Happy Birthday(?)

It's "State of the City Day." And since we're coming up on another citywide election cycle, expect Mitch to try out an early version of this year's campaign repertoire. Mitch's act is one part Y'at-ish twaddle and one part corporate sloganeering with just a pinch of condescending snark. Get ready to hear his One Voice coming out of your media devices more and more frequently over the next several months. If you can't make it to the show today, The Lens will "live-blog" the event here. There will probably be tweets from various folks as well so tune your dial appropriately.

The Mayor is sure to tout his "NOLA for Life" campaign to advertise the murder rate away. As we noted last week, it has now been six months since the father of "NOLA for Life" criminologist David Kennedy promised we'd see a "real difference" in terms of violent crime within that time frame. It will be interesting to see what statistical contortions the Mayor devises in order to demonstrate such progress.

Also, perhaps not by coincidence... I'm not sure if the State Of The City is just this gimmicky... today is the City of New Orleans' 295th birthday. Someone should ask the Mayor today if he's sure that means our music is old enough to be in the clubs or if anyone is old enough to drink on the street. We already know Jackie Clarkson doesn't think the food is old enough to drive.

One more thing regarding the go-cup issue. Last night (appropriate to the anniversary date, in retrospect) Crescent City Books hosted a talk by historian Lawrence Powell and geographer Richard Campanella. The two authors are responsible for the most widely cited and popular works on local history published recently. Both have new books coming out in the near future. Campanella's, I learned last night, will focus on Bourbon Street in particular. I believe this article is an outtake from that book.

In the course of the discussion last night Campanella dated the "go-cup" phenomenon to the advent of take-out windows on Bourbon Street during the 1970s. This is true insofar as it explains the popularity of drinking in the street on the Bourbon pedestrian mall. But I don't think it's fair to say that, prior to this development, you couldn't walk the neighborhoods with open containers of alcohol. Or at least, you probably weren't likely to be stopped and searched by Chief Serpas on your way home for the corner bar.


 Heh: Just as I'm typing this today it turns out that Campanella  is disputing that May 7 "birthdate"

@drmoore @mayorlandrieu My understanding is that work commenced on New Orleans in late March/early April 1718.May I ask where you got May 7?
— Richard Campanella (@nolacampanella) May 7, 2013

Well, whatever, it's good enough for Wikipedia.  Anyway I'm pretty sure Bienville would have wanted to found the city on the same date that Mitch Landrieu begins his reelection campaign in earnest so why ruin that?

Happy Bithday, New Orleans. Only  290 or so more years to go before you're due for your next Superbowl win.