Thursday, December 1, 2005
Tanqueray just tastes better at happy hour, but even if the martinis were full price, the view alone up here would be well worth it.
John Gray, Jazz trumpet
I think that Baton Rouge has a lot of potential to be a very diverse city. When I speak of Baton Rouge being diverse I'm talking about the businesses and organizations here. We have new restaurants and venues opening up and all of that is good. As long as owners and leaders stay open minded Baton Rouge could rival other cities in what it has to offer the people.
John Gray is a jazz trumpet player who plays with the Michael Foster Project
Atop the Shaw Center for the Arts outside Tsunami, a handful of us mill around the terrace and watch the setting Sun stretch shadows across the Mississippi River. The big orange ball disappearing behind Port Allen looks downright romantic on an October afternoon. 8
John Gray is a jazz trumpet player who plays with the Michael Foster Project
Gus and Toni Kinchen just can't get over how pleasant it is up here. The parents of Todd and Brian, the bruising former LSU football players--along with their friend Jan Soulé--are relaxing with drinks when I approach them to ask them a question that is tantalizing so many Baton Rougeans: is this place actually changing?
Toni Kinchen says she never thought she'd see downtown Baton Rouge like this ever again. She has a frame of reference--when she was younger she worked as a lifeguard at the swanky rooftop pool of the Capitol House. That's when downtown was a happening place, long before the burbs sucked out all but its last breath.
"I think it's gonna be a lot of fun," Soulé says. The Kinchens nod in agreement. Come to think of it, the fun has already begun.
Christopher Funes, pediatrician
Even before Katrina, our health care system was struggling to care for the large percentage of children who rely on Medicaid for health insurance. Access to pediatricians and pediatric specialists has been hampered by poor physician reimbursement. Lack of access equals more (and expensive) health problems when these kids become adults. Add the thousands of children displaced by Katrina, and serious challenges are on the horizon.
Public-private partnerships will be key. Our Lady of the Lake's commitment to build a new children's hospital will help us to attract needed specialists, so that more care can be delivered close to home; and that should help the whole family feel better.
Dr. Christopher Funes practices pediatric medicine with Lake Primary Care Physicians
Gus Kinchen, who served a stint on the Metro Council in the early 1970s, says the city still has some of the same ills to figure out–namely traffic. But the change happening downtown is special. It's organic, and it can't be manufactured by following a set of instructions.
Virtually overnight Tsunami found itself one of the city's hottest spots thanks to a dazzling Asian menu, stiff drinks and moderate prices. And of course, that view. It pulls together college students, older professionals, yuppies and empty-nesters alike. It's our own slice of unpretentious, cosmopolitan Americana that always seemed to escape River City.
Until now the fort-like Old State Capitol was the most prominent river front edifice in Baton Rouge, its turrets and battlements "tsk-tsking" any new happenings below. But now, inquisitive eyes invariably settle on the glassy, steely skin of the Shaw Center across the street.
Even before KatRita wrecked homes and shifted our population, Baton Rouge was changing. It was going back to its roots to a downtown reminiscent of Third Street's golden era. Only this time without the blatant racism that saw blacks arrested for having the gall to take a seat at the Kress building's lunch counter.
Think about it: the mayor, the police chief and the superintendent of schools are African-American. And there's some new blood at the Chamber of Greater Baton Rouge. Even the parish school system found a way to settle its longstanding desegregation lawsuit.
Trula Remson, architect
It seems that about the time the Shaw Center opened, Baton Rouge as a whole came to the realization that it really can become a Great City. Our citizens became more involved, aware and active in the shaping of our city. Consider the great turn out and debate on issues such as the Riverfront and the Main Library. There seems to be great pride in the evolutions that are underway.
It is my hope that future change and development will continue on the same thoughtful, deliberate tack that it was taking prior to Katrina.
Trula Remson is a partner in Remson Haley Herpin Architects, which has been selected to help redesign the Baton Rouge riverfront.
There are hints of change scattered around the city. There are sleek new condos springing up like camellias around the LSU campus. Even the Chimes opened a second location out in the suburbia.
But it call seems to revolve somehow around downtown. "When you have a strong magnet in a downtown it serves as an economic engine for the region," says Davis Rhorer, who has spent nearly 20 years as downtown development director. "It's a beacon, and it should be."
During his tenure, Rhorer has seen more than $1 billion invested in what he calls the city's living room, and more people now want to be there.
Now that Spanish Town is full, Beauregard Town is getting a little cramped. Developers are starting to jump across I-10 and I-110 and pay attention to the blighted corridor between downtown and the LSU campus along Highland Road.
Of course, not all of the change has been rosy. Public schools are more segregated than ever by income if not Jim Crow. The petrochemical industry that literally built Baton Rouge is still a crucial part of the city's economy, though not nearly as mighty as it once was thanks to fuel prices and global competition.
Mona Webb, poet
Baton Rouge, Louisiana, is a city under cultural construction. As an active Baton Rouge poet, promoter and president of the Baton Rouge Poetry Alliance, I have often found this city to be lacking in the cohesion of its cultural diversity. In the past 7 years I have watched the artistic scene and market morph into a man-made lake; not a natural adaptation into a great following of poetry, but an oasis that started with a pick and shovel, filled with the artistic sweat of those digging.
It is not that the city hasn't made any positive structural or economic changes, but the changes have been those that primarily cater to certain acknowledged cultures and haven't made much room for those who do not fit within this artistic social box. This is shown through what I call faultless ignorance, as if to say, "It's not that I don't want to include you, it's that the information that would lead to inclusion is not readily available."
My partner Chancelier 'Xero' Skidmore and I have often struggled to entice those groups outside of the urban mainstream to attend our Tuesday night poetry reading at Café Tequila. We try to include the Hispanic, gay, lesbian, Asian, and Caribbean communities by hiring such poets. This is an effort to diversify not only the type of poetry the Baton Rouge audience is exposed to, but the many genres of poetry as well. However, the effects of our efforts have yet to make the total impact we hope for in diversifying the audience.
Baton Rouge is slow to change because it's comfortable in its segregated communities. This self-imposed segregation permeates our city as fluidly as Lake Pontchatrain did New Orleans. Ironically, we have become a city of diverse cultural exclusivity. Fortunately, we have a lot of room to grow.
Ramona "Mona" Webb is a mortgage banker and creative writing and performance poetry instructor
Where is Baton Rouge's economy going? That's the magic question, says Loren Scott, the venerable LSU economist. At press time, Scott was still preparing his annual economic forecast so he couldn't say much. But with so much chaos after this summer's hurricanes, no one is really quite sure, nor will they be for perhaps another year as evacuees decide where to live.
But there's hope, even after Katrina. People are trying. Culturally, we're moving somewhere past LSU football games and the company crawfish boil. Even if some of it is in the wrong direction, Red Stick isn't stagnant.
Back on top of the Shaw Center, the Sun is melting below the horizon. The river twinkles from the halogens on the I-10 bridge, the cabins of passing tugboats and pretty red and green lights from the Port of Baton Rouge.
A chatty group of ladies, they are sisters and sisters-in-law, are enjoying drinks and are eager to offer their take on Baton Rouge's subtle metamorphosis. Dorsey Peek, a longtime real estate agent, says her business never really slowed down, so, of course, she has remained optimistic about the city's future.
Lynn Singletary, director of planning and evaluation for the parish school system, says participation in public schools has been on the upswing, another encouraging sign.
The group becomes a little more introspective when I ask about the city's old-guard families. The people with the money are slowly handing over the reigns to the next generation. Should we be optimistic?
"I'm tempted to say yes," Peek says. More importantly, Singletary adds, females have an increasingly prominent role in the city's decision-making processes.
John Morganti, a well known real-estate attorney, has been shaking hands with Peek's group. He's taking in the river view with Chris Smith, a company accountant who's flown in from out of town. Katrina has made life more difficult after losing business to his competitors, but we'll pull out of it, he says quite philosophically.
The three of us chat a while longer then Morganti begins saying his good-byes. He and Smith are hungry, so they head downstairs for Roux's on Third Street. I stay a while longer, polishing off a second martini and puffing on a cigar that seems at its creamy best. Six stories high, I savor the breeze rolling off the mighty river that Bienville navigated three centuries ago.
And I wish Mark Twain were still around. I'd love to ply the crusty author with some of this Tanqueray and ask him how does he like the Old State Capitol now.
Chris Gautreau is a Baton Rouge free-lance writer. He can be reached at gautreaumedia@cox.net
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