NEW ORLEANS — Job cuts, a housing crisis and a dangerously erratic stock market seemed light-years away as drunk, beautiful, scantily clad women forgot their troubles and wrapped their bodies around the stop signs they used as makeshift stripper poles. Drunk, jovial and disorderly men encouraged the women with their cat calls that permeated the damp night.
It was 4 a.m. on Bourbon Street, and the New Orleans Mardi Gras crowd was out in full force.
But even more noticeable than the amateur strippers was the pungent smell of trash — a disgusting concoction of beer, vomit, plastic beads and urine that flowed like a shallow river down Canal and Bourbon streets. Piles of multicolored waste had built up around the trash cans, and a sour stench emanated from the portable restrooms. The smell only grew worse as the morning neared.
But the city of New Orleans, no doubt already accustomed to the ravages of America’s biggest party, came to the rescue as huge, black cleaning trucks barreled down the streets of the French Quarter, spewing sudsy liquid that doused a few unlucky partiers.
Just as quickly as they came, the trucks vanished into the night, leaving behind only a squeaky-clean lemon scent as the mob swarmed back to the street, continuing where it left off.
Potential symptoms of the recession felt by the city could have made the smell at Mardi Gras much worse, as Mayor Ray Nagin announced plans in late January to cut the city’s cleaning budget. But after two weeks of public outcry and some closed-door meetings with the city council, Nagin agreed to restore funding to the cleaning services.
“We’re going to make sure there is as much lemony scent as possible,” Nagin told New Orleans’ WDSU News.
Otherwise, the Mardi Gras celebration escaped totally unscathed by the national recession, said Mary Beth Romig, a spokeswoman with the New Orleans Convention and Visitor’s Bureau. She said that as with years past, hotels in the area reported about 90 percent occupancy, and some even sold out.
“It seems like Mardi Gras is pretty recession-proof from what we’re hearing,” Romig said. “The crowds have been really big and very happy.”
And some of those crowd members wouldn’t have cared if the city had made fewer cleaning initiatives. Danny Hellebusch, a UT chemical engineering senior who went to New Orleans for the festivities, said trash is an inevitable part of the party.
“The trash reminds you of the impact of what’s going on, all the plastic beads and stuff,” Hellebusch said. “It’s one of the byproducts of a lot of fun.”
Economics junior Marcelo Moreno said he was impressed with the efficient cleaning of the French Quarter during the first few nights but noticed the trash had piled up as he left Sunday morning.
“New Orleans is a really beautiful city, and if your last impression of the city is all the trash in the streets, you get the impression that it’s just a place to get wasted and messed up,” Moreno said.
Perhaps the partygoers at Mardi Gras found that the only escape from the foul stench was to drink so much that they forgot about it. The hand grenades, hurricanes and other iconic New Orleans beverages that dulled one’s senses and blurred one’s vision could have even made the multicolored trash — filled with pounds of shiny plastic beads and cups — look like just another beautiful component to this otherworldly, orgiastic paradise.
Be the first to comment on this article!