Citizens and business owners are determined to change the face — and the fate — of a once-thriving corridor
Friday, September 19, 2008
By Nicole Dungca
Staff writer
For decades, North Rampart Street business owners have been betting that the neglected corridor is poised for an economic revival that will lure more tourists and residents to their edge of the French Quarter.
Most of them have lost those bets, and often their businesses.
Today, several deteriorating buildings on North Rampart between Esplanade Avenue and Canal Street stand in violation of building codes, and Armstrong Park remains hauntingly empty.
For every successful business on North Rampart, there are at least three that are closed. Long-shuttered furniture stores bear tattered signs with faded lettering, and the windows and doors of some 19th-century buildings are boarded up.
Undaunted, a group of French Quarter and Treme citizens has once again taken up the cause. Armed with state money and technical assistance, members of the North Rampart Main Street Association are eager to turn the street’s luck around.
— Plagued by difficulties —
As a child, local historian Jack Stewart used to accompany his parents to home and garden shows at the Municipal Auditorium on North Rampart.
Stewart said that even as far back as the 1950s North Rampart, a mixture of homes and neighborhood businesses, was “always a little grim,” punctuated every so often by crowds of people flocking to the auditorium for Carnival balls or various shows.
The neighborhood changed considerably in the next two decades, when blocks of Treme homes were demolished to make room for the 32-acre Armstrong Park and Mahalia Jackson Theatre of the Performing Arts.
For a brief period, North Rampart seemed on the verge of a golden era, with the new theater attracting opera and theater fans, and a slew of hip restaurants and clubs — such as Jonathan’s and Lu & Charlie’s — generating nightly foot traffic. Donna’s and the Funky Butt became local institutions, prime spots to hear live music.
Yet the street’s bad luck continued. The oil industry bust and a long road-widening and drainage project killed several businesses. The AIDS epidemic in the 1980s took the lives of many of the owners and patrons of the street’s gay bars.
While nearby streets underwent successful transformations — Decatur Street, once a rough-and-tumble corridor, has become a popular tourist destination — North Rampart languished.
Jonathan’s, Lu & Charlie’s and the Funky Butt have closed. Parking lots have replaced buildings demolished during the years when the Vieux Carre Commission lost jurisdiction over the French Quarter side of the street.
Several businesses have tried to make a go of it on the street but many failed, giving North Rampart the reputation of a seedy area prone to nighttime crime.
— Different approach —
It was in that depressed condition that Main Street co-President David Speights found North Rampart when he moved to New Orleans six years ago.
“When my wife and I first moved here, we just saw this street that was down on its luck,” Speights said. “We wanted to help.”
A mix of native New Orleanians and more recent arrivals make up the North Rampart Main Street Association, which received money from the Main Street program about a year and a half ago.
Sal Sunseri and association Vice President Lori Herbert are involved in family businesses that have stayed on the corridor for years. Both were involved with the Organization for Renaissance on Rampart, a group with similar goals that has been largely absorbed by the current group.
Sue Klein, association co-president, said the group is using substantial urban-planning research and Main Street grants.
The group has pored over a 2007 study by the University of New Orleans’ Department of Planning and Urban Studies and is doing its own survey to identify key reasons that businesses on the street flourish or fail. Group members hope the research will help them identify the types of businesses they should try to lure to North Rampart.
They are using state money to give store owners financial incentives to fix up their buildings’ facades and are working with the Vieux Carre Commission, which recently began issuing citations to properties in violation of city building codes.
— ‘It’s long odds’ —
In the middle of the afternoon a few weeks ago, Pat Ritter nursed a drink at the Ninth Circle, a North Rampart mainstay.
Ritter and bar owner Michael Sheehan praised the Main Street group’s intentions but were torn about its business plan, which largely follows what the City Council has long supported for the corridor.
Debates about the future of North Rampart have long turned on a single issue: live entertainment. Business owners have repeatedly advocated more live entertainment on the street, but City Council members, led by current City Council President Jackie Clarkson, have refused, saying that loud music would alienate French Quarter residents.
Currently, North Rampart is designated as a mixed-residential and commercial zone, with businesses largely banned from obtaining licenses that would allow live music. While institutions such as Donna’s have been able to wiggle past these restrictions because of their long history of featuring music, other business owners have been largely unsuccessful in gaining permission to showcase live music.
Ritter said the council’s refusal is hurting the street, where music establishments helped usher in a new generation of New Orleans jazz in the 1970s.
“Bars and clubs are about the only things that work around here,” he said.
Ritter tried to resurrect the Funky Butt as a music club in early 2005 but ran into problems when the City Council opposed it. His plans were later washed away when Hurricane Katrina struck.
Famed New Orleans producer Cosimo Matassa once operated J&M Studios, which recorded the likes of Aaron Neville and Fats Domino, in the 800 block of North Rampart Street. He calls the lack of entertainment licenses on the street “anti-historical.”
In defense of the Main Street group’s opposition to such clubs, Klein said entertainment corridors drive down the quality of life in neighborhoods.
“It might end up as low-end nighttime economy. I think we can see what happened to Bourbon Street,” she said.
Michael Martin, who has lived in the area for years and recently began managing the Voodoo Mystique bar, doubts a real revival will be successful on North Rampart without more bars and clubs.
“If a residential area can co-exist with Creole restaurants, spiritual temples and peculiar bars, then yes, this street will be successful,” he said. “But it’s long odds.”
— Slow progress —
Main Street members say the path to a revival is already being paved, even if it is not directly because of their efforts.
New condominiums opened last year in a converted building at Rampart Street and Esplanade Avenue.
Several business owners also plan to take advantage of the facade grants. Mike Williams, a veterinarian in the 1100 block of North Rampart, plans to repaint and restore some stucco on his building.
The Mahalia Jackson Theatre, closed since Katrina, will reopen in January, and the Main Street group has been working with North Rampart restaurants to sponsor a dinner, featuring themed menus, to mark the event.
When Armstrong Park, which opened for a few events during Satchmo Summerfest this summer, will reopen permanently remains to be seen. Klein said that is key to the revitalization of nearby blocks, and she is working with the city to develop plans for the opening.
Though optimistic, the Main Street group is trying to avoid being unrealistic about the street’s prospects.
“We know that it will take years. This isn’t a quick-fix kind of thing,” Speights said.
But Klein said the group’s work is already showing results. “We’ve done more for North Rampart in one year than anyone has done in 20 years,” she said.
. . . . . . .
Nicole Dungca can be reached at ndungca@timespicayune.com.
