Wednesday, July 2, 2008

My Destroyed Street Never Looked So Nice


Here is one of those moments where people think I haven’t gotten over Katrina at all.

Look at this pretty ass street sign at the foot of the St. Claude Bridge. When I saw it I had to get out and take a picture. For over twenty years I lived on St. Claude Avenue. My childhood home is three blocks away from this sign. Most of those years the street was bustling with life as people lived, worked and played around on it. After Katrina there are very little sounds of life on that side of the Industrial Canal. It’s just like New Orleans to erect a big ass sign like this after most of the people who lived on this street and the area are gone. I guess this sign is to welcome all the folks who are going to be riding on the lovely bike lane that was recently painted all along the avenue. I am certain we could have spent that cash on something else in the Ninth Ward.

I wish I had a tanker full of paint thinner to put on the back of my truck. I would ride up both sides of St. Claude from the bridge to Jackson Barracks and wash every inch of that damn bike lane off the street. Then, I would sit on my grandmother’s porch where she used to water her plants and talk on the phone to pitch eggs at the first son of a bitch that tried to paint it back on my block. I never had a bike lane when I lived there. Let the post Katrina bike riders dodge the city bus and ride on those uneven ass sidewalks like the hood children had to.

Besides all of that, do you know how many cool pictures me and my boys could have taken 20 years ago if we had this sign? We could have gotten t-shirts to wear to parades and everything. I guess that doesn’t matter since all the memories would have been flooded anyway. I need to get with my childhood best friend and fellow St. Claude product Devin and have him help me wash that bike lane away. His mama is back in her house on the avenue and she never liked a whole bunch of people passing in front her door anyway.

I’m not mad. I’m just a Lower Nine St. Claude St. Refugee with a few issues left to work out.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

It puzzles me! WTF??? I know what those monument signs cost. I realize some city department (streets?) must be flush with money to construct that. The budget had to be spent and that was all they could think of? I get really mad when people pass comments about what a third world place New Orleans is, but dahmmmm...sometimes we go out of our way to prove them right. OH! I get it. It's a cemetery marker. A memory of the dear departed. Whew. I thought someone was being outrageously stoopit. Somewhere there's a councilperson who should be hung with that.. or tossed in the canal with pretty cement boots.

Anonymous said...

Check with Kathy at Good Children Carnival Club. She's more or less in the know about things in the neighborhood.
http://www.goodchildrencarnivalclub.org/
Dingler with NOLA Rising or someone at Sound Cafe may know, too.
I'd say more but my opinions get me into trouble lots since the Flood.

Anonymous said...

I can relate to your rage regarding the sign, but not the bike lane. All these bike lanes were in the works pre-Katrina. They got postponed a few years. The sign may have been expensive, but bike lanes are cheap. New Orleans should have lots of 'em.

Do I sound like a bicycle commuter? Yup. That's me.

BTW I hope I'm not reading stuff where it wasn't intended, but I thought this post was both angry and funny.

All-Mi-T [Thought Crime] Rawdawgbuffalo said...

i can understand, some things we cant let get to us cause its plain ole stupid to a thinking person

Anonymous said...

*Thinking out Loud* "Gotta remember to take a booty pic in front that sign when I go home for a visit"

Anonymous said...

i feel u cliff, u already know, we woulda been meeting at tha sign after school....a damn bike lame!!! that shit wasnt there when i almost got hit by tha st claude bus tryna cross from st claude ct...its all good, the people of the city have the wrong idea of fixing up the city, that sign to them means "show em something" so they wont ask where the rest of the money at....i'll come help u with that bike lane and we can take that sign, hook it to yo truck...rope it and put in yo front yard...lol. love always, yo lil brother...LETS GET THAT SIGN!!!