This city has a wonderful Sunday tradition called the Second Line parade. I don’t fully know the history, so anything I write about here should be double checked with proper sources. From the brief researching I did about it, second lining is as old as the brass band itself, with young boys tagging along behind the band as they made their way down the street. Various social clubs, church parades, and jazz funerals (funerals seem to be the earliest examples of second lining) embraced people not officially a part of the parade to join in the second line.
The social club that organized the particular parade we saw on Sunday is called the Undefeated Divas and Gents, and the 19 January parade happened to be their 15th anniversary celebration, complete with the Young Fellas Brass Band and also featuring another social club called the Second Line Jammers.
When we arrived at the start of the route, we came across quite the jovial assembly of individuals from New Orleans’s black community, and dotted throughout were white individuals like myself, clearly eager to join in and be a part of the celebration.
Soon the Young Fellas started playing on their sousaphones, trombones, trumpets, drums, and cowbells an upbeat, loud, jazzy number that had an infectious way of spreading the urge to dance amongst everyone involved as the parade made its way down the street. Joining the band and the second liners was a float that had a finely dressed man holding a staff surrounded by elegantly clad women. Later on, a second float joined the parade that had at the head a woman bedazzled in a smart dress and a giant, feathered back piece that sat on her shoulders, feathers extending above her head in an arc a solid four feet or so.
While all this was happening, among the musicians and the onlookers and the second liners and the main liners (that is, the ones with the permit to parade), police officers kindly stopped traffic, and one of their number actually marched with all of us, checking his radio as we went. You could purchase beer and water and pop from parade goers with wagons stocked full, and at the start of the parade and then at the first stop where the second float joined us, you could purchase some various barbecued meats.
And the smell of marijuana indeed permeated the air. Quite strongly. But, that’s just all a part of the whole affair, isn’t it!
We stayed with the parade for a good hour, but each step with them meant one more step for the return trip. So we made our way back downtown via Canal Street to have a late brunch at Ruby Slipper Cafe. Of all the places we’ve dined at thus far, the initial reaction about this place is that it seemed like the least New Orleansian place we’ve yet been to. It’s decor was a kind of standard restaurant style with light yellow walls, chalkboard menus, gym floor wood tables, exposed air ducts, flatscreen televisions playing football. I short, a style that could be transplanted to any other city. However, the food was very clearly New Orleansian, and Ruby Slipper Cafe on Canal is definitely a place to visit.
I got a dish called eggs coubion, a fantastic plate of thin-fried catfish with poached eggs, a sauté of spinach, tomatoes, artichoke hearts, and tasso, and a Creole tomato courtbouillon. Absolutely exquisite! While I was expecting it to be spicier than it was (indeed, I still haven’t quite had a meal here yet that was beyond spicy), it was still a real treat to have catfish for brunch with a Creole twist!
Moving on, we headed to Brandan Odums’s ExhibitBE, an art installation located on the West Bank in a suburb called Algiers. Graffiti portraits of various civil rights leaders with accompanying inspirational quotes and sayings cover the walls of the abandoned Woodlands Apartment Complex that was emptied of its tenets on 23 November 2006 when over 100 families were evicted. The art is painted on bare concrete of the buildings’ facade and on walls of individual apartment units that still contain smashed toilets, broken glass, and cracked linoleum. Like the photography of Xavier Nuez or the Heidelburg Project of Tyree Guyton, Odums’s ExhibitBE turns abandoned urban spaces into living art, transforming dilapidated buildings from empty, grey sadness to eclectic, colorful celebrations of life. But while the color and vibrancy of the art reanimates these dead spaces, it also highlights that these spaces used to be people’s homes, and it’s difficult not to wonder what sort of people lived here, what lives they led, and what sadness and happiness once inhabited these walls.
I’m glad I got to see ExhibitBE, as it closes permanently on MLK (it was always meant to be a temporary installation). But, new life will return once again to the Woodlands Apartment Complex, as it’s slated for redevelopment into a sporting complex and hotel.
Out second day on NOLA came to a close with another staple of New Orleans cuisine, po-boy sandwiches at Gene’s Po-Boys on the corner of Elysian Fields and St. Claude. The name of the sandwich comes from 1929 during a streetcar motormen and conductor strike. Of the many support letters written to the strikers, one was from brothers Bennie and Clovis Martin, who ran their very own Martin Brothers’ Coffee Stand and Restaurant and who were once streetcar conductors themselves, promising a free meal to anyone in Division 193. They kept their promise and fed the strikers large sandwiches. Whenever they saw a striker coming for a meal, they would remark, “Here comes another poor boy.”
The sandwich itself, like the Philly Cheese Steak, isn’t really in itself anything remarkable. It’s just some kind of meat like roast beef, spicy sausage, or friend seafood on a long submarine bun with mayo. But, it’s one of those fares that you just kinda have to enjoy when in New Orleans. And I’ve got only the nicest things to say of Gene’s Po-Boys, so do check them out.
What a vibrant day indeed, full of such celebration for life and happiness and such homage to lives of hardship and poverty. But as I get to know the people of New Orleans, I’m being introduced to quite an array of people who have led some hard yet full lives. That even in the face of hardship, disparity, and insurmountable odds, they know how to celebrate life and acknowledge inequity, as should it be with any other great city.