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American Morning

A City Divided; New Orleans Restaurant Tour

Aired November 03, 2005 - 09:31   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Those people kind of look like they're walking to work, Kelly. You're late! You're late! It's 9:31.
KELLY WALLACE, CNN ANCHOR: It's a beautiful day, I think.

S. O'BRIEN: They're not really running, though. Maybe they're not late. They're just strolling in the park.

WALLACE Tourists visiting.

S. O'BRIEN: Welcome back, everybody. Let's bring miles in. As we've been mentioning all morning, he's reporting for us this morning from the Algiers section of New Orleans. And I guess you really have the good news story from there today, don't you, Miles?

M. O'BRIEN: Yes, you know, there's an article in the "Times Picayune" the other day, the local newspaper, they called this the light in the darkness, this neighborhood. And what's interested about it is, yes, I mean, you can see the blue roofs and all the tarps and so forth, sort of the more, I hate to use the term, run-of-the mill hurricane damage, but you understand what I mean when you consider what's going on across the river in Lower Ninth Ward, and this place really has become, like, the economic engine of the future of New Orleans. In many respects, it could kind of shift the balance of the city somewhat. This is a charming neighborhood, second-oldest neighborhood in the city, and it has a lot to offer. It's an interesting place.

And it looks hopeful at least. We'll check in with you a little bit later this morning about all of that.

(NEWSBREAK)

(WEATHER REPORT)

M. O'BRIEN: Standing on the levee in the Algiers section of New Orleans. That's the Mississippi River there. There's downtown, French Quarter, and as you pan to the right, you can go all of the way down, and you can see there's a draw bridge way over there in that distance. That's the Ninth Ward, and then back over here on the other side of the river here, the levee where these apartments and buildings are, the Algiers section. Now each of those pockets of neighborhoods will tell you a different story, and what we're seeing is pockets of prosperity, quite frankly, as people get that going, get up and running and the economy starts moving, and people move in to those places, contrasted with the situation like you see in the Lower Ninth Ward, where it is still completely vacant, without power. Nobody is there.

CNN's Dan Simon takes a look at this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, the famous words of Charles Dickens in "A Tale of Two Cities." Here in New Orleans that 19th century text resonates as it feels like two cities have emerged from Hurricane Katrina. One filled with anger and desperation.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Nobody's trying to help. Nobody's trying to do nothing.

SIMON: But here across the river on what locals call the west bank, they have different problems, the kind you don't mind having, like where to get coffee and go shopping. Here it's about progress and optimism.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The biggest complaint we have is we never know when the garbage is being picked up.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Big deal, right?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I mean, so you know, it's all relative.

SIMON: Don and Joy Paolo live across the river from the devastation. We found the retired couple relaxing on their porch.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A play on words, this is the west bank, but people here call it the "blessed bank." The Paolo bounced back quickly after evacuating to Ohio. While they came back to mold and a busted heater, their problems seemed minuscule.

DON PAOLO, ALGIERS POINT RESIDENT: One of the biggest problems we have over here truthfully is traffic.

SIMON: There is no traffic in other parts of town. This is the devastated Lower Ninth Ward, restaurants, gas stations closed, neighborhoods vacant, filled with trash.

Contrast that with Algiers, where carved pumpkins dot the landscape and most of the stores, even little cafes, are open for business.

DAISY PETERS, NINTH WARD RESIDENT: We just isolated. We are like on an island over here. We isolated from the whole city.

SIMON: Daisy Peters' feelings are understandable. Her house in ruins. Other than the help of a few family members clearing away debris, she's on her own.

PETERS: I am very, very, very disgusted with this place.

SIMON (on camera): Who are you disgusted with?

PETERS: The governor, and the mayor, and FEMA and all of them.

SIMON: You feel like they just don't care.

PETERS: I feel like they do not care.

SIMON (voice-over): Government officials say they do care, but the magnitude of destruction makes rebuilding very difficult. There's no drinkable water and little if any electricity here, and no plan yet for restoring the neighborhood.

PETERS: I'm not giving this house away. If somebody -- they don't want to rebuild down here, somebody need to see me about this house, because I'm not giving it to nobody.

SIMON: Daisy decides to take a rest. They're also resting at the Paolo house, but in a different way.

Dan Simon, CNN, New Orleans.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

M. O'BRIEN: Back live now on Morgan Street. We're in the Algiers section of New Orleans, as you pointed out. And just looking down the street you can sort of see a little bit of everything. You've got damage in those the condominiums over there, heavily damaged roof there, reconstruction under way there. The trash, which has been a big problem, we've heard that repeatedly as well.

Joining us to talk about the mixed bag that is New Orleans right now is Jackie Clarkson. She's the city councilwoman for this district. She also represents. French Quarter.

Councilman...

JACKIE CLARKSON, ALIGERS COUNCILWOMAN: And Barreny (ph), and Bywater, and St. Rock, and Tremay (ph), and Esclanay (ph) Ridge and Fallberg St. John (ph).

M. O'BRIEN: Excellent. Thank you very much for that.

Mrs. Clarkson, First of all, let's talk about the apparent boom that's going in this part, or is that overstating it?

CLARKSON: No, it's not overstating it. Algiers is booming, and because we were the first community to revive. We were very fortunate, and very spared and typically Algiers, we band together and used it as an opportunity to... CLARKSON: ... booming. And because we were the first community to revive, we were very fortunate, very spared. And typically Algiers, we band together and used it as an opportunity to help the rest of the city. So we have led the rebuilding of the city of New Orleans.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. One complaint that we've heard repeatedly. And we just heard it in Dan Simon's piece. We heard it earlier today when we talked to the owner of the coffee shop, Jill Marshall. Trash. There it is. It's piling up. You go -- there's a lot of places. They just can't get to it.

CLARKSON: There's a lot less trash in Algiers than anywhere in the entire metropolitan.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, well, that's true. Relatively speaking, of course, there's less anywhere.

CLARKSON: And let me tell you, this is all relative right now. Algiers has been very fortunate because we had trash pickup very early on. It's been on a regular basis. And the only time we missed a beat was when it skipped from the sanitation department to the corps and they've made up for lost time. We are very lucky. It's going well, very well.

And we have the important things. That's where everyone should be focusing on. We're bringing police, fire and emergency medical and water workers that all lost their homes that, helped save this city. We're bringing them all here to Algiers to live. We're still going on...

M. O'BRIEN: Well, most of them are still on a cruise ship, though, right?

CLARKSON: No. They're coming here. They're coming to Algiers and we're proud to have them as new Algierians (ph). And we're also still doing our movie studio. We're still doing our federal city; that's our joint reserve base of our military. Algiers has still retained everything it had pre-Katrina and are expounding on that. So...

M. O'BRIEN: All right, let me ask you this.

CLARKSON: ... count the blessings.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, but you know, I got to say, as you tout that...

CLARKSON: Sure. There's plenty to tout.

M. O'BRIEN: It's OK to tout.

CLARKSON: There's plenty to tout.

M. O'BRIEN: I understand. I understand. But does that, in any way...

CLARKSON: We could have lost it all.

M. O'BRIEN: I...

CLARKSON: Everyone should be grateful.

M. O'BRIEN: I understand. But do you think it falls flat in other neighborhoods where they're struggling still?

CLARKSON: No, it shouldn't. Because we are doing so well, we can help the rest of the city rebuild. That's the whole purpose. The city had to restart somewhere and Algiers is using this opportunity to help the rest of the city. We're welcoming all of our emergency workers from the other side of the river to come over here and be a part of Algiers. And we'll take them in and love them and take care of them and we will put their children in fine public schools that will open here in November.

How important is that? How important it was for us to be online early so we could lead in every respect. And that is helping the East Bank. That's important. That's very important.

M. O'BRIEN: City councilwoman Jackie Clarkson, who represents a broad district. You don't have to go through it all again. We think we got it. Thank you very much for being with us. We appreciate it and good luck here in Algiers and elsewhere.

CLARKSON: Thank you for showing off Algiers. It's -- we're coming to our own, finally. We're the second oldest community in the city.

M. O'BRIEN: We've been saying so all morning. Thank you very much. She doesn't work for the chamber of commerce, but she probably should.

Coming up, we're going to take a little restaurant tour. Some of the -- there's some great restaurants open here, and I finally got a chance to get a decent hot meal last night. We've been working kind of hard. And our guide was an old friends of ours, Julia Reed. We'll show you what we saw, what we tasted, and we'll talk to her in just a bit. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: All right, there was only one assignment that I really coveted this week when we came to New Orleans to take a look at what life is like two months after Katrina. That one assignment was a restaurant tour with our good friend Julia Reed. I got onto another shoot and things went a little longer than expected, and guess who gets it? My boss, Kim Bondy, the executive producer. So off they went on a restaurant tour and all I get to do is listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JULIA REED, "NEWSWEEK" CONTRIBUTING EDITOR: She opened this week for the first time and she's in there with a new batch of pralines right now, which I suggest we go taste. That's what I like to see, my friend at the stove.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's no place like New Orleans. Let me tell you. I've been home for all of the hurricanes and it broke my heart because I had to leave from the flood, because that has never happened to us before. And it's very disturbing thing.

REED: But you're back.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But I'm back.

KIM BONDY, CNN PRODUCER: And you're going help us heal this city...

REED: That's right.

BONDY: ... one praline at a time.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One praline at a time.

REED: This is a -- been here for almost 24 years. It's a real neighborhood institution, because Joanne (ph) is like slightly more bohemian (INAUDIBLE), if that is possible. Joanne Clevenger (ph), who owns the restaurant. And she started without this one little building and added on and on.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: To open a restaurant, it's hospitality and it makes people say, yes, I can go out and treat myself. And a sense of community, because you see people that you haven't seen for a while. Some of them are strangers and some of them are long lost acquaintances or your next-door neighbor, but it gives it that togetherness. In the presence of good food, breaking bread together gives you a sense of courage and hope that things will be better, because you can remember the way it was, because good food and good friends bring back memories of pre-Katrina.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Once we opened, we figured out that there actually were a lot of locals in town. So we kind of...

REED: We're all hungry and grateful.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So then all of a sudden, it was like, let's go, we've got to get back to the menu. I mean, everybody's back in town, everybody's looking for their safe spot, you know, some normalcy. So we went all forward with the regular menu.

REED: How in the world did you survive?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've got a great staff. I mean these guys that you see back here, you know, they came back and, you know, we all worked doubles. We worked 8:00 in the morning to midnight. Actually, the first day, we probably worked 5:00 in the morning, I think, to midnight. All of us, every day.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We all wanted to get back to what's normal. Let me, you know, I just want to serve you, cook for you, make you happy. And it all adds to this really festive atmosphere. And so I think that's part of it. It's part of the healing process. Let's get back into New Orleans, let's have a drink, let's celebrate over a good meal. And it makes me feel good.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

M. O'BRIEN: And now we're live with Julia Reed in the Algiers section. Julia, that whole point of the workers. That's still a key issue on many fronts, not just restaurants. You've run into that. You're trying to do some work at your house.

REED: I'm finishing the longest renovation in the history of the world at this point.

M. O'BRIEN: It began pre-K and will last who knows...

REED: Post-K a long time. But yes, I mean, I've got some painter issues, but these folks, I mean these chefs -- as you can see watching that, are just, you know -- if the city had -- you know, the people who in charge of putting the city back together had half the energy and initiative of these guys, we'd be well on our way to recovering by now.

But, you know, they're having to scramble because there are no workers. I mean, Joanne Clevenger at Upperline (ph) had to get her son, who's a philosophy professor in St. Louis, to come down and help cook because they didn't have any cooks.

M. O'BRIEN: I'd say overqualified cook. Existential stew or something.

REED: The engineer's the bartender.

M. O'BRIEN: The mechanics of a martini, who knows? I guess the question is, that's improving. Where are they staying, where are they living? Because that's the big issue.

REED: Well, it's still -- you know, again, it's sort of these guys are having to take matters into their own hands. I mean, Donald Lincoln Ervesaint (ph) has gone out. And you know, he left a lunch service in the middle of lunch the other day to go and, like -- because this guy was going to have to leave, he'd run out of places to stay, and he found to work in his kitchen, and he just went and sort of got the paper and went house to house and rented this apartment, and they're few and far between, as you know.

So you know, they're trying to cook, they're trying to run around. They're going -- I mean, if you want a worker you're going to have to find them housing yourself. I mean, as we know the FEMA trailers are not going to roll out. I mean, they can't even be manufactured at the rate that we need them. So it's an issue, and I don't think anybody has the answer. I mean, Thad Allen is supposed to be in charge of it, and he keeps saying it's the number-one priority, but it's also the number-one unsolvable problem.

M. O'BRIEN: Actually he's not in charge anymore. New guy. Anyway, it's hard to keep up. Julia Reed, thanks very much, and sorry I missed that one.

REED: Me, too. Well, they'll be others. They're opening every day. Custmentos (ph) is opening in two weeks.

M. O'BRIEN: We'll do a sequel. I'll be back for that.

Back to you, Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: All right, Miles, thanks.

In fact, Let's get right to Daryn Kagan. She's going to pick up coverage in just a little bit.

Good morning to you, Daryn.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Soledad.

We do have a big morning ahead. The big story this morning, we are just minutes away from Scooter Libby's arraignment. That is him. We have a look at him leaving his house. There he is. We're live all over the story.

Also a must-see for families, especially if you or a family member, or a friend drives an SUV. It is something that is happening all of the time all over country. People don't realize it. It is killing children. If you need to backup in an SUV, you need to watch the story -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: I have an SUV.

KAGAN: Well, and have you noticed how hard it is sometimes when you're backing up to see behind you?

S. O'BRIEN: Even if you're trying to merge into the other lane, yes it's hard to see behind you.

In two seconds or less, something I can buy to put on my car to help?

KAGAN: Stay tuned. We'll show you, can't do it in two seconds.

S. O'BRIEN: Man, you're a tough nut there.

KAGAN: It's called a tease, Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: I hear you. I hear you. All right, Daryn, we'll see you right at the top of the hour.

Coming up on AMERICAN MORNING, is Wal-Mart bad for the economy. The retail giant is baring all in kind of a unique conference. Andy is "Minding Your Business" coming up next on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Business news now. Why would Wal-Mart sponsor a conference that lets critics take potshots at their strategy. Andy is looking at that this morning.

Good morning.

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Good morning to you.

It might be a case of know thy enemy, perhaps. We'll get to that in a second.

Let's talk about the markets. Continued optimism on Wall Street, up 64 points, is that, on the Dow. Look at that. A whole lot of stuff going here, unemployment down, productivity up. Greenspan testifying today. Gasoline prices continuing to fall, and I think, you know, we're hearing people say this really could create an environment where the economy really picks up in the fourth quarter as we head to Christmas.

Citicorp coming out and predicting the stock market will close the year at 11,050. That would be a five-and-a-half percent rise from where we are now. The Dow is up 200 points-plus over the past four sessions. So you know, a real sort of change in mood right now. Wal- Mart reporting retail sales this morning, Soledad, up in October, and that stock moving up as well.

And speaking of Wal-Mart.

S. O'BRIEN: Good way to set yourself up for the next story.

Yes, speaking of Wal-Mart?

SERWER: Well, this is a really interesting situation here, or is it simply a case of corporate naval gazing, Soledad. Wal-Mart is hosting a conference in Washington D.C. tomorrow. It's an academic conference about itself. Ten academic papers will be presented. Critics will be reading papers of people who support the company, academics, economist, urban planners, and I guess it's a situation where, you know, in a way you're preempting criticism coming in the future, and sort of co-opting it in a sense.

S. O'BRIEN: It makes an interesting strategy, certainly. All right, we'll see what comes out of it. Andy, thank you very much.

SERWER: You're welcome.

S. O'BRIEN: Short break. We're back in just a moment. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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