Wastewater Treatment.
Has any topic ever gathered so much attention as the S&WB Wastewater Treatment Plant? Just mentioning it in a headline is guaranteed click bait. Everyone is interested in what happens at the end of the sewer line. That’s why it’s a destination for elementary school field trips.
Some people take Almonaster Avenue for the view of the skyline in the CBD (Central Business District). It is breathtaking, even if most of the office buildings are a Potemkin village of hotels. The main business in New Orleans is hospitality. The Convention and Visitors Bureau makes no bones about it.
Where Almonaster Avenue arches over the scenic Florida Avenue Canal, not only is there a view of the CBD up ahead, to one’s right there is S&WB. The very sight of it will give you the vapors.
All the hotels in the CBD are hooked up to the East Bank Wastewater Treatment Plant at 6501 Florida Avenue, 70131. Just think, from this vantage point on top of the Almonaster Avenue overpass, a man can see one thread in the skein of New Orleans life from beginning to end, from head to tail, so to speak It is a humbling vantage point, if you take the time to think about it.
We are all but motes in God’s eye.
I was up on the Almonaster Overpass because I had to do some research for the footnotes I am working on for the monkey book. It’s a history of New Orleans-with monkeys! My idea of research is to hang out and wait to see what happens. More behind the paywall.