New Orleans: Down In The Treme

It’s two o’clock on a Tuesday. The block of Orleans Avenue between North Prieur Street and North Claiborne Avenue in the Treme is deserted except for the occasional passerby dragging at a New Orleanian pace. On the corner sits a tired, once white, but now fading eggnog two-story home. Jagged remnants of bashed glass protrude from rusting window frames on the second floor. The first floor is the rundown “A & Y Food Store” and, according to the sign their specialty is “fresh meat” and “refreshments”… the only things needed to get the grill (and the party) going on a scorching Louisiana day.

The rest of the block is lined with several dilapidated, single-story homes with thin coats of white barely masking the old wooden clapboards layered, traditionally, like the shutters on a window. The sky is broken into a suburban grid of long, obtrusive wires strung between telephone poles. The whole scene is right out of a 1960s sitcom and the neighborhood hang is where it all comes together: Ooh Poo Pah Doo Bar.

You’d never know it opened last month. A two-story building with a brick exterior, a heavy black iron door and an old mailbox. It’s so unremarkable, it’s remarkable; blending in seamlessly with the rest of the street. There’s not even the slightest attempt at 21^st century branding or newness. It’s just a place to grab a drink and sway to some classic Stevie Wonder or Ray Charles from the jukebox. A timeless escape.

It’s also the revolving living room for the legendary New Orleans clan: The Andrews. The family, which members estimate is more than 200-people strong, has a long line of musicians who have been making their mark on the local jazz scene for over half a century. The sign says it all. It’s not just a bar, it’s the “home” of renowned musicians and Andrews brothers James, Trombone Shorty and Trumpet Black. Their cousin, Glen David Andrews, is also a well known trombone player in town. Glen’s brother Derrick Tabb is in the world famous Rebirth Brass Band. More cousins play with the Dirty Dozen and Hot 8 brass bands. A complicated, but impressive family tree.

Trombone Shorty, James and Glen David (pictured in the back, left to right) pose with neighbors in Treme
photo courtesy of: Offbeat Magazine

The Andrews family and close friends second line to Ooh Poo Pah Doo

The legacy began with the Andrews brothers’ grandfather Jessie Hill. He wrote hits for big times stars such as Ike and Tina Turner, Sonny and Cher, and Willie Nelson. He also wrote the classic Mardi Gras song and bar’s namesake: Ooh Poo Pah Doo. Hill died in the mid-90s, but his wife and the matriarch of the clan, Dorothy Hill is still going strong in her 80s. She’s a lady of few words with a maternal affection, eyes of wisdom and the vitality of a woman in her prime. She’s often posted up at Ooh Poo Pah Doo. She sits in the corner for hours milking her cigarette and sipping on a Miller High Life as the women of the family filter in and out of the bar. They sit with her, gossip, check their cell phones, head out to run errands and eventually, come back. Same old, same old.  Honorary family member, the sassy Ms. Val, is a mainstay of the female clan too. They met seven years ago and apparently it was a match made in heaven. Ms.Val talks, Dorothy nods. Today, she’s wearing tight black leggings and her hair is popping out from one side of her head in a perky ponytail. She swears it makes her look younger. Meanwhile, the men, family and close family friends, sit at the bar on rotating stools. Brian, James’ uncle, is at the helm.

Need a drink? Brian's got you covered

He’s serving drinks and complimentary hog’s head cheese (patties made from pig head parts) on crackers. At the end of the bar is a working pay phone. Behind it, a standard line up of handles, a restaurant-size plastic jar of pickles, a basket of Cheetos, Doritos, and Lays, and a big jug of their specialty Ooh Poo Pah Doo cocktail, a bright red concoction that tastes like Hawaiian fruit punch and is guaranteed to do the trick. At any given day and time, the bar always has customers drinking beer, smoking, chatting and mostly just passing the time. Lenox, a regular, grew up in New Orleans. He knows all the best local gems in the area. Next to him is a mailman who's been delivering packages around town for over thirty years and boy, does he have stories.

Lenox chatting it up at his usual seat at the bar

Ooh Poo Pah Doo is also one of the easiest places to run into some of the most influential jazz cats around. Among them is Lightnin’ Lee, or just Lightnin’ for short, a blues guitarist who’s shredded with greats such as Fats Domino, Earl King, Ernie K-Doe and Little Freddie King. Guitar Slim, another New Orleans legend, is close friends with the Andrews and sometimes brings the house down on the bar’s modest corner stage. His blues style is said to have laid the foundation for electric guitar breakthroughs ultimately made famous by Jimi Hendrix.
              
       

 

You’ll learn more about the wild city of New Orleans at Ooh Poo Pah Doo than at every tourist hot spot in the French Quarter. The Treme, one of the oldest neighborhoods and a hub for African-American culture, is imbued with history. This bar, filled with local musicians and natives who have been around to see it all, is where you can get a real sense of the complex dynamics that make this unique city tick. Bourbon Street? Forget it. A tour bus? Don’t even think about it. If you really wanna get to know The Big Easy, just take a seat, at Ooh Poo Pah Doo.

New Orleans: Land of Dreams

I’m walking down Decatur Street on a brisk, rainy night. I’m in the touristy French Quarter, but it’s the off season on a weekday and there’s not much more than a few locals hanging around. The faint sound of simple chords on the piano can be heard in the distance. A crowd of about ten people is gathered around the side of a rundown RV.

I approach to see a humbled audience peering into a large rectangular hole; a window into a miniature living room with a fraying Persian rug, a small stove brewing apple cider and the petite frame of a beautiful woman softly singing folk tunes with the smokiness of Norah Jones and the playfulness of Regina Spektor. We stand together, like a family gathered after dinnertime, protected by the seductive warmth of her lantern-lit nook and steaming mugs of Christmas. A notecard written in sharpie taped to the windowsill kindly states “tips are greatly appreciated.”




The creativity and entrepreneurialism in New Orleans is extraordinary in a country that's dominated by cynicism about low unemployment rates and a tanking economy. It stands outside the nationwide mentality of dashed hopes and persists as arguably the last remaining city where the American dream lives on. On any given day, you’ll see robotic men standing as still as statues, young black teenagers tap dancing on wood planks, poets for hire sitting on the sidewalk with small tables and typewriters, unlicensed vendors walking around with baskets of homemade empanadas, psychics, busking musicians and every other creative type imaginable performing on the street. Anyone can make rent with a good idea on the right corner. In this cash-only city of tips, no one hoards what they make, money quickly flows through hands and, in the most simplistic way, Keynesian economics is at work.

This spirit and potential has inspired thousands of aspiring, young professionals to pour in since Hurricane Katrina. According to the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center, New Orleans had 501 business startups per every 100,000 adults in the three year period ending in 2012– a rate that exceeded the nation by 56 percent and continues to expand. The supportive community and low cost of living make it a fertile ground for inspired college grads, artists and anyone who’s looking for a way to make money doing what they love without capital. It’s common to meet recent transplants in their twenties from New York, San Francisco or L.A. who impulsively sold all their belongings on Craigslist and hopped on a plane to Louis Armstrong airport with only a few bags. It’s a romantic notion; but in New Orleans, it’s not a foolish one.

Everyone’s trying to get by, but most importantly, they’re having fun while they do it. That’s the American dream, isn’t it? To work for work’s sake; to enjoy what you do so your life doesn’t becoming a means to an end. Well, maybe that’s not everyone’s dream, but carpe diem sure fuels the soul of New Orleans; the city where the impossible really is possible.