A day in the Bywater

Daneeta Loretta Jackson working on something special
at the Sound Cafe.

With some time in the Bywater, I walked up to Musician's Village to check out the buildings. Much more traditional housing than the architecturally weird Brad Pitt thing.

Got some info off a couple of local women about the Louisa Street Bus. It goes from St. Claude to past Chef Highway and Robert E. Lee, and all the way out to SUNO. "This is the bus you have to take if you want to get to the Winn Dixie. You can't walk," one of the ladies said. "Now you know that's a shame," said the other.

I agree. What a pain in the butt, though...taking the bus because there is no grocery store in your neighborhood. There is an abundance of small convenience-type stores, but you can't feed a family off of their ware, and the Mardi Gras Zone on Royal is just out of my price range, and they "are not set up to take coupons." I suspect it's out of the price range of the local ladies waiting for the Louisa St. bus as well.

The good news is that it looks like there is a new Family Dollar going in near St. Claude and Alvar. You can get cheap toothpaste and cheesy poofs and cokes (which people drink like water here...hell, it's a third the price of milk). You can also spend a lot of money on cheap tat that you don't need. It's a double-edged sword. Here is how they sell themselves:

There's also an organic, hydroponic gardening store right on St. Claude near the railroad tracks and The Green Project, which sells high quality salvaged building materials at low cost.

The blogs and such are calling this area the St. Claude Arts District. P.1 had a few exhibitions, and there are galleries tucked away among the ratty food stores and artified houses dotting the landscape. I spent a good deal of time here in the 80's, and I find it ironic that the poorer element that makes up the majority of the population probably did not go to the P.1 exhibitions. They are probably more excited about the Family Dollar than the Green Project. But, I'm not sure what that means. Does it mean that the art and the hydroponic gardening shouldn't be here? They obviously have a customer base from somewhere.

Checked out the Sound Cafe on Chartres and Port today. Henry said they have free wifi, which they do. They also have kick butt iced coffee. I mean, the best iced coffee I've tasted. And I drink it black. There's also a great little bookshop at the back. Whilst hanging out there, one of the numerous fruit and veg trucks came by. I stepped out to buy: a tomato, two apples, one Mandarin orange, two mirlitons, and a red onion for $5. It wasn't until I got the fruit home that I discovered the Rouses stickers on the apples. Hmmm. Not sure how I feel about the veg truck buying from Rouses and then selling the produce on at a much higher cost. I thought I had been buying local, blah, blah, blah. But, I guess it's the law of supply and demand. All hail.