Party Time!

It's about time! Article posted from NOLA.com below.

NOLA invites New Orleans to party

NEW ORLEANS (Monday, Oct. 24, 2005) -- NOLA.com announces its first annual NOLA FEST and invites the New Orleans community to a free two-day Halloween weekend party, with live bands, dancing, masking and more - all streaming live on the Internet to a world-wide audience. Two nights of local celebrity-filled revelry will celebrate the city's unquenchable cultural landscape as locals and tourists alike are invited to dress up for Halloween and show the world their support and love for New Orleans and its rebirth.

Kermit Ruffins and the Barbecue Swingers will be featured Friday night from 9-midnight at the iconic Fat Harry's on St. Charles Avenue in Uptown, as New Orleans residents and special guests celebrate their return to the city, live on NOLA.com. On Saturday, the party continues to the sounds of the Storyville Stompers, also from 9-midnight.

Fat Harry’s Bar, 4330 St. Charles Avenue near the intersection of St. Charles and Napoleon, is the site of NOLA.com’s live Paradecam webcasts during Mardi Gras.

"New Orleans has suffered greatly, and is still suffering," said Jon Donley, editor of NOLA.com. "But it's also a place where we live joyfully among the tombs of our families, and where the sounds of a funeral hymn are followed by a trumpet calling us to a second line that celebrates life. NOLA wants to share a time of music and celebration, and invite our community and visitors to mask, dance and show the world outside that we are still alive."

As masking is such a popular part of the New Orleans culture, those looking for an opportunity to costume during the Halloween weekend will find lots of others ready to do the same. Aside from the live webcast, NOLA.com will also be taking photos of costumed attendees and posting them in its popular photo galleries.

"Anyone and everyone is encouraged to attend NOLA FEST -- it is a party for the people that make this city so unique. It is a celebration of the return of nightlife back to the Crescent City and it should not be missed," said Cory Haik, managing producer of NOLA.com.

The Night The Signs Came Down In The Quarter

Chris Rose, of the New Orleans Times-Picayune, did an article recently about the missing Bourbon Streeet signs. I noticed the two missing at Bourbon and St. Peter but didn't think anything of it. The problem compounds as Chris notes below:

Invisible boulevard

Judging by the street signs, Bourbon is nowhere to be found
Sunday, October 16, 2005
Chris Rose

Where the hell is Bourbon Street?

It's the question of the day down in the French Quarter as out-of-towners stumble about, blithely seeking out our Boulevard of Broken Dreams.

It is now a street with no name. From Canal to Esplanade, every Bourbon Street sign has not-so-mysteriously disappeared from its corner moorings, rendering unto one of the world's most famous avenues an eerily unfamiliar anonymity.

With the lone exception being the corner of Bourbon and Bienville, all the black Bourbon Street signs -- as iconic an element as this city has -- recently vanished overnight and now all manner of folk, from venturesome tourists to the masses of migrant workers, are wandering around asking each other: Where the hell is Bourbon Street?

It seems that the legion of karaoke, daiquiri and strip clubs, lined up like lascivious neon dominoes, would be an obvious indicator of New Orleans' alcoholic ground zero, but maybe that's only the case for jaded locals.

"I noticed that the sign on my corner was missing, but I just assumed it blew away in the hurricane," said Earl Bernhardt, owner of The Tropical Isle at Bourbon and Orleans.

But that is not the case. Because the support plates of most of the signs remain firmly intact, it's clear that most of them were methodically unscrewed from their mounts.

So what happened? Who made off with these primo souvenirs? Who stole our identity? Who looted the booty?

Sad to say, it appears that it was a commando team of either military or law enforcement personnel, making off with the spoils of war, like German Lugers and Nazi flags after World War II.

There was a witness to the crime. He works in a Bourbon Street bar. He wishes to remain anonymous:

"They were some kind of rescue cops," the witness said. "I couldn't ID them; it was the dead of night. But I saw them up there climbing the poles in their Leathermen jackets, taking down the signs. It pissed me off, but I wasn't going to go up to five heavily armed guards in some federal-looking Jeep in the middle of the night and raise a stink. But, guys -- why did you steal our signs? What's the deal with that?"

Indeed. And now, in garages, game rooms and dens across the American Heartland, Bourbon Street signs grace the walls of a bunch of guys who came to save our city.

On one hand you could say: Big deal. They came to our rescue; let them have their fun. And really, if you can't find Bourbon Street without a sign, you probably don't need another drink anyway.

For a more reverent counterpoint, we turn to City Councilwoman Jackie Clarkson, whose district includes the Quarter.

"This is not even funny," Clarkson said. "I can appreciate them wanting a souvenir after all they've done here, but tell 'em to go buy a pair of beads if they want something to remember us by. Whoever did this needs to be severely reprimanded. This has me very upset."

In addition to the sheer gall of the action, Clarkson points out the people who can't find Bourbon Street now include the legion of visiting safety personnel and first-responders who, if summoned to a crisis on Bourbon Street (like, say, some wobbly old retired schoolteacher menacing the cops), might not effectively find the scene in due haste.

Good point. Calls to the city's Public Works Department emergency line and sign shop both went unanswered Friday -- and will probably remain unanswered for a long time. So it's anyone's guess when the signs will be replaced.
For the final word on all of this, we turn to Brobson Lutz, the city's former health director, social gadfly and one of the few reliable post-Katrina French Quarter information brokers.

"If Bourbon Street were open for 24 hours, this never would have happened," Lutz opined. "See what happens when you have a curfew in the French Quarter? Crime goes up."

. . . . . . .
Columnist Chris Rose can be reached at chris.rose@timespicayune.com; or at (504) 352-2535 or (504) 826-3309.