When I used to work at Dixie Forms, the neighborhood was the wino district, all the old row houses along Julia Street were flop houses, and there were a lot of cheap places to buy wine. Lee Circle was always full of drunks, and all the little pocket parks, like the one on Gravier, and along the waterfront, especially in the French Quarter. There would be people passed out on the sidewalk, and people staggering down the street, at any hour of the day or night. I used to drive a VW, and I worked different shifts, depending on when I was needed, sometimes I'd be the only one in the pre-press department, at least one day a week I'd be the only one in the entire building. That was getting the Tulane Hullaballo ready for press, I'd pick it up late Thursday and have it ready for the Friday morning shift. (That's how I met my husband, at Tulane, but that's another story.) And I also came in very early on Sunday to get the Figaro ready. A lot of times I'd literally have to step over a wino to get in the door. But they never frightened me, I guess because I knew I could outrun them. And I always knew that if anyone bothered me, I could scream, and winos would come running to help me.
That all got cleaned up for the World's Fair, and I don't think they let it slide back. I guess the winos moved on, or maybe they are just "homeless" now. When I was a kid, we called them bums, and then they were winos, and now they are homeless.
I remember guys who lost their legs in the war (WWII?) and sat on little carts, and pulled themselves along with wooden things that looked like the pushers my grandmother used in her meat grinder. Someone trained them to have newspaper stands, there were several in the French Quarter, and you'd see them going home, pulling themselves along by planting the wooden things and kind of rowing along the sidewalk. They are the people I think about when other people talk about the "good old days." |
