Bourbon Street Memorial
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I admit it. Even though the FQJ office is only blocks away, for two weeks I resisted visiting the memorial to the victims of the Bourbon Street New Year’s Day attack. The shock and grief experienced by the families of those lost and those injured – as well as the witnesses and first responders – still reverberated through the French Quarter.
Accounts of people touched by the horror in some less obvious way continued to circulate in the neighborhood. A friend sent me a photo of herself walking her dog after watching midnight fireworks. Her security camera had captured the white truck passing behind her, perhaps searching for the places where his bombs would wreak the most havoc.
Workers at a local deli posted about a customer no one realized would soon become a mass murderer. Most chilling, I heard about one pedicab driver who was high-fiving a jubilant customer when the roaring truck swept the rider away in the tidal wave of destruction.
While the show must go on, or so they said, it couldn’t go on the same way. Like dye in water, that concentrated sorrow bled through reopening efforts as the city hosted one of the biggest sporting events of the year. And the evolving memorial met everyone who passed from Canal onto Bourbon.
The night I visit, on January 14, some walk by uncomfortably, staring straight ahead as they pass on the way to the bars and neon lights. They cast only furtive glances, as if seeing the reminder might invite tragedy into their own lives. Others stop and consider the memorial briefly, take a few photos with their phones.
Still others linger, as did I. For the first time, the term I’d read about, “14 victims,” became 14 unique and beautiful individuals, lost to this world forever.
I hadn’t realized from reports that the memorial actually wrapped the corner of Canal and Bourbon and covered parts of two blocks. I approach on Canal, from the direction of the river and catch my first glimpse of it just beyond a big “Welcome to New Orleans” sign and map.
The crosses are set up closer to the curb, so pedestrians on the wide sidewalk can easily pass behind them. In back of the memorial, a sandwich board sign advertises shrimp po-boys and a large-as-life alligator invites passerbys to a brightly lit restaurant.
As always in New Orleans, the juxtapositions of suffering and joy have the power to reach in deep, grab your guts and twist them around. They’re manifested in the Second Line tradition, where weeping mourners follow the hearse to the grave, then dance home behind the brass band, celebrating the life that had been – and the time that remains for the living.
I continue around the corner onto Bourbon, where commerce rubs shoulders with compassion. Striking portraits of victims stare back at me from the right side of the street, propped against walls. One rests next to an ATM machine.
On the other side, more crosses are set up, these behind a fence, cut-out blue hearts mounted on each. A large cubist painting depicts a dove flying toward a stricken face that seems surprised peace is paying a visit in the midst of all this pain.
The blank wall that runs behind the crosses and the painting is graffitied with words of love and support. Bunches of flowers, most wilting now with a few fresh ones on top, surround the crosses. There are toys, tributes, beads, candles – lots and lots of candles – photos of the deceased. A heart-breaking Teddy-bear. A banner painted with 14 red roses and a fleur de lis proclaiming “LOVE IS REAL NOT FADE AWAY, NOLA 1/1/25.
And so the memorial did its solemn work, allowing me to see each of the humans whose life was erased in a moment.
Turning for home, I continue my walk down Bourbon. Like many French Quarter denizens, I rarely pass down these six rowdy commercial blocks, preferring to walk on the residential end of the street, where the homes are handsome and well-kept. It’s quiet there, even peaceful. Sometimes it makes me sad that most people in the world are missing out - so many believe Bourbon Street is the French Quarter, when it’s just a small fraction of an incredibly beautiful and fascinating neighborhood.
But still, I’m glad this little carnival exists in its midst. The fact that elegant Royal runs parallel to bawdy Bourbon prevents locals from clinging to absolutes. It’s a daily reminder to expect the unexpected. To appreciate those mysterious juxtapositions.
I take a few more photos as I walk toward home: strollers navigating the blockades, a Lucky Dog vendor, a homeless man with his dogs and a sign that reads, “dogs bless, Hungry, Broke and Traveling.” Manniquin legs swinging through an open widow to a strip joint, ones that have been advertising for decades, although the club’s name has changed, how many times?
But the street seems quieter somehow. More restrained.
At Orleans Street, where the terrorist left a cooler with a bomb, I turn toward the river. Touchdown Jesus greets me.
Of course, that’s not the statue’s actual name. It stands in the fenced back garden of St. Louis Cathedral, barely noticeable in the day. At night, a spotlight throws a enormous shadow of it onto the back of the cathedral and its arms lift toward the stars.
Since the park is only a block from Bourbon, you can stand right in front of this spiritual touchstone and the deafening back-beats of dance music can make your eardrums throb. But the sounds drop away as you focus on the giant shadow.
Maybe it does represent victory. Or perhaps it’s issuing an invitation, an accepting welcome to all who come to this place.
This night though, it offers comfort to those touched by the tragedy – whether in the worst of ways or the smallest. And it seems to say that long after the flowers and the portraits fade, those lost will be remembered.
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