Roses Grow

a slice of life from Liberal Street Fighter

Up through the cracks
Up through the broken glass
In the hot red light of a black and white
Roses grow
Up through the glass (Up through the glass)
Up through the broken glass (Up through the broken glass)
In the hot red light of a black and white (In the hot red of a black and white)
Roses grow

Roses grow

Roses grow

Roses grow…. Concrete Blonde

French Quarter holdouts create ‘tribes’

NEW ORLEANS — In the absence of information and outside assistance, groups of rich and poor banded together in the French Quarter, forming “tribes” and dividing up the labor.

As some went down to the river to do the wash, others remained behind to protect property. In a bar, a bartender put near-perfect stitches into the torn ear of a robbery victim.

While mold and contagion grew in the muck that engulfed most of the city, something else sprouted in this most decadent of American neighborhoods – humanity.

“Some people became animals,” Vasilioas Tryphonas said Sunday morning as he sipped a hot beer in Johnny White’s Sports Bar on Bourbon Street. “We became more civilized.”

While hundreds of thousands fled the below-sea-level city before the storm, many refused to leave the Vieux Carre, or old quarter. Built on some of the highest ground around and equipped with underground power lines, residents considered it about the safest place to be.

Some of those tribes wear blue uniforms, and carry weapons:

But what had at first been a refuge soon became an ornate prison.

Police came through commandeering drivable vehicles and siphoning gas. Officials took over a hotel and ejected the guests.

An officer pumped his shotgun at a group trying to return to their hotel on Chartres Street.

“This is our block,” he said, pointing the gun down a side street. “Go that way.”

Meanwhile, at the Johnny White’s Bar:

Tired of waiting for trucks to come with food and water, residents turned to each other.

Johnny White’s is famous for never closing, even during a hurricane. The doors don’t even have locks.

Since the storm, it has become more than a bar. Along with the warm beer and shots, the bartenders passed out scrounged military Meals Ready to Eat and bottled water to the people who drive the mule carts, bus the tables and hawk the T-shirts that keep the Quarter’s economy humming.

“It’s our community center,” said Marcie Ramsey, 33, whom Katrina promoted from graveyard shift bartender to acting manager.

For some, the bar has also become a hospital.

Tryphonas, who restores buildings in the Quarter, left the neighborhood briefly Saturday. Someone hit in the head with a 2-by-4 and stole his last $5.

When Tryphonas showed up at Johnny White’s with his left ear split in two, Joseph Bellomy – a customer pressed into service as a bartender – put a wooden spoon between Tryphonas’ teeth and used a needle and thread to sew it up. Military medics who later looked at Bellomy’s handiwork decided to simply bandage the ear.

It is heartening to see people band together when faced with disaster, but this return to simpler social networks was only necessary because the government, acting as it has in celebration of selfishness and the holy market, has left people no choice. While we celebrate human resourcefulness, it’s vital to remember how these people ended up in this situation.

What kind of help is on the way, by the way? Sonic ‘Lasers’ Head to Flood Zone .

photo from photography by Andrea K Gingrich