French Quarter sans tourists: 'An old neighborhood again'

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — For Jack Greenwood, New Orleans' COVID-19 lockdowns brought sadness, but also a revelation: He was making more acquaintances with fellow residents — people he might not have noticed before tourism dried up in the French Quarter.

“I've seen and met more neighbors now than ever before,” said Greenwood, who has lived in the Quarter for more than two years. “When there's a normal amount of tourists in town, people's faces can kind of get lost in the crowd.”

The absence of tourists — and the impending reopening of many of the attractions that draw them — have also led French Quarter inhabitants to reflect on the neighborhood's sometimes precarious balance between the interests of businesses and residents. Some feel that prior to the pandemic, that balance had tilted too far in favor of commerce, putting the quarter's unique character at risk.

The French Quarter is the 300-year-old historic heart of New Orleans. First settled in the 1700s, ravaged by fire twice, it is 13 blocks long and roughly six blocks wide. It is best known as a tourist spot and commercial district where fine restaurants, antique shops and art galleries coexist alongside tacky T-shirt shops, strip joints and bars blasting live music by cover bands.

But it is also a neighborhood. And for residents, the same coronavirus closures that have shut down favorite restaurants and neighborhood bars have also brought a welcome respite from snarled traffic on narrow streets, all-hours music and noisy late-night stragglers from Bourbon Street.

Chad Pellerin, a retired attorney and a resident of the quarter for 50 years, sometimes delights in tourists. She said she has invited out-of-town visitors to get a look inside the late 19th century Victorian “double” (side-by-side residences in one building) she inherited from her...