“I sure need something to come through,” he said. “I used to get a lot of work done.”

Greenleaf, a day laborer , stood in the blazing sun in the parking lot of the Lowe’s store in Elysian Fields on Friday, hoping a passing car will stop and ask him to work.

On a busy day, more than 150 day laborers – or “subcontractors” – like Greenleaf gather in home-store parking lots and on street corners around New Orleans, waving at moving cars. The gatherings developed after Hurricane Katrina, when a steep increase in building created work for hundreds of day laborers.

The scene is played out across the city, not just at Lowe’s, but at places like the Home Depot on Carrollton Avenue, where on Friday a couple of dozen men lined the fences outside the store parking lot.

At each corner and lot, construction bosses and private homeowners cross paths with the day laborers, who stand out with their tanned skin, paint-stained clothes and baseball caps. Loud hums from cars, buses and trucks combine with the faint smell of gasoline and alcohol. With every car comes the possibility of a meal, with every driver the possibility of a day’s work.

Greenleaf said he sleeps less than blocks away from where he waits for work. He makes his bed under the I-10 overpass near the Elysian Fields exit. He said he drove commercial trucks for 30 years, until 2006. Greenleaf, who is originally from Bayou Lafourche, in Lafourche, La., said he stopped driving trucks after his license expired.

Shortly after Katrina hit, he turned to the street corners for day work, averaging about $100 a day. The work is usually manual labor, digging, painting, and landscaping. Prices vary: Painting a medium sized room is usually $75, digging, $100 to $200, and plumbing, $200 to $300.

Sometimes, drivers have other requests. “I don’t turn nothing down,” said Greenleaf, who said he has, at times, been offered money for sex.

At Lowe’s, every hour or so cars pull up to the corner. A hand motion by the driver denotes how many workers are needed. At one point on Friday, despite the hand signal – three fingers for three workers – at least seven workers run up to each stopped car begging for work. Chaos quickly ensued, but eventually the driver made his choice and speed off.

Greenleaf said the majority of people who hire him and others are kind, often providing workers food and water. “The majority treat you well,” he said.

However, some employers take advantage of workers by refusing to pay them after the work. To address these concerns, outreach workers visit the day laborers’ sites. Six days a week at 8 a.m., Jacinta Gonzalez picks up fellow outreach worker Dennis Soriano. The two work for the New Orleans Worker’s Center for Racial Justice in a department known as the “Congress of Day Laborers.” Gonzalez and Soriano work on educating laborers about their rights and organizing them into grassroots movements. “The members decide what they want to work on,” Soriano said. Education can mean training in people’s homes as well as workshops on worker’s rights.

Getting legislation passed that will make it illegal to withhold payment from laborers is currently his organization’s primary goal, Soriano said.

Meanwhile at Lowe’s, some of the workers find rest in the cool shadows under trees, solemnly looking at the ground. Others laugh the wait away, smiling at passing cars. If they don’t find work, most will not eat. Sometimes they will find places giving away food, such as churches. Other times, they must nap the hunger away.

Work used to be steady, Greenleaf said. But these days, people seemed to have stopped building and renovating their homes as much.

“I used to be on this lot for less than5 minutes before I found work,” Greenleaf said.

And so, he waits.

At the time of his interview, he had been outside for almost three hours without work.

Nearly four years after Hurricane Katrina, a drive along these streets shows  that home abandonment continues to be a major problem for the city.

“We drove through here, and it looked like a bomb hit. It really looked bad,” said Sandy Kelly, who, with her son Jason and husband, Phillip, is working to renovate and sell homes in the partially abandoned area north of the Gentilly neighborhood.

The family plans to stop redeveloping soon. Thieves often search abandoned neighborhoods for signs of redevelopment – new appliances and tools – costing them thousands in stolen supplies. Other houses in the area remain  abandoned, and lots still sit overgrown and empty. The neighborhood still looks like a shell of what it once was because other landowners just haven’t returned.

“I never made any profit off of any of these,” said Kelly’s son, Jason Johnson, as he took a break from renovating a home he plans to live in. Until widespread redevelopment happens here, his next-door neighbors will be two empty,  unkempt lots.

According to the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center, the percentage of homes receiving no mail for 90 days or more – a U.S. Postal Service benchmark for abandonment – was 34 percent in 2008; as of May 2009 it has dropped to 31 percent, or 65,888 units.

There are nearly 47,000 vacant homes and buildings in the city, according to the center. Out of a total 65,888 abandoned buildings, the city has acquired 12,000 permits for demolition, and 7,000 of the homes are in livable conditions.

The outlook for blight in New Orleans is expected to improve as more public-amenities projects and other repopulation initiatives lure prospective residents. Pontchartrain Park redevelopment, complete with a golf course and renovated homes, is one of the city’s latest projects. Also, the city is buying property in abandoned areas and turning it over to redevelopment agencies.

Part of the problem hampering repopulation, city officials and redevelopers say, are “fence riders” who still technically own their abandoned properties but won’t maintain, renovate or sell them because they have little financial incentive to do so. This is what creates a domino effect leading to a high concentration of abandoned buildings in certain areas, according to New Orleans Recovery Authority (NORA), a city redevelopment agency.

Some have said code inspections are still failing to catch these absentee landlords.

Ommeed Sathe, real estate director at NORA,  likened code inspections in abandoned neighborhoods to parking tickets on broken-down cars. “It doesn’t work,” he said. “They’re just going to hold that piece of land forever.”

 Tina Marquardt, operations director at the nonprofit Beacon of Hope Resource Center, said that as the city starts to improve efforts in housing-code enforcement, fence riders will face court dates and fines if they don’t address the eroding conditions of their properties.

Court appearances are especially likely for people who accepted state money – Road Home funding – and haven’t repaired their properties.

“There was a covenant that they had to renovate their homes within three years if they accepted that money,” Marquardt said. If the agreement is broken, homeowners could face reimbursement penalties of up to $150,000. “Those fence riders may be getting off that fence real soon,” she said, grinning.

Property rights laws were strengthened in 2006 through an amendment to the state’s constitution, giving landowners the ability to retain ownership of abandoned lots. This ultimately hurts city dwellers, said New Orleans City Councilwoman Stacy Head.

“It prohibits the government from taking and transferring properties to third parties except in very, very limited circumstances, and we need to do that in New Orleans,” she said. adding that property laws applying to rural Louisiana towns should not impact redevelopment efforts in the urban and partially abandoned city.

“That’s limited the city’s ability to get properties back into commerce,” Head said.

“It takes three years and a lot of blood sweat and tears – and money to get properties into commerce,” she said, adding that in tax sales in most other states, the landowner acquires foreclosed or abandoned properties after 18 months.

A method NORA began using last spring to acquire property is eminent domain, when the government can sue housing-code violators out of their property. The process works on a neighborhood level with the agency, Sathe said, but at the scale of the abandonment issue in New Orleans, the costly legal process is impractical in his view.

“We’ve got something like 1,500 imminent domain lawsuits in progress at the moment; that’s probably the world’s record,” Sathe said, “And it’s a drop in the bucket.”

Eminent domain, Sathe said, acquires enough land to create an upward trend in repopulation and development and does enough to scare other landowners into maintaining their properties – or risk losing them to the city if they will not maintain them.

Marquardt said, “I don’t think anyone, or any one state, could service the size of this disaster.” Because of that, Beacon of Hope volunteers use GIS – Geographic Information Systems – software to help the city pinpoint which lots are abandoned, are being renovated or are now livable in area neighborhoods.

The information is then funneled through the “Lot Next Door” program, enabling homeowners to see which nearby homes are available for purchase and renovation.

Marquardt, from  Beacon of Hope, said civic engagement by residents in abandoned areas could assist city and state agencies trying to assess abandonment and rebuild.

“It’s not that they’re not doing the same for all areas, it’s a matter of what’s coming from the bottom up,” Marquardt said.

Johnson continues to work on his soon-to-be home, located near a school that is still under construction. He hopes its completion brings residents to the area before land values in the area bottom out.

“What’s ever going to happen to them?” Johnson asked of the deserted properties. “Am I going to live across from an empty lot for 20 years?”

"Unsung Heroes: The Secret History of Louisiana Rock ’n’ Roll," an exhibit at the Louisiana State Museum, explores the roots of modern music in the state. (Mylan Cannon/ NYT Institute)

Lazy Lester. Professor Longhair and Earl King. Slim Harpo, Guitar Gable and Lil Bob.

They may not be burning up the airwaves much these days. But to anyone interested in the cultural roots of Louisiana, they are groundbreakers of modern music.

A new exhibit in the French Quarter pays homage to such musical pioneers. “Unsung Heroes: The Secret History of Louisiana Rock ‘n’ Roll,” at the Louisiana State Museum, divides the state’s musical history by region and gathers a sampling of rare artifacts to illustrate the musicians’ stories.

The show is being presented with the Ponderosa Stomp Foundation, a nonprofit founded in 2001 to preserve music history. The foundation, which also sponsors an annual music festival in New Orleans, takes as its mission the promotion of “overlooked sidemen, session musicians and other influential pioneers whose contributions have shaped American culture for over 50 years.” In sponsoring the new exhibit, “we wanted to show how music is interlocked, how music in different regions of Louisiana influenced each other,” said Dr. Ira Padnos, a local anesthesiologist also known as “Dr. Ike,” who founded Ponderosa Stomp.

The exhibit traces the development of several musical genres, including rock ‘n’ roll, jazz, rhythm and blues and a particularly local concoction, swamp pop.

In 1947, an electrician named J.D. Miller started a recording studio inside a shop he co-owned with his father. They called it the Crowley Studio, named after Miller’s hometown, and it  gained notoriety for its distinctive local sound, dubbed “swamp pop” for its bayou origins.

Artists like Slim Harpo, Lazy Lester and Guitar Gable and the Music Kings collaborated to define the record company’s unique genre. Slim Harpo’s 1957 song “I’m a King Bee” was popularized later by the Rolling Stones.

According to music historian John Broven, “swamp pop” is a combination of rock and dreamy Louisiana ballads.

“There is a history and romance to Louisiana music,” said the London-born historian, the author of “South to Louisiana: The Music of the Cajun Bayous” and “Rhythm and Blues in New Orleans.”

Also highlighted in the exhibit are artists from the Lake Charles area like the bluesman Lonnie “Guitar Jr.” Brooks, Cajun rockers Johnnie Allen and Rod Bernard, and the band Cookie and the Cupcakes, who performed the 1958 swamp pop anthem “Mathilda.” Phil Phillips, a singer from Lake Charles, reached No. 1 on the Billboard R&B charts with the 1959 recording “Sea of Love.”

The museum exhibit calls Lafayette “ground zero” for Cajun music, R&B and bayou-influenced rock, and it singles out La Louisianne, a studio founded in 1958 by Carol Rachou.

Today, Rachou’s son David still operates the studio.

“South Louisiana has a lot of different types of music; that’s what kept the studio going,” he said.

The exhibit also pays tribute to Dale Hawkins, a native of Goldmine, La., who originally sang the hit “Susie Q.” A cover of the song later became a hit for Creedence Clearwater Revival. Hawkins went on to become the first white artist to sign on to the Chess record label. As a young musician, he recalled fellow Chess artist Muddy Waters giving him guitar lessons.

In a telephone interview, Hawkins said he was influenced by all kinds of music growing up in Louisiana.

“Where I came from was a melting pot of all kinds of music,” he said.

Shreveport, the exhibit notes, was the home of the Louisiana Hayride, a weekly radio program that reached 28 states. The program shadowed Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry, Broven said, giving artists in the Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas region the chance to build their careers. Hank Williams made his first appearance on the show in 1948.

“Unsung Heroes” also pays tribute to Louisiana’s “piano professors,” such as Champion Jack Dupre, Tuts Washington and Professor Longhair. These artists popularized the New Orleans “junker” piano sound, mixing of blues, Cuban and Caribbean influences.

A retired and worn Steinway baby grand piano is propped in the center of the exhibit. It belonged to Fats Domino, whose home was severely damaged by Hurricane Katrina; the Domino family donated the piano after the storm.

Influential recording studios such as Cosimo Matassa’s J&M and A.F.O. – which recorded artists such as Little Richard, Art Neville, Earl King and Allen Toussaint – get their own place in the exhibit.

Artifacts in the exhibit include the crown of Clifton Chenier, who was known as the “King of Zydeco,” Lazy Lester’s harmonica set, Silas Hogan’s acoustic guitar and, in one display case, an old brown bottle of Hadacol.

Hadacol was marketed as a vitamin supplement known for its 12-percent alcohol content. The product’s pitchman, Louisiana State Sen. Dudley J. Leblanc, marketed the product with elaborate traveling medicine show featuring top entertainers.

Visitors might find the bottle’s inclusion in the exhibit a bit odd – until they read about its central role for Louisiana musicians: Bill Nettles and Jerry Lee Lewis, the exhibit notes, even recorded a special homage to the potent drug “Hadacol Boogie.”

Musicians' Village, in the upper Ninth Ward, is where musicians J.D. Hill, Bob French and Michael Harris live. (Jan Ramson/NYT Institute)

His cheeks puffed like a blowfish as he blew hard into the harmonica. Cigarette smoke filled the western-style, dimly lit St. Roch’s Tavern, and heads bopped as the beat dropped.

“I’m going to let the Jammers jam for you a little bit,” said J.D. Hill, 53, the man behind the harmonica and the leader of his own blues and funk band J.D. and the Jammers. “Let me get my shades.”

Hill positioned himself behind the microphone. His Afro puffed out from underneath his black top hat. He thumped his right foot, and the moon-shaped tambourine strapped to his shoe shook and rattled.  Three guitarists and a drummer added to the musical flow as Hill sang the blues.

Things have been hard for Hill.

He said since Katrina it has been difficult to get gigs. The storm eliminated a lot of the clubs, and some of the owners do not want to pay. Without much money, he lived in what he describes as a “rat-trap” on St. Anthony Street until he found a home in the Musicians’ Village.

Marked by candy-colored homes, Musicians’ Village, an eight-acre swath  in the Upper Ninth Ward, has become a home and work space for struggling local artists. It was the creation of New Orleans natives Harry Connick Jr. and Branford Marsalis, who, after Hurricane Katrina, envisioned a development to house those who have contributed to the city’s culture.

The country-style houses, built by the New Orleans Area Habitat for Humanity, are approximately 1,100 square feet, with porches and back yards.  The homes cost about $75,000, or $550 to $600 per month, paid over 30 years with a no-interest loan. Each resident in the village contributes about 350 volunteer hours to the building of other homes as well as their own.

Habitat is currently constructing eight more homes, a park and the Ellis Marsalis Center for Music (named for the pianist and head of the musical family), which will include a community center and a performing arts hall. The center, still under construction, had been set to open earlier this year.

Today there are 72 homes in the Village. Each residence has a sponsor that covers the cost of land, materials and subcontractors, according to Aleis Tusa, the Habitat communications director. Some of those include Texas Road House Restaurant, Baptist Crossroads Foundation, and Warren and Stephanie Hayes Foundation. Habitat began building in 2006, and Hill was the first to move into the Village, in August of that year.

Originally from Buffalo, N.Y., Hill landed in New Orleans in 1981. Before Hurricane Katrina, he lived in a four-unit apartment house on Mandeville Street, four blocks from the Mississippi River. He returned from his two-and-a-half week stay in Fayetteville, Ark., after the storm to find the roof of his apartment building missing. Hill stayed there for a week until he moved to St. Anthony Street, after which he reached his final destination in the Musicians’ Village.

Approximately 80 percent of the residents in the Village are musicians, but the homes are open to anyone who qualifies.

Applicants must have good or no credit, a need for housing, the ability to pay, a need for shelter, a willingness to assist in the maintenance of the village, and a minimum yearly income of $19,200 (the maximum yearly income depends on the number of people in the household).

“I’m just fortunate to be here,” he said. “I’m surrounded by great musicians.”

Hill sat in the wooden rocking-chair on his porch. One of his three dogs, Lucy, sat at the bottom of the steps.

“Bob,” Hill shouted. “That’s Bob French.” French, 71, plays the drums and is the leader of the Original Tuxedo Jazz Band. He also hosts a radio program on WWOZ-FM (90.7), a local jazz station. The two musicians have been good friends since the late 1980s.

French, who has lived in the village for two years, made his way across the street and briefly chatted with Hill. They talked about gigs and life. They discussed French’s well-intentioned effort to help Hill get back on his feet.

He was mugged in 2005 by three juveniles on a bike who stole $13. They broke both sides of his jaw and left him bloodied in the street. He now has a metal chin. And more recently he began to fall behind in his mortgage payments, and his home was in danger of foreclosure.

In an effort to help, French and a friend will hold a fund-raiser on June 4 at Sweet Lorraine’s Jazz Club on St. Claude Avenue to benefit the  J.D. Hill Save the Music Foundation. Various artists, and Village residents, will be performing, and all are welcome. The money donated will help Hill keep his home.

“It’s about looking out for each other,” French said.

Residents in Musicians’ Village describe the neighborhood as homey, a musical hub where the talented-tenth can harmonize together. When newcomers move into the village, they are welcomed with a musical celebration from fellow residents.

French was a part of the first group to move into the Village. He left his home in Treme, three days before the storm, and he stayed in Maryland for seven months. When he returned to the city his house had a huge “gaping hole.” He came back to the city for good in March 2006.

“The Village itself was really a godsend,” French said.

In the midst of French and Hill’s conversation, Michael Harris, a 55-year-old  gospel and jazz musician who sings and plays bass, walked toward Hill’s aqua blue home. They shot the breeze for a moment. He told Hill about a recent accident he was in, involving an 18-wheeler.

“I’m just thankful to be alive,” he told the men.

He has lived in the Village for nearly two years. During the storm, Harris was on tour in Brazil. When he returned he said his home was not where he left it.

“It was unreal,” he said. “It smelled like death. The silence was deafening. There were no birds.”

He found out about the Village at an application workshop for the Village held at Tipitina’s in Uptown. As a resident he said he loves it, adding it was an idea that was long overdue.

“I’m surrounded by a bunch of my peers and colleagues,” Harris said. “We all think alike, and I don’t have to explain myself.”

Harris said French checked up on him regularly after he was hurt in the accident and offered him a ride to the doctor’s office. The two, who live across the fence from each other, are neighbors and good friends.

After their afternoon chat the men went their separate ways. Harris had a performance that night, and French made his way home.

Hill walked around his house into the backyard. He paused and looked at the still-unfinished music center and community center. Hill hopes to join up with other groups to teach children how to play the harmonica.

In his backyard underneath a white tent, he performed, along with one of his guitarists, before an intimate audience at his spaghetti cookout.”Someone told me years ago, they said ‘man you must be crazy doing this music for all of these years and you ain’t got anywhere yet.’ I said well, I’m still try’na follow my dream.”

Exotic dancer Persephone, 23, has also been affected by the recession and would like to leave the business of adult entertainment. She says the recession has meant that she brings in less money a night than a year ago. (Kenneth Hawkins/ NYT Institute)

She slithered across the stage toward a man and woman who sat at the edge. She sported a black thong and a short, fitted black dress that hung around her waist. She had a welcoming demeanor. She smiled and briefly spoke to them. They tipped her for the performance.

Before she made it back to the stage, she entertained an older gentleman who told her she looked “so pretty.” She sat with him for  15 minutes as he whispered in her ear, clutching a $20 bill that he eventually handed to her.  Nadia, 30, a Tulane University undergraduate, had just begun her evening shift at  Stilettos Cabaret on Bourbon Street.

You have to have a strategy, she said, like sitting with somebody and trying to “milk them for all they’re worth.”

The recession has been bad for much of the work force, but for exotic dancers, the bad times are still good. Dancers and club owners in the French Quarter said sales have dropped, but tourists and businessmen continue to put money into the industry.

Storm, 27, another dancer at Stilettos, said she used to make $700 to $800 a night, but now she’s lucky if she makes $400 a night.

“Not as many people come in as they used to. They’re like tightwads,” said Storm, a single mother of two, who chose to withhold her real name given the nature  of the story.

Based on a 40-hour work week, dancers in the area can average $65,000 to $100,000 annually.

“Sometimes you have good days and sometimes you have bad days, but the good days are really good,” said Mark Lewis, who has been the manager of Scores New Orleans on Bourbon Street for 11 years.

Historically the Big Easy has been known for its music, food and sex. At the start of the 20^th century, many of the  gentleman’s clubs were brothels. There are currently at least 15 strip clubs on Bourbon Street.  “This industry is always going to be in,” Lewis said. “There are two things people always want: food and sex. Not that we’re selling sex.”

Last Saturday at DejaVu Showgirls in the Quarter, women danced in scant one- and two-piece outfits that left little to the imagination. As the dancers spiraled down the silver pole, topless, beneath a rotation of blue and purple lights, patrons tossed $1 bills onto the oval stage. Some dancers walked away with handfuls of bills while others did not.

Before a moderately full house, one woman performed on stage as others worked the floor, entertaining conversation and providing lap dances for $30. Some escorted men up the staircase and into private rooms, where clients spend at least $100 for 30 minutes with the dancer.

Men trailed into DejaVu with their girlfriends and others with their buddies draped in business suits or casual wear.

Fridays and Saturdays at the club can be the busiest, with revenue coming from stage tips, private dances, VIP sales and 30-minute and one-hour rooms. The clubs receive a cut of every sale made, excluding stage tips. Dancers also pay a house fee that is determined by the time of day that they arrive to the club.

Night after night exotic dancers come to the stage dancing for money, trying to make enough to keep up with their bills. Some work at Club Déjá Vu in the French Quarter. (Kenneth Hawkins/NYT Institute)

Ronald “Buddha” Rahme, a manager at DejaVu, said that business  fluctuates but “we’ve been all right.”

The city of New Orleans has been hit with a one-two punch: Katrina and the recession.

“Before Katrina it was way better,” said Ashley, 24, who works at Larry Flynt’s Hustler Club, an upscale establishment on Bourbon Street, and chose to withhold her full name. “It wasn’t as slow as it is now.”

Rahme said that showgirls can get a good picture of  the state of the economy by the amount of tips they receive because the tips represent  disposable income for the patrons.

“The only thing people spend money on is sex and alcohol,” said Danielle Blune, 22, a cashier at DejaVu.

Henry Gordon, who works at the front desk at Little Darlings, a predominately black strip club on Bourbon Street, said he goes to  those establishments whenever he has the money to do so, often spending  up to $40 each visit.

Lewis said the average customer would spend about $120 per visit before the recession, but now  may only spend $50 to $60. “But you still have those guys who own their own businesses, big-time lawyers and corporate guys, and they’re still blowing it like there’s no tomorrow,” he said.

Many factors determine how much a dancer can make.

Fiona del Mar, who provided only her stage name, said that dancers must “have a personality, the ability to speak well and they must stay focused.” Fiona, who works at Larry Flynt’s Barely Legal Club in the Quarter, added that dancers have to know how to get sales and that looks alone are not enough.

“You could be drop dead gorgeous and do bad,” she said.

Fiona is a senior entomologist major at the University of Nevada, in Las Vegas, and works as a circuit dancer, traveling from state to state performing at different clubs. In her travels, she has noticed a difference in customer spending depending on the market. Michigan, where she worked for some time, consisted of a mostly blue-collar clientele. She said patrons there were worried about losing their jobs and did not spend much. But in the French Quarter, she said, there are more white-collar clients.

She described the stripping industry in terms of macroeconomics it’s all about consumer confidence, and if people know they will have money in the future they will spend it in the clubs.

But in the Quarter, where many tourists flock, the clubs that line the streets often do better than others elsewhere in the city according to Montriell McCarter, 41, the manager at Stilettos Cabaret.

“This is a tourist-driven industry,” said Rahme, adding that the winter months bring in the most money, as people are drawn to Mardi Gras, conventions and festivals. Summer months are slow, he said, because no one really wants to go out into the heat.

Nonetheless, people are still applying to the showgirl hotspots on Bourbon Street. At DejaVu Showgirls, the number of auditions has remained the same, averaging 10 per week,  Rahme said.  The number of those hired has also remained the same despite the recession, but it varies each week depending on the quality of applicants.

To draw in more business, various clubs on Bourbon Street have promotions and incentives.

Barely Legal will have  an outside  pool in the back of the club by the end of the month. They also promote Monday Madness with a free pass, $3 drinks and $100 bottles. DejaVu has $2 Tuesdays, where patrons can purchase $2 beer and enter for the same price. Larry Flynt’s Hustler Club offers platinum and gold membership cards that include free admission into the club and various rooms.

Devin Nicholson, 24, of New Orleans, a security guard at Little Darlings, believes the industry will last.

“Clients are still going to be loyal,” he said. “The girls build established relationships with them and the clients feel like they are a part of something.”

Sweet Lorraine's Jazz Club, in the early morning hours. (Ray Tyler/NYT Institute)

In an art gallery tucked between a Caribbean restaurant and a full service laundry on a quiet street in Mid-City a group of teenagers and adults sat on the edges of their seats, full of anticipation.

“Are you ready for the word?” a man called out.

“Pass it on,” the crowd replied in unison.

A young man dressed in dark clothes and clenching a leather-bound notebook moved to take his place atop a soapbox.

“I have ‘AIDS’ No, I wasn’t raised this way. It’s something I picked up. My condition is different, I’ll explain in a minute,” the teen said, reading on for several minutes, the crowd clinging to his every word. “I have ‘AIDS’ — apparent influential disorder to speak.”

Following the poem’s conclusion, he stepped down from the soap box and, as tradition dictates, he tossed a penny in a jar. The crowd clapped, and the positive vibes carried him back to his seat.

The poet, Raheim Daniels, 16, was one of several to take the stage that night and share their words, their art. These poets, novices and veterans alike, are helping fuel the resurgence of the spoken-word poetry scene in New Orleans. After Hurricane Katrina emptied the city, many of the established performance poets were scattered throughout the diaspora. Some of the city’s premier poetry venues were shuttered.

“We lost a lot of the greats,” said Shannon Pellet, a veteran of the New Orleans poetry scene who relocated to Chicago after the hurricane. “It’s just like any other family that scattered after the hurricane — we were the same. I lost my brothers and my sisters and poets that I looked to like second mammas and aunts.”

Gian Smith, aka G-Perspective, 31, co-host of Noyo Presents: "Pass It On," expresses the importance of the spoken word. (Ray Tyler/NYT Institute)

But now, as more poets and people who enjoy the art of spoken word are returning home, organizers said new venues that host poetry events are sprouting up all around the city.

“Eventually, people started to come back,” said Gian Smith, 31, whose stage name is G-Perspective. “As people start to come back, there has been more of a demand for poetry. People don’t just want poetry one night; they want it any night of the week that they want to have it.”

Smith, who was displaced after the storm, said he returned to New Orleans with a single purpose in mind.

“I came back to New Orleans after Katrina with the sole intention of doing what I could to help either salvage or restore or build the art that I knew and appreciated and loved,” he said. “Before Katrina, I always took this for granted. It wasn’t anything that I thought for a second, ‘oh, I won’t have this at my disposal,’ so I wasn’t as appreciate as I am of it now.”

Smith is now the co-host of “NOYO Presents: ‘Pass It On’ Open Mic” at the Red Star Galerie, an event that takes place every Saturday night.

The organizers felt it was important to showcase youth performances as well as seasoned adult performers, so they split the show into two parts.

“A lot of people come in early to hear the kids, and once they’ve performed, we’ll take an intermission, have a conversation topic we’ll discuss amongst the crowd, and then we’ll go into the adult portion of the show,” Smith said.

The shows have been particularly popular with teachers, who encourage their peers and students, like Daniels, to participate.

“It’s a great opportunity to be heard, and for other people around you to see what you have to bring to the table,” Daniels said. “With NOYO, I respect the fact they let the high school, younger crowd perform. I respect that a lot.”

Eric Couto, 18, another performer at the gallery that night, said the events following the hurricane inspired him to share his poetry with others.

“After Katrina, I started feeling bad, feeling sad, about what happened to our home,” Couto said. “I’d feel sad, angry, happy — so many emotions — and that’s when I started elaborating on them in my poetry. Spoken word puts me in a great place for those 5 or 10 that I’m performing, and that hour or two hours I’m watching everyone else perform.

“It’s like a safe haven,” he added. “It gives me a chance to breathe from all the stress I’ve been through.”

Local poets hanging out in front of Sweet Lorraine's Jazz Club in the early morning hours. (Ray Tyler/NYT Institute)

Across town and a few nights earlier inside Sweet Lorraine’s Jazz Club on St. Claude Avenue in the Marigny, the lights were dim and the air was thick with smoke. The din from the crowd of dozens that gathered there that night rose and settled in every corner of the place. Not far from the bustling bar, where patrons sipped cocktails under the watchful eye of a bartender, a woman stood on stage with her head bowed.

She lifted her head. Her eyes met the crowd. And she began to speak.

“While everyone wishes the tragedies of 9/11 had never happened, they are dying to see 9 and 11 again, ‘cuz when 10 and 12 struck, that was when 10-year-old Rodney would lose his best friend.”

The piece, performed by Pellet, who goes by the stage name Uncaged Bird, was a memoir about her two cousins, who at ages 10 and 12, witnessed the murder of their mother.

“Poetry is my expression,” she said. “The first time I performed that poem about my aunt, I just went outside and cried. It happened when I was 14, and for seven years I couldn’t even talk about it until finally at 21, I was finally able to get it out through spoken word.”

Pellet has been coming to Sweet Lorraine’s to enjoy spoken word for about six years.

“There’s a lot of history in that place,” she said of the club. “Just being around people who like the same things, who appreciate the same thing, it feels good. There’s not a night I don’t go to a poetry night and learn something or have my interest sparked.”

Shelton “Shakespear” Alexander, 34, has been the host of the weekly spoken word event at Sweet Lorraine’s since 2003.

Alexander also was displaced by the hurricane. He returned to New Orleans in February 2006.

“Once people found out I was back in the city, they started calling the club trying to find out if poetry was going to continue,” he said. “We’re keeping it going. I made sure I came back to New Orleans, and been committed to it.”

Alexander is considered a veteran within the spoken-word community, and said that he supports the next generation of poets filling the void left by those who are no longer on the scene.

“When I came back, a lot of the poets that were around when I started out stayed wherever they had relocated,” Alexander said. “They’ll come to visit, but haven’t come back totally. A lot of new artists are keeping it going. We wouldn’t really have a good spoken word scene if it wasn’t for the younger artists stepping up and getting it going again.”

Back at the Red Star Galerie, night had settled and the poets and most of the audience poured from the gallery and onto the sidewalk for intermission. The group quickly filled the quiet street with loud conversations that had been pent up during the first session.

Amid the greetings and laughter, the people began to gravitate toward one another, forming a circle beneath a streetlamp.

Poets took turns standing inside of the circle, free-styling, each line of prose met with steady cheers.

After about 5 minutes, the co-host of the night’s event appeared in the doorway.

“Are y’all ready for the word or what?” the man called out.

“Pass it on!” the group yelled back in unison before filing back into the gallery.

After 21 years of service in the Mid-City community, Sam Jupiter's Barbershop will close to make way for two new hospitals. (Ray Tyler/NYT Institute)

“It’s a shame,” Sam Jupiter said with a heavy sigh. The 92-year-old barber took a step back from behind the customer sitting in the barber chair and set the clippers down on the counter. He pulled a small white towel from his side pocket and wiped sweat from his weathered cheeks and neck.

The old man’s face looked as if he were sorting through a lifetime of memories.

Jupiter has been cutting hair for almost 75 years. And his barbershop, a little red and white building on South Galvez Street in Mid-City, has been a fixture in the neighborhood for  21 years.

But soon, the doors to the place where countless men around the neighborhood have talked about everything from presidents to pastors, from basketball to the Bible, will close for good, and the building will be torn down  to make way for new health care facilities planned to replace the old Charity Hospital, which was shuttered after Hurricane Katrina.

The U.S Department of Veteran Affairs and Louisiana State University plan to raze 25 blocks of the neighborhood for the new facilities. LSU has not released an official date for when the construction for the two new medical centers could begin. Before being severely damaged by the hurricane, Charity was the primary health care center for many of the city’s poor and uninsured.

Plans  show the new buildings  wiping out 67 acres of Mid-City-, including 265  houses. Some historic buildings, including the Deutsches Haus, Dixie Brewery and the old McDonogh School are also threatened.

About  600 people could be displaced, according to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, an organization whose focus includes  historic neighborhoods across the nation.  Eighty-five percent of the people who  could be uprooted are minorities and 40 percent of them are currently living below the poverty line.

“Where am I supposed to go,” Jupiter asked. “Nobody has come around yet to tell me the actual date that I have to close my doors, but we all know that the day is coming,” he said. “Until then, I’m just going to keep doing what I can while I’m still here and this is still my building. I’m just going to keep coming to work like I’ve always done.”

Jupiter said he was told by LSU officials that he would be paid “market value” for his building.

He put the towel back in his pocket, picked up the red clippers from the counter and turned to his customer.  The clippers hummed and the sound filled the old barbershop.

Long-time customer Morris Juneau, 68, said Jupiter’s Barbershop is one of the last shops in the city where you get treated like family instead of just another customer.

“Sam has always been fair. He has only charged $8 for a cut since I first started coming here,” Juneau said. “People don’t just come in here for the haircuts. You come in for the conversation too. ”

The view from the window in the shop’s lobby offers a unique look into the neighborhood and its struggles. There are houses still being renovated from damage left by the hurricane and  long-neglected homes that are deteriorating even as people live in them .

Neighbors may soon share another reality: displacement. New Orleans land use attorney William Borah said state is offering “woefully low” compensatory amounts to residential property and business owners in the area.

“I honestly feel like I can’t do anything about it at this point,” Jupiter said. “It’s a shame because New Orleans is supposed to take care of neighborhoods like this, but that’s not the case anymore.”

The barbershop is rarely as busy as it once was. On a sunny afternoon last week the flow in and out its doors was a drizzle at best. Two men sat in the lobby of the shop, glancing over at the television sitting on top of a cabinet in the corner and talking about who knows what.

As soon as Jupiter’s chair opened up, one of the men in the lobby, Melvin Arbuthnot, 58 walked over,  sat down and explained his theory on the state and its decision making. He said the state has an “agenda” when it comes to clearing out the lower Mid-City area.

“They’re trying to get close to Canal Street is what they’re trying to do,” Arbuthnot said. “They want to get close to those businesses to make this area less residential. They don’t care who’s in their way.”

Speculation on  why the state is planting the new medical centers in the historic neighborhood is endless. Neighbors wonder why the state doesn’t just renovate Charity and spare their neighborhood. The Foundation for Historical Louisiana commissioned a $600,000 study by the architecture firm RMJM Hillier to inspect  the old building and determine if it was  a viable option as a medical center despite the hurricane damage.

The firm concluded a retrofitted Charity could serve as LSU’s teaching hospital and the VA hospital could be moved to the Mid-City location.

Michael Andry, a  member of the community advisory committee for the LSU health care services division, said there were several reasons  Charity Hospital was not chosen as the site for one of the medical facilities.

“The decision was made based on Charity not being able to support regular hospital functions after Katrina,” Andry said. “Also, the cost of renovating the facility was a major factor.”

Despite the arguments for  why Charity is not a suitable alternative location, Jupiter said he does not believe the new complexes will help the area if it requires much of Mid-City to be destroyed.

“People have been saying that this will make the area better. Putting a hospital up may bring in money and new stuff like that, but it’s going to make a lot of people lose their homes,” Jupiter said as he turned back to Arbuthnot, preparing to give the man a straight-razor shave. “And if you work in this area, you’re going to lose your job. I know they have other options for places to build these hospitals.”

Jupiter  finished up with the shave and a haircut and then leaned back against the hand rail along the steps a couple feet from his chair.

“I’m really not sure what I’m going to do when this place has to close,” he said. “This neighborhood is a good place. It doesn’t need to be torn down. I’m going to hope and pray it doesn’t have to be.”

Now, life imitates art. Nearly four years after Katrina in real-life New Orleans, entomologists say a change in the ecosystem has caused some bugs to proliferate and others to die off.

Danielle Taylor was one of the first evacuees to return to her neighborhood after Hurricane Katrina. She noticed a lot of flies and mosquitoes.

“We called them Katrina flies,” she said.

It’s no surprise that flies flourished, considering all the refrigerators with rotting food sitting on the sides of roadways. But other differences were not so immediately noticeable.

The poisonous brown widow spider is more common. Mosquitoes and some species of ants also have increased.

But not all bugs are doing well. The fire ant’s population has diminished. And in a display of how ecology works, without the fire ant to prey upon it, the sugarcane borer has increased. That in turn has meant more damage to sugar cane crops, which has meant less revenue for farmers.

Edward Martin, an entomologist who owns a local Terminix franchise, said the brown widow spider became more evident after the storm. He said he hadn’t seen a brown widow in all the time he’d worked in the area – since 1960 – until after the storm.

“Within a year or two,” he said, “they were everywhere.”

Jayme Necaise, an entomologist and director of animal and visitor programs at the Audubon Insectarium, said the massive influx of building and garden materials from other states, such as Florida, were to blame for bringing in the spiders. He said no one was inspecting all the materials coming in to Louisiana to rebuild homes.

Zena Ezeb has seen brown spiders, in her house and outside. She said that she sees them the most when she opens her door.

Usually she is not scared of spiders, but these particular spiders scare her.

“The thing that scares me is that they look deadly,” she said.

Necaise said the brown widow thrives in an undisturbed habitat with no human activity, such as abandoned houses and buildings, which have been plentiful since the storm.

“The brown widow has become quite established here in the New Orleans area,” he said.

The spider has a yellow-to-orange hourglass marking, according to the Louisiana State University Agricultural Center; it may be gray or tan to dark brown and 1 to 1.5 inches long. The best way to control the spider is to remove trash piles or other areas where they nest and by sealing cracks around doors and windows, the center advised.

Necaise said anyone who is rebuilding should be aware of the brown widow, especially   construction workers operating in undisturbed areas. The university agriculture center said that people should wear long-sleeved shirts and long pants. Necaise urged people to wear leather gloves, because spiders are unable to bite through leather. While the brown widow is not as aggressive as a black widow, its bite can be severe.

Meanwhile, a particular mosquito also has thrived in the area since the storm.

Kenneth Brown, principal research entomologist with the New Orleans Mosquito and Termite Control Board, said he noticed that the common salt-marsh mosquito, Aedes sollicitans, had become abundant as a result of high tides or heavy rain.

Necaise said the large numbers of untended and abandoned swimming pools made excellent breeding grounds for mosquitoes.

“Mosquitoes’ larvae do extremely well in water containing lots of decaying organic matter,” Necaise said. That means people who don’t want mosquitoes should drain that water.

Decaying vegetation, construction debris, empty lots and abandoned buildings also have been blamed for the rise in some varieties of ants, such as sugar ants and black ants, according to Mike Groetsch, the owner of Metro Termite and Pest Control.

But fire ants, which help to control the sugarcane borer, diminished in number because of the influx of saltwater, said Timothy Schowalter, a professor and department head of entomology at Louisiana State University. He said fire ants were eliminated in the portion of south Louisiana covered by the storm surges from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

That led to a tripling of the sugarcane borer population, Schowalter said, resulting in an estimated loss in revenue to the Louisiana sugarcane industry between $1.9 million and $2.9 million in 2006.

Taylor, who is dean of humanities at Dillard University, said that she thinks army ants are back after disappearing for a while.

Donald Martin agrees. “I’ve seen an increase in ants,” he said.

Martin, who lives in the Iberville neighborhood, said the proliferation of ants does not pose a problem for him: “I keep my house clean.”

Necaise said the phorid fly, a tiny insect that resembles the fruit fly and is also known as the humpbacked or scuttle fly, increased in number greatly up to a year after Katrina because there were more places to breed.

“When people aren’t around to clean up their mess, flies explode in population,” Necaise said. Their growth has since been controlled.

Schowalter has also seen an “abundance of aphids and other sap-sucking insects,” which have thrived on sprouts from trees damaged by Katrina.

Brown said it is also possible that the stinging caterpillar’s population might have increased.

Joanne Lozano said that she hates to go to her sister’s house during the spring because there are always a lot of slimy caterpillars.

Tiffany Frasier, an attendee at The New York Times Student Journalism Institute at Dillard University, thought she had been bitten by a spider but later found out she was bitten numerous times by a caterpillar. The bite mark was red, swollen, and had a ring around it.

Schowalter recalled other instances where hurricanes have transported many insects and other organisms. For example, during Hurricane Ivan in 2004, soybean rust was introduced in the South along the rim of the storm, he said. During Hurricane Katrina, and Hurricane Gustav in 2008, a variety of tropical birds appeared in the South, he added.

Taylor said she tries to avoid bugs, but it is really hard to avoid them in New Orleans.

“I watch the bugs, because I believe in killing them,” she said.

Christy Garrison in front of her 1997 Mitsubishi Diamante, which has been her home for about a year. The car no longer starts, but will have to be moved soon. (Ray Tyler/ NYT Institute)

Christy Garrison’s 1997 silver Mitsubishi Diamante is her most prized possession. It provides her with storage. It’s where she eats. It’s where she sleeps. It is home.

A native of Plaquemines Parish, Garrison is one of Hurricane Katrina’s forgotten castaways, one of the estimated 12,000 homeless people now living on the streets

Wetahanna Trask, 34, a resident of Baronne Street transitional housing, and the program's director, Johnell Williams, sit in the common room as Trask discusses the adjustment period she went through when she lost her home. (Ray Tyler/NYT Institute)

in the city of New Orleans.

According to the National Coalition for the Homeless, New Orleans’ rate of homelessness is more than four times the national average. And the number of homeless children continues to make up a large proportion of that.

“I don’t want my baby staying in this car,” Garrison said. “She can’t take a bath and go to school. It’s not good for her.”

A soft-spoken woman with striking hazel eyes, the 35-year-old has seen a lot. She used to have a home and was “doing fine until Katrina came and took it.” After the storm, Garrison was staying in Belle Chase, La., in a Federal Emergency Management Agency trailer on Captain Larry Lane. Her trailer was taken away a year ago, and ever since  Garrison and her daughter Asia, 11, who’s mentally and physically disabled, have been homeless. The father of her other daughter, Shanbriel, 15, has custody of her.

For about a year now, Garrison and Asia have been living in the car, often parking on side streets near apartment complexes and abandoned buildings to sleep. Just two months ago, neighbors called child protection services to report that Garrison was sleeping in the car with her child. Garrison quickly had to make preparations for Asia to stay with some of her father’s relatives to avoid trouble with the authorities.

“I don’t need child protection on my back,” she said with a sigh. “I don’t want them to take my baby.” Of the relatives, she said, “I just need them to keep her until I get on my feet.”

Because of Asia’s disabilities – she has difficulty walking because of a stroke – an emergency shelter wasn’t an option: Being surrounded by large numbers of people and noise triggers bouts of seizures.

“I don’t know where to go, I really don’t,” Garrison said. “That’s why I need my own place.”

The urgency of Garrison’s situation continues to increase by the day. Two weeks ago the car began to overheat and hasn’t started since. The owner of the property where the car is sitting, in Algiers, has told her she has until Friday to move it.

With no transportation, Garrison now has to walk an hour from Algiers to Gretna to search for work. Her search has yet to yield results.

“There are times when I just sit in the car and cry,” she said. “But I have to stay strong for my child’s sake. I can’t just give up because I know she wants to be with me and I want to be with her.”

New Orleans is a foreign place for Garrison. She doesn’t know of many places she can go and has sought help from the few resources she knows of, namely the Red Cross and United Way. She’s also been to Lovetouch Ministries’ shelter in Gretna for help, but the building is currently under renovation.

“A lot of people don’t know what’s really happening in the streets,” said Pastor Joan Powell, founder of Lovetouch Ministries. “There are a lot of families out there that are homeless.”

Powell said that all she can do is refer families to another agency that itself may already be filled.

With the help of Lovetouch, Garrison has filled out an application to be considered for UNITY of Greater New Orleans’ housing voucher program. UNITY is the lead HUD-designated agency for homelessness in the Greater New Orleans area, partnering with 50 other agencies in the area. The agency has only 100 permanent housing vouchers at the moment to give out to qualifying families. While the vouchers are best fit for families, others may qualify for the vouchers as well. UNITY has been taking applications over the past couple of months and is still in the referral process.

Until then, Garrison can only hope and wait.

“I’m just praying I get something,” she said.

But as Garrison and others wait, the number of homeless families continues to increase.

Connie Andry, the director of homeless services for Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New Orleans, has also noticed the rise of families seeking assistance following the storm.

Twenty-five years ago, when Andry opened one of the first homeless shelters for families, she noted three main causes of the homelessness crisis: the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill, the economics of low wages and the lack of affordable housing. Today, Andry still notices these as common denominators with an added factor – the remnants of Hurricane Katrina.

“People just don’t have enough money to live off,” Andry explained. “It is very costly to live and the wages don’t match. Since Katrina, everything’s gone up.”

Affordable housing is very difficult to come by, Andry said. Four years ago, a two-bedroom apartment would cost about $600 a month; now they average between $900 and $1,000.

Clarence White, an outreach worker with UNITY of Greater New Orleans, climbs from underneath an abandoned house to find mentally and physically ill homeless people, in hopes of providing them help. (Ray Tyler/NYT Institute)

Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New Orleans, a UNITY partner, operates four transitional housing programs for homeless families that allow women with children to stay in a unit as long as they’re working and saving up to eventually move out on their own. Additionally, they provide a number of outreach services that focus on prevention of homelessness.

Wetahanna Trask, 34, is one of the 15 adult residents at Baronne Street Transitional Housing, a program operated by Catholic Charities. There, residents must have some source of income and pay anywhere between $50 and $200 a month for their stay. She and her 16-year-old daughter, Cierra, and twin 2-year-old boys, Devone and Devonte, came to Baronne Street Transitional Housing nine months ago, with a referral from an emergency shelter where they had been staying.

Like Garrison, Trask was living independently before  Katrina and at one point even held down two waitress jobs, at Shoney’s and IHOP. Trask’s home wasn’t damaged, but when she returned, the landlord had some other news for her.

“When I came back my landlord met me on the step, saying he was increasing the rent by like $200,” she said. “I couldn’t afford that.”

Three weeks later, Trask received an eviction notice and has been “bouncing around” since. Despite her situation, it took time to dawn on her that she was in fact homeless.

“The last thing you want to think is you really are homeless,” Trask explained. “I got comfortable staying at my sister’s or my cousin’s house. But it still wasn’t mine. It took a while for me to realize that we were actually homeless.”

And when Trask finally realized it, it hit her hard. In 2007, after falling into a deep depression, she tried to commit suicide.

“It took a toll on my pride, my womanhood and motherhood,” she said. “I just wondered,  Why can’t I get this together?’ ”

Now enrolled in classes to prepare for her General Education Development test, Trask is thankful for the help she’s received from the staff and caseworkers.

“I found a friend. That’s been my uplift because I hadn’t had a friend in many years.”

Three UNITY outreach workers, Mike Miller, Shamus Rohn and Clarence White, are also on a mission to help those needing a friend. As part of the UNITY Welcome Home project, twice a week the trio goes out in search for the “sickest of the sick,” those staying in abandoned buildings throughout the city, with the goal to get them needed medical care and eventually off the streets.

Many of these people are mentally and physically disabled and may be suffering from substance abuse as well. Because of their chronic illnesses, it’s often difficult for them to stay in emergency shelters, Miller said.

After surveying abandoned buildings during the day, looking for any signs of inhabitants, the workers make a note of the buildings and make plans to come back at night when they’re most likely to find someone.

Tuesday and Thursday nights, carrying flashlights and cups of black coffee, the group head out in search of their newest clients. The people they seek are usually at the most severe end of the spectrum, such as a 27-year-old mentally retarded woman with a history of a crack cocaine addiction who’s also believed to be five months pregnant.

She’s been staying in an abandoned house in Algiers with a group of other men and women. The only way to get inside is to climb up under the house and through a hole in the floor.

The workers called out, announcing themselves: “UNITY outreach, anybody home?”

Someone shuffled through the bushes, but it was not who they were looking for.

Stanley Lee Jefferson, 42, has been staying in this abandoned house for three years now. He says the woman they were looking for left with the rest of the group.

On any given night, the group may find just whom they’re looking for, or have no success at all.

Preparing to call it a night, they ran into a former client, Terry White. White has lupus and after Katrina she was living in abandoned houses after the city cleared out the I-10 overpass. The 46-year-old had been homeless for the past three years as well. Last year UNITY was able to get White medical and housing assistance. For six months now, White has been staying in a two-bedroom house in the Seventh Ward thanks to a permanent housing voucher from UNITY.

“It’s wonderful,” White said, smiling. “I knew they’d eventually help me.”

Despite calls from friends questioning their decision to take a trip to the city, which they figured was still suffering from the ravages of Hurricane Katrina, they made their reservations, hopped on a plane and never looked back.

They were pleasantly surprised with what they found.

 ”New Orleans is a great city,” Gopi said, sitting in the lobby of the Sheraton Hotel on Canal Street. “There are a lot of misconceptions about it.”

For four days they sampled the local attractions: a meal at ACME Oyster House; trips to the Saint Louis Cathedral and a historic cemetery; strolls down Bourbon Street and a carriage ride through the French Quarter. 

“You can capture 70 percent of New Orleans by just being in the French Quarter,” Gopi said.

While many would disagree with Gopi’s assessment of the New Orleans experience, the perceptions and misconceptions of those who visit New Orleans some four years after Hurricane Katrina are as varied as recipes for the perfect gumbo or étouffée. 

 ”It depends on whether you look at the glass as half empty or half full and depends on which half of the glass you’re in,” said Rob Olshansky, a professor of urban planning at the University of Illinois who follows the recovery progress in New Orleans.

Olshansky said that it also depends on how much of the “glass” one sees. Many tourists come to New Orleans specifically for the French Quarter attractions, and rarely venture into the neighborhoods where much of the recovery work still needs to be done. Home occupancy is at 74 percent of what it was before Katrina and school enrollment has barely exceeded half of what it once was.

New Orleans is a dynamic city, long seen by outsiders as a place rich in history, uniquely diverse and boasting exceptional cuisine. But the hurricane gave the world a different vision of the city, one of poverty and ruin. 

“We still have to continue to prove that we are recovered,” said Mary Beth Romig, a spokeswoman for the New Orleans Metropolitan Convention and Visitors Bureau. “A lot of people wonder how many hotel rooms are even available and how many restaurants have reopened.” While Romig is confident the city can accommodate visitors, jobs in the hospitality industry have fallen 22 percent, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.

 Those who visit New Orleans become unofficial spokespeople for the city and the progress it’s making. 

Adrienne Voorhees, a Minneapolis native who takes frequent trips to New Orleans to visit her boyfriend, said that friends constantly inquire about the state of the city.

 ”I tell them a part of the city is missing,” Voorhees said, adding that she defines New Orleans as being much more than the French Quarter. Her perspective has been shaped over the past six years from her many trips.

Another repeat visitor who is familiar with the city before and after the hurricane said that there was still something askew about the city’s soul.

Cora Monroe has made the five-hour journey from Shreveport, La., to the Superdome each year for nearly two decades to attend the Bayou Classic football game between Grambling State University and Southern University. Before Katrina, the trip was as much about socializing with friends and enjoying the wonders of New Orleans as it was about the football game, Monroe said.

But after the storm, things were different.

 ”I didn’t find it to have the same atmosphere that it has previously had,” she said. “You can see there is an effort to make things look like the way there were. But I still see years out before New Orleans is New Orleans again.”

While Monroe said she has missed only one Bayou Classic in the last 20 years and refuses to miss another, she said the things that drew her to the city beyond the game have faded. And if not for the major annual events she doubts that she would return.

 ”It’s the most important city – spiritually, intellectually, culturally – in America,” said Tommy Stevenson, of Tuscaloosa, Ala., who has made the trek to the city every year since 1976 to attend the annual New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.

Music is his religion, Stevenson said, and nothing will keep him from going to Jazz Fest.

 He has watched the city gradually improve since the 2006 festival, the first after the hurricane, when cardboard was still being used for street signs.

 ”The health system wasn’t working, the criminal system wasn’t working – nothing was working,” said Stevenson, recalling the early days after the storm. “It was all the infrastructure, not just the brick-and-mortar infrastructure, but the social infrastructure.”

Four years later, with the worst of times behind the city, Stevenson said he is seeing a new stage in the city’s recovery – with a caveat.

“This year it felt like the old New Orleans for the first time, but there was an irony to that because of the recession.”

Much of the work to rebuild the city has been done by relief workers, many from out of town. By working side by side with residents to restore their neighborhoods, these volunteers are able to gain a perspective that other visitors miss.

Frank Janzow, the pastor of the Ascension Lutheran Church in Waukesha, Wis., came to New Orleans for the first time in 2007, working with people in need. The experience opened his eyes to the poverty in New Orleans.

“I think in some ways Katrina ended up turning the attention of many to face the fact that the city of New Orleans is needing our help,” Janzow said.

He has returned to New Orleans every January since his first trip, each time bringing with him a group of volunteers.

“As an outsider looking in, it seems to me that there is progress, but it’s fairly slow,” Janzow said in a recent phone interview.

 ”The rest of the country seems to be now moving on and saying that, ‘That’s history,’ and that ‘New Orleans is back,’ he said.’ ” The church people know it’s not back.”

Gopi and his wife, the tourists from Atlanta, said that every day in New Orleans there was something new to experience and that they were looking forward to getting back home to “ruin the misconceptions.”  

But there was one moment when they realized they had a misconception of their own.

The couple took a tour of the city and saw white crosses planted in lots left vacant by floodwaters, and “little x’s” spray painted on houses, something that they thought marked the flood line. 

When told the four quadrants of  the x’s  were used by rescuers to indicate that a house had been searched and in some cases how many bodies were found inside and when, they fell silent.