Sunday, February 07, 2010

Magazine Street (New Orleans) 2/10



New Orleans is most known for the French Quarter but it has what I regard as a unique street running, in an almost straight line, from the Mississippi river for about eight miles, or 13 km,to the edge of the French Quarter known as Magazine Street.

At its far end is a golf course
and the Audubon Zoo.
It is a narrow street with cars parked on both sides making it impossible for cars to pass anywhere along its full length.
The footpaths are in serious need of repair
and the road itself is little better.
It is lined with a peculiar array of houses and shops. Most of the houses are small, known as ‘shotgun cottages, because a corridor runs from the front door to the back door through which one could shoot a shotgun without risk to anyone in the rooms which come off one
side. There are few larger houses which have are mostly divided into apartments for rent or for sale.
Although there are some better quality places including a Whole Food Supermarket,
with wonderful products, but at a price sometimes.
This rhubarb is selling at a take home bargain price of A$22 / kgm. The Vitamin Shoppe and doctors, dentists and other professional rooms, are more upmarket but by and large it is filled with dilapidated shops of every sort.

Numerous restaurants,
cafes,
Po Boys a specialty, and coffee shops,
lots of antique (and junk) shops indeed there is hardly anything you cannot get there. A Po Boy is, originally, a piece of French baton smeared with lard or gravy for the deeply impoverished ‘poor boy’. Now days it is filled with meat, seafood, cheese or salad to make a sandwich and is sometimes even served between two slices of bread! It originated in New Orleans and is an extremely popular form of sandwich.

Signage can be rough and ready or quite professional, as are the numerous murals. There is an almost total absence of graffiti. This mural is a homage to New Orleans
as described in the unlegible screed in this picture.
This is on the side wall of an art school.
Despite the Police Station it is rare to see a policeman on foot but police cars are everywhere, nearly as common as taxi's, indeed I tried to hail one once! Sandra thinks it’s just a grotty run down street but I feel it has a spirit which makes it distinct from all other streets. I don’t need signs. Put me down in Magazine Street and I will recognize it instantly. I hope, somehow, to have captured a little of this spirit with these photo’s the quality of which is in keeping with the street itself - some good, some bad and some simply awful.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Great story! Saw your blog mentioned in the Chron article. Any more pics? The little piece in the pic above looks beautiful. Do you have a background in pottery or arts?

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Elliot and Sandra said...

Hi Suriya,
Looking at that post again I rather like it too!
My background is purely in Medidne and Sandra's in history and philosophy but we both did a bit of fine arts at Melb Uni and love lots of different aspects of art, as well as the art of cooking and eating.
Cheers

Elliot and Sandra said...

medicine that was meant to be.