Intersection of Recovery and Despair

John Chase's classic book on New Orleans "Frenchmen, Desire, Good Children and Other Streets of New Orleans". Is a classic, light, lively history of the city. The most famous streets in New Orleans are probably Bourbon and Desire. Desire primarily because of the Tennessee Williams play. Bourbon for obvious reasons, although the name didn't come from the whiskey. Both the street and the whiskey were named for kings of France, the whiskey indirectly.


As I look around town I see a distressingly uneven recovery. Some areas like the CBD or parts of Uptown look and feel like little has changed. Other areas are still virtually deserted. Even in the flooded areas there are patches with no activity, some apparently identical areas with a lot of rebuilding and other areas with FEMA trailers in every yard.

As far I know there is no street named Despair nor a street named Recovery, there probably should be. In the Seventies a few streets were renamed in honor of civil rights leaders, but not too many.


I think it might be time to remember the events of the past year by renaming a number of the streets in the city, especially in the hardest hit areas. Perhaps streets names Recovery, Despair, Katrina and Betsy might be in order. We should start with the atrociously named Lake Forest Boulevard.