Sewerage & Water Board

Sewerage and Water Board.

Gert Town sits across South Carrollton Avenue from Hollygrove, a madonna next to a whore. Allen Touissant came from Gert Town. Lil Wayne is from Hollygrove.

Gert Town is a disjointed jumble of disconnected parts sliced by uncrossable rights-of-way. It is a warren in which it is easy to lose one's way. Historically, the lowest point in New Orleans is Broadmoor. Gert Town is next door to Broadmoor, as well as to Hollygrove. The foundations of all three are swamp land. The Washington-Palmetto Canal drains the excess.

This is New Orleans, where the possible is probable. Every neighborhood in New Orleans is unique. Every neighborhood has its own culture, its own traditions, its own lore, its own way of doing things. Some have their own dialect. There are as many flavors of New Orleans as there are Eskimo words for snow. Each neighborhood in New Orleans is autarkic except for a run to the Lakeside Mall.

If you get on a plane and fly to New Orleans, your plane will land in Kenner. Nobody stays in Kenner for long. The population has been declining. The last four Censuses agree. 1990 was the high point. The City of Kenner has been shrinking for decades. Rents are cheap. Don't tell anyone.

There are two neighborhoods in Kenner: Laketown and Rivertown. Never let it be said that the founding fathers of Kenner lacked imagination. Laketown has a riverboat casino. Rivertown is a storybook village of empty gingerbread storefronts. Rivertown came first. The two are connected by the umbilical cord of Williams Boulevard. At the river end of Williams Boulevard there is the only reason to visit Kenner aside from the airport.

Cannes Bruleé is what the Choctaw Indians called Rivertown. There, where nobody can miss it, is where there is an oversized bronze recreation of May 10, 1878. That was the day, in this very spot, where "Gypsy" Jem Mace knocked out Tom Allen for the world heavyweight bare-knuckle champion. Aficionados of the sweet science pay homage at this spot. It is on the Louisiana Boxing Trail. There a parking lot for buses.

The reason the fight took place in Kenner is because New Orleans, being civilized, had outlawed bare-knuckled bouts. Boxing exhibitions had to include gloves in the Crescent City. Kenner was more lawless in those days. Kenner is more lawless now. Nobody says it out loud.

Boxing remains popular in New Orleans. There are gyms all over town and public exhibitions are routine. The sport, like horse racing, has fallen out of mass appeal but a few old-timers get some young men hooked and the cycle perpetuates itself. Boxing, along with music and athletics, is a lottery ticket to riches.

Parts of Gert Town are full of churches. Parts are full of warehouses. Parts are full of Xavier University of Louisiana. Tulane maintains a library in Gert Town. Gert Town is one of the few places in New Orleans that still has dirt roads, not all of them. When it rains, it's a bitch to get around.

[And, so, our exploration of S&WB begins in our usual roundabout way. This one took a lot of research and visits to the pumping stations. You should become a paid subscriber. This is a shoestring operation.]

The paywall makes its reappearance tomorrow.