Crowds watch New Orleans police and federal agents investigate a suspected terrorist attack on Bourbon Street on New Year’s Day on Wednesday, January 1, 2025. (Photo by Chris Granger, The Times-Picayune)
Jess Knazs and Blanca Young stand on their French Quarter balcony watching FBI agents investigate a possible IED as New Orleans police and federal agents investigate a suspected terrorist attack on Bourbon Street on New Year’s Day on Wednesday, January 1, 2025. (Photo by Chris Granger, The Times-Picayune)
The flag of New Orleans flies in Exchange Place on Jan. 2, 2025 as the French Quarter began fully reopening after the New Year’s Day attack. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
Roscoe Fountain waits to play a game of chess on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, Friday, Jan. 3, 2025. (Staff photo by Brett Duke, The Times-Picayune)
Galatoire’s waiters (from left) Brian Casey and Billy Fontenot and CEO Melvin Rodrigue prepare to welcome guests back to the restaurant on Jan. 2 as Bourbon Street reopens following the New Year’s attack. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
An employee with IV Waste sweeps up trash on Bourbon Street in New Orleans Thursday, Jan. 2, 2025.(Staff photo by David Grunfeld, NOLA.com, The Times-Picayune) ORG XMIT: BAT2501020758310166
Crowds watch New Orleans police and federal agents investigate a suspected terrorist attack on Bourbon Street on New Year’s Day on Wednesday, January 1, 2025. (Photo by Chris Granger, The Times-Picayune)
Roscoe Fountain waits to play a game of chess on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, Friday, Jan. 3, 2025. (Staff photo by Brett Duke, The Times-Picayune)
Galatoire’s waiters (from left) Brian Casey and Billy Fontenot and CEO Melvin Rodrigue prepare to welcome guests back to the restaurant on Jan. 2 as Bourbon Street reopens following the New Year’s attack. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
An employee with IV Waste sweeps up trash on Bourbon Street in New Orleans Thursday, Jan. 2, 2025.(Staff photo by David Grunfeld, NOLA.com, The Times-Picayune) ORG XMIT: BAT2501020758310166
Early Saturday morning, as he often does, Louis Matassa stood on the corner of Dauphine and St. Philip streets outside the iconic French Quarter grocery store that, despite a change in ownership, still bears his family’s name.
Tourists strolled by and residents walked their dogs on streets still damp with the lemony fresh cleanser from the IV Waste truck making its rounds. Matassa was catching up with Terry Dufrene, who lives across the street, and greeting other friends and neighbors from this residential stretch of New Orleans’ most famous neighborhood.
It looked like any other weekend morning. But coming just days after the attack on Bourbon Street, the sense of routine belied a deeper current of sadness and uncertainty.
“People are just wondering how they gonna secure this place,” said Matassa. “And I don’t know if you really can secure it.”
Jess Knazs and Blanca Young stand on their French Quarter balcony watching FBI agents investigate a possible IED as New Orleans police and federal agents investigate a suspected terrorist attack on Bourbon Street on New Year’s Day on Wednesday, January 1, 2025. (Photo by Chris Granger, The Times-Picayune)
The attack on Bourbon Street is restarting a debate that New Orleans has been having with itself for decades: How does the city keep people safe in the French Quarter, which draws millions of annual visitors, supports the south Louisiana economy and is still a residential neighborhood, without diluting what makes it such a treasured place to begin with?
The attack by Shamsud-Din Jabbar on Wednesday, which resulted in the deaths of 14 people, turned the city’s focus from preparations for the Super Bowl and the upcoming Carnival season to the security of the 300-year-old French Quarter for those events. The area of 85 square blocks includes dozens of hotels and more than 100 restaurants. It is a cultural and economic powerhouse that generates hundreds of millions of dollars a year for the city and is known worldwide for its historic architecture, Creole restaurants, Dixieland jazz and Bourbon Street.
The flag of New Orleans flies in Exchange Place on Jan. 2, 2025 as the French Quarter began fully reopening after the New Year’s Day attack. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
It is also a neighborhood with about 3,000 full-time residents and 350 small business owners.
“There are going to be a lot of discussions in the future around security in the French Quarter,” said John Casbon, owner of First American Title Insurance Company and a civic leader who founded the 30-year-old New Orleans Police and Justice Foundation. “It is our main asset, and we need to make sure everyone feels safe coming here.”
Civic leaders spent news conferences in the days after the tragedy praising first responders, mourning the dead and offering updates on what transpired. They also made mention of how New Orleans, and its tourism economy, would rebound.
For Dufrene, who said he was still grieving for the families of those injured and killed in the attack, it’s difficult to think about moving forward. But he recognizes how important a safe, thriving French Quarter is to the viability of New Orleans.
“So many people depend on it,” Dufrene said. “We want people to respectfully remember what happened here. We also know for the sake of our city we have got to get back on track.”
The comments offered a window into how the Quarter, and any violence there, represents a critical problem for any elected leader in New Orleans or Louisiana.
For much of the past century, those leaders have tried to balance the demands of the French Quarter’s cultural and tourism-based economy with preserving the area’s historic and residential character, all while keeping it safe. Bourbon Street, a mostly working class residential neighborhood in the early 20th Century, had evolved into a well-known night life spot by the early 1940s. Attempts to crack down on “vice” were often a political tool for ambitious politicians, like District Attorney Jim Garrison, who in the 1960s crusaded on making raids on French Quarter clubs. And as far back as the 1970s, when Bourbon Street was turned into a pedestrian mall at night, there were debates about how to restrict traffic while keeping the neighborhood functioning for residents and businesses.
Former New Orleans Police Chief Ronal Serpas began his rookie assignment as a beat cop on Bourbon Street in 1980. His job was to get the street ready for its nightly transition to party spot.
“Back then, they had yellow metal bollards that we would manually install every night in these holes in the street at every intersection,” Serpas said. “Then, first thing in the morning, we’d unlock them and take them and throw them in the back of the van.”
In recent decades, the focus has broadened from protecting intoxicated pedestrians and handling noise and other complaints to guarding against gun violence or terrorist attacks. A mass shooting on Canal Street after the Bayou Classic in 2016, along with terrorist incidents overseas that included the use of vehicles as weapons, prompted then-mayor Mitch Landrieu to push for limits to vehicular access as part of a broader French Quarter safety initiative. The “pedestrianization” was met with resistance from business owners and residents. Ultimately, a $40 million safety plan in 2017 added scores of new crime cameras, more police and safety bollards along Bourbon Street designed to deter acts of terrorism using vehicles.
During the pandemic, Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s administration proposed a French Quarter pedestrianization plan that called for expanding pedestrian malls, restricting vehicular traffic, lowering the speed limit and reimagining areas around the French Market. After pandemic-era restrictions ended, the plan fizzled.
In the wake of last week’s attack, some civic leaders said it is time to revisit these earlier conversations and what more needs to be done now.
“We should talk about and look into any options we have to make it feel safe and be as safe as we possibly can,” said Walt Leger, III, president of New Orleans & Co.
On Friday, City Council members J.P. Morrell and Helena Moreno called for a probe into the city’s system of safety bollards on Bourbon Street and what more could have been done to protect revelers on a street that was supposed to be blocked off to vehicles. Morrell said it was clear there were “substantial deficiencies” in the city’s preparation for the deadly attack.
Cantrell’s office did not respond last week to a request seeking comment.
It’s difficult to say how much protection is enough, however. Former Congressman and White House adviser Cedric Richmond, who recently bought several buildings and a restaurant in the French Quarter, said it’s important to “think outside the box,” especially about this year’s Carnival.
“We have to remind people that we will do our best to keep people safe,” Richmond said. “But there is no 100% guarantee when you’re dealing with terrorists who just want to inflict carnage and terror.”
Richmond said the fear of a mass sniper, like the one who killed more than 60 people at an outdoor concert from his hotel room in Las Vegas several years ago, is as worrisome to him as someone using a truck to ram into a crowd.
“We will not be able to stop everything out there because, unfortunately in today’s world, that is impossible,” he said.
New Orleans is not alone in having these conversations. Cities around the world have had to re-evaluate the way they keep their people and their visitors safe.
Beale Street in Memphis, a popular strip of bars and music clubs, enacted numerous security measures in recent years, including bollards, metal detectors in some clubs and weapons searches. After the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013, that city added new security cameras and police started checking backpacks.
And following the Las Vegas mass shooting in 2017, some hotels installed metal detectors and implemented new policies, including random checks of some guest rooms, according to Adam Coughran, a security consultant based in Orange County, California, who advises cities on public safety.
“Security always comes with a balance of convenience,” Coughran said. “How much are you willing to sacrifice in the name of safety? That is the conversation the community needs to have.”
Micah Lowenthal, a French Quarter real estate broker, has lived in the neighborhood for more than a decade. He walks to Galatoire’s for lunch, enjoys happy hours with neighbors in their courtyards and generally feels safe where he lives, even after dark. He says there are countless small ways to make the French Quarter safer that don’t require major changes to the neighborhood.
“We have signs that are down, broken sidewalks that are not ADA compliant, lights that are out,” Lowenthal said. “I have testified about this to the City Council and been ignored.”
Though the attack Wednesday is fresh on the minds of everyone, Michael Wilkinson, a longtime French Quarter resident and owner of FQ Realty, says for him and some other residents, the sporadic and seemingly random gun violence that can occur during large weekend gatherings and late at night is the biggest concern.
Hotelier Michael Valentino, whose six hotels include four in the heart of the French Quarter, wants City Hall to hold an all-encompassing conversation on public safety with businesses, residents and other French Quarter stakeholders, including law enforcement.
“It needs to be part of a comprehensive discussion,” he said. “Whatever they come up with, whether restricted access or limited parking or certain hours for delivery vehicles, it has to be on a disciplined timeline and it has to be managed and enforced.”
Heather Harllee, 57, has had an apartment in French Quarter on lower Bourbon Street for more than a decade and has lived in the neighborhood full time since 2021. She would welcome a greater police presence in the neighborhood and more cameras, but says blocking off streets and creating more pedestrian malls could erode her quality of life.
“We have a wonderful life down here because there is an old-time sense of community,” said Harllee, who visits with neighbors on her stoop and enjoys walking to nearby restaurants with friends. “There are vestiges of an old-time neighborhood that we are desperate to hang on to.”
Email Stephanie Riegel at stephanie.riegel@theadvocate.com.
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