In New Orleans, A Streetcar Returns

A piece of pre-Katrina New Orleans staged a quiet return last month, to the thrill of storm-weary residents and tourists. The St. Charles Avenue streetcar is once again ferrying passengers from the French Quarter to the Garden District. Reports the New York Times: “The streetcar has represented something else besides the connections through time and space: the city’s living room, a privileged spot for tentative social encounters across lines of race, class and nationality, in a place not otherwise given to them.”

Related on World Hum:
* The Critics: ‘Chasing the Rising Sun’
* Rolf Potts in New Orleans: A Visit to the Lower Ninth Ward

Photo by dbking via Flickr, (Creative Commons).

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