Less than 36 hours after a massacre at the gateway to the French Quarter, New Orleans officials reopened Bourbon Street, now heavily guarded with military police, fresh barricades and 14 roses to mark the 14 people who were killed in what law enforcement officials have labeled an act of terror.
Authorities removed the remaining bodies and swept blood from the sidewalks and streets beginning at 2 a.m. Thursday. Deliveries to the street’s bars and restaurants resumed a few hours later.
Several blocks of Bourbon and surrounding streets had been blocked off, businesses were closed and residents living in the footprint of an active crime scene were navigating police tape and barricades after a driver plowed a pickup truck into a crowd shortly after 3 a.m. Wednesday.
Thousands of workers — still checking on the safety of friends and colleagues — are now returning to the bars, restaurants, music venues, hotels, gift shops and other businesses that keep the city’s tourism economy running.
One French Quarter worker told The Independent she was dreading returning to work.
“My anxiety is at an all-time high,” she said. “Thankfully I have health insurance through my spouse, but a lot of hospitality workers are uninsured and underpaid. Having to risk your life for a job that most likely doesn’t care about you is awful. Praying for us all.”
Workers have already felt unsafe and uncertain through a series of cascading disasters, from hurricanes and Covid-19 to political maneuvering and high-profile acts of violence. Social safety nets are inadequate. Statements and sympathies to New Orleans residents from city and state officials after the latest tragedy aren’t enough.
The city’s multi-million dollar plans to boost security relies on timelines for major events that draw billions of dollars in tourist revenue.
“The city is never really going to prioritize the concerns of French Quarter workers and residents,” Waites Lacester, a bartender who lives and works in the neighborhood, told The Independent.
“The French Quarter is an economic engine to drive revenue, not just for the city, not just for the parish, but for the entire state,” he said. “Those of us who are actually here in the Quarter — we’re always going to be… I don’t want to put it as an afterthought, but there’s lots of other considerations that are going to be weighed against us.”
The incremental updates to a years-long, multi-million French Quarter security plan have repeatedly brushed up against workers and residents who have demanded better investments for locals who fuel the city’s biggest economic driver, not just those who benefit from it.
The pain felt among the neighborhood’s workers “is crippling,” French Quarter bartender Jameson Lynn told The Independent.
“The fact that we don’t know yet if it’s our French Quarter family or not is worse,” she said. “It’s all super damn traumatic.”
Several Bourbon Street workers told The Independent they anticipated waiting at least 48 hours before they could go back to work. More than a dozen world-famous restaurants near the scene of the attack did not have a timeline for reopening after the attack.
They are all now moving quickly to open their doors and barrooms, many of which were used to shelter survivors who ran into the nearest open door to escape chaos.
“People who work on Bourbon … they have families, they have rents, they have mortgages, they have bills,” Lacester said.
“New Year’s is one of our biggest weekends, economically speaking,” he said. “The fact that we have this capitalist hellscape that we found ourselves in, you kind of have to weigh those factors, too. Like, should we necessarily be rushing Bourbon Street reopening? I don’t know.”
