New Orleans to expand streetcar line through neglected side of city made famous by 'Desire'

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New Orleans to expand streetcar line through neglected side of city made famous by 'Desire'
January 25, 2011
By Cain Burdeau
The Canadian Press

NEW ORLEANS — In another sign that New Orleans is reinventing itself by restoring its past, the city announced plans Tuesday to spend up to $90 million to run streetcars through the working-class and Creole side of the Crescent City immortalized by Tennessee Williams and Marlon Brando in "A Streetcar Named Desire."
The city said it would build 2 1/2 miles of streetcar lines by the end of 2013 from the French Quarter eastward down Rampart Street and St. Claude Avenue. A spur track would go down Elysian Fields Avenue, the street where Stanley and Stella Kowalski live in Williams' 1947 play.
The new streetcar lines will go past neighbourhoods not considered major tourist spots, even though they are brimming with historic relevance. The proposed line will connect Canal Street, the city's main boulevard, with the neighbourhoods of Treme, Marigny, New Marigny, St. Roch and the Bywater.
Historically, these neighbourhoods — known as "Downtown" — were home to French, Creole and immigrant families. The upriver side of the French Quarter, the mansion-studded areas known as "Uptown," were developed after the arrival of English-speaking Americans in New Orleans in the early 1800s and blossomed during the cotton age before the Civil War.
"We have spent a lot of time in the last hundred years paying attention to Uptown New Orleans," said Pres Kabacoff, a New Orleans developer who has invested in reinvigorating St. Claude Avenue. "The opportunity the city has now is Downtown."
New Orleans' fabled streetcars once stretched into every corner of this diverse city, but they eventually faded from the backstreets and were reduced in the early 1960s to a single line running past the mansions of St. Charles Avenue. That line remains and its olive-green cars carry school children, commuters and tourists through the city's Garden District.
A streetcar comeback is gaining momentum.
A short line used almost exclusively by tourists was constructed along the Mississippi River in the French Quarter in 1988. Then, the city restored its first major streetcar line in 2004 when a residential line was added along Canal Street. Last year, transportation officials announced plans to build a one-mile line in the city's Central Business District.
Tuesday's announcement was considered a major breakthrough. For years, officials have talked about bringing back a line on the Downtown side.
"We fully expect the presence of this rail line will have a catalytic effect," said Mayor Mitch Landrieu. "It doesn't just move people, it also creates economic development. It fits with our culture, it fits with our history."
The proposed line won't follow the original "Desire" route that took Blanche down Bourbon Street to the seamy side of the Quarter where the Kowalskis lived in a cramped and dirty apartment.
But it would serve many of the areas the old Desire line did: bohemian enclaves of renovated century-old cottages, music clubs and gay bars; and low-income and working-class neighbourhoods pocked with abandoned, blighted homes and businesses.
"I don't think you will get dramatic immediate results from this streetcar placement, but in the long run, it is a driver of connectivity, convenience and historic authenticity," said Michael Valentino, a French Quarter hotelier.
City leaders hope this isn't the end of the line for streetcar expansions. They are seeking federal help to expand lines down St. Claude Avenue — crossing Desire Street — and loop back to the French Quarter along the Mississippi River.
One resident who lives near the planned route, Alton Washington, had mixed feelings about the line. He was walking home with bags of groceries. He could see the benefits of the line but wondered if it was necessary.
"The buses are working," the 60-year-old disabled veteran said. "It looks like a waste of money. They could do better things with the money. Our park down here needs work. They don't even have swings for the kids. The money could be used for that."
But Brad Benischek, a 43-year-old film-set painter, saw the streetcar as the thing that could enliven the St. Claude corridor.
"I can see St. Claude Avenue being an economic centre," he said. "It will never be Magazine Street," he said, referring to the chic Uptown business corridor. "But I think its starting to happen with the new art galleries along here."