visited factories, schools, prisons, and morgues. And seeking out local disaster and war zones was a natural extension of any itinerary.

Thomas Cook started taking British travelers on tours of American Civil War battlefields in 1865; a couple years later, Mark Twain and his cohorts famously toured the war-torn city of Sevastopol (where Twain chided his travel companions for carrying off armfuls of shrapnel as souvenirs).

Over a century later, the same impulse to seek out recent human tragedy results in high tourist demand to see places like Cambodia's "Killing Fields," or the "Ground Zero" area of lower Manhattan.  Unlike the monuments built to commemorate them, which sometimes devolve into kitsch (think Civil War statues and social-realist Soviet murals), disaster zones have a rawness that defies anything but a visceral interpretation of what happened there. Free of curators, ticket-takers, and media middlemen, the grim reality of places like the Lower Ninth Ward speaks for itself.

Opting to travel by private car, I arrived to find the Ninth Ward host to an eclectic mix of visitors: disaster volunteers, returned residents, TV crews, and rubberneckers — black and white alike — most of them brandishing video cameras.  Much as crowds are drawn to the Mona Lisa in the Louvre, people seemed to gravitate toward the breach in the Industrial Canal levee, where hundreds of houses had been smashed into rubble by the waters, and a huge brown river barge had come to rest on the nose of a neighborhood school bus.

This part of New Orleans had one of the highest rates of black home-ownership in the U.S., and the streets were now choked with the muddied detritus of domestic normalcy: weed-whackers, pet food, barbells.  A moldy suitcase sat in the middle of an intersection, bearing a copy of "How to Be an Effective Teacher"; a fencepost, stripped of chain link, skewered a couch cushion.  Pickup trucks sat upended in living rooms; house roofs sat crumpled on top of minivans.  The devastation went on for two dozen blocks in every direction.

As I walked past the rubble, I was joined by Dennis, a fortyish black man who'd evacuated his Ninth Ward house the night before Katrina hit.  Now, six months after evacuating, he was returning for the first time — a sightseer in his own neighborhood.  When I asked him what he thought of outsiders like me poking around this corner of the city, he shrugged.  "It doesn't bother me," he said.  "Hopefully, you'll see what happened here, and realize you're at least as lucky as I am."

"Lucky?  How so?"

"I lost everything," he said. "But I kept everybody.  That's Mardi Gras enough for me."

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Tip Sheet: Travel Tips for Post-Katrina New Orleans

1) Just go.

In a city where 15% of all jobs were tied to tourism — and where tourist revenues paid for 30% of the city's operating budget — visitors are welcome in New Orleans like never before.  After six months of hosting soldiers, reporters, and reconstruction contractors, each new traveler is a welcome sign of normalcy in the Big Easy.

2) Revisit the clichés.

Though veteran New Orleans travelers typically shy away from mass draws like Bourbon Street and riverboat cruises, the current lack of French Quarter crowds gives these experiences a whole new perspective. There's no better time to hit a jazz bar, buy voodoo trinkets, or chug a Hurricane.

3) Support the arts.

New Orleans has long been home to one of the most vibrant artistic communities in North America, and all aspects of the arts were hit hard by the disaster.  While in town, be sure to hit the galleries and museums, browse the bookstores, and catch some live music or poetry.  A can't-miss event later this month is the 20th annual Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Festival, which features plays, readings, literary panels, and master classes, from March 30th through April 2nd.

4) Dig in.

Few American cities can compete with the distinctiveness of New Orleans cuisine — and local restaurants have recovered well.  During Mardi Gras, I had fabulous meals at places ranging from the historical Napoleon House in the French Quarter to the upscale Creole fare of the Upperline uptown to the budget-friendly Verti Mart on Royal Street (504-525-4767).  For more information, see New Orleans Online or NewOrleansRestaurants.com.

5) Donate or volunteer.

New Orleans still has a long way to go to rebuild; research responsible ways to donate through Charity Navigator.  For independent travelers willing to live on-site and work for a recovery organization with an activist slant, the Common Ground Collective, which provides grassroots aid in the Lower Ninth Ward and other affected areas of New Orleans, is a good choice.

If curious about the extent of flood and hurricane damage in New Orleans, keep in mind that almost all of the city was affected — not just the Ninth Ward.  Most any drive out of the French Quarter will yield some perspective on the extent of the damage.  Just remember to be respectful in your sightseeing, and avoid damaged neighborhoods at night, since streetlights seldom work and the debris can wreak havoc on car tires.  For a more formal approach to aftereffects of Katrina, Gray Line Tours of New Orleans offers bus tours of affected areas.

'Gay Mardi Gras' is New Orleans' Labor Day fling - Yahoo! News

NEW ORLEANS – Jonathan Bray, one of the organizers of Southern Decadence, a celebration that has become known as the gay Mardi Gras, spent his time this week getting ready for the big party and watching weather reports.

"I looked out in the Gulf and didn't see a storm," Bray said. "No Katrina, no Gustav. I'm so happy."

In the almost four decades since it started, Southern Decadence has become a traditional Labor Day weekend, end-of-summer, event. But for two of the last four years, hurricanes crashed the French Quarter-centered party. Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Gustav last year both generated evacuation orders for the city and brought the festivities to a screeching halt.

"It's the first thing everybody asks," Bray said. "Can they get their money back if there's a hurricane. We tell them they can, but this year they won't need to worry about it."

Still the lingering effect of the hurricanes and the evacuations have taken their toll, said Tim Lawrence, 35, a hotel manager.

"Our projected occupancy is down and I think that's because of the hurricanes," Lawrence said. "After Katrina it took months to be able to refund guests' money because of credit card disputes. And even with refunds you still had to pay airfare and find a way to leave with the evacuation."

The event started as a birthday party bar crawl with about a dozen New Orleans residents making the French Quarter circuit, Bray said. It has grown to one of the major gay events in the country, attracting about 100,000 people in the past, a welcome economic boost for French Quarter merchants during one of the slowest tourist periods.

"It's a crowd with disposable income and they enjoy themselves," said Mary Beth Romig of the New Orleans Metropolitan Convention and Visitors Bureau. "And it's a very loyal group. They come back year after year."

People start arriving on Wednesday and most stay until Tuesday, enjoying such events as talent contests, dance parties, and free outdoor concerts.

Although some of the events — such as the "Wet Jockey Shorts" contest — are certainly X-rated, Bray maintains the overall festival is not.

"No, we have a lot of families turn out the see the parade and costume contests," Bray said. "And a lot of heterosexuals think it's hip to dance at a gay club. I'd say it's risque, with a few X-rated moments."

On Sunday night 170 musicians from Lesbian and Gay Band Association musical organizations throughout the country will be at Harrah's Theater for a concert entitled "Incantations."

Almost two hundred musicians, drum majors and flag team members will march in the Southern Decadence parade on Sunday, said Roberts Batson, who is producing the Sunday night concert.

A costume show follows the parade.

Originally designed as an event for gay men, the festival has broadened over the years and now attracts lesbians and bisexuals, Bray said.

"It's just another chance to put on a costume," said Samson Utley, who goes by "Paloma" when he is in drag. "Other than Southern Decadence, I probably only dress in drag three or four times a year now."

Utley, the grand marshal of Sunday's parade, is wearing a silver full-length gown that he describes as "geisha-goth-glam," for the parade.

"If you aren't the grand marshal in the parade, you are just eye-candy," he said. "When you are grand marshal, you have to make a big statement. I'm going to be glowing."

http://www.southerndecadence.net/

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