alon504
Mar 1, 2007, 2:44 AM
As a local, I enjoyed this reading....it's really frank and that's what we really like here in New Orleans....
Conventioneers tell a tale of two cities
By Kate Moran
Staff Writer
Ronald Shamlaty Jr. traveled to New Orleans this week by way of the Biloxi airport. As he moved westward in his rental car from Mississippi to Slidell to New Orleans East, he was arrested by the devastation that suddenly came into view from the interstate.
“As we went over the bridges,” Shamlaty said, referring to the Twin Spans, “we noticed apartment complexes just destroyed, their windows all boarded up. What really got us — we got that frog in the throat thing — was seeing all the trailers still there a year and a half later.”
Shamlaty said he didn’t know what to expect from New Orleans when he came to town this week for the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society’s annual convention, a gathering that brought 24,600 visitors to the city.
What he found was two different worlds compressed into one city — a perimeter of devastation encircling neighborhoods like the French Quarter and the Warehouse District that survived Hurricane Katrina largely unscathed. For him, the divide between the city’s tourist playground and its other neighborhoods was surreal.
“The French Quarter is almost like a mirage,” Shamlaty said. “What we are seeing here is not what is going on elsewhere in the city.”
Conventioneers descended on the city this week with a host of conceptions — and misconceptions — about what life is like in a regrouping city. Some expected blight and found world-class restaurants instead. Others had an inkling, cemented by news coverage of two successful Carnival seasons, that tourism was alive and well.
Tom Lowry, a regional sales manager for the InterSystems Corp., came from Chicago nervous that the city would not have the amenities that business travelers expect.
“I thought things would be worse,” he said. “I was a little apprehensive when I came that we’d be roughing it. What we found instead was that businesses are back up and running, the hotels are doing fine and the service level is fantastic. You would not know there was a catastrophe here a year ago.”
Lowry had traveled to the city before Katrina, and he said his return experience was just as “pleasant and delightful” as it was on previous trips. As he puffed on a cigarette outside the convention center, recounting his trip to Bourbon Street the night before, he also said it was just as much fun.
“What the news stations put on television is not what actually happens here,” Lowry said. “For a visitor, things are pretty much back to normal.”
The notion that New Orleans is limping along owes much to out-of-town news organizations, which for better or worse tend to gravitate to areas that are still struggling. Convention-goers said the French Quarter and other intact areas tend to get blotted out by stories focusing on devastation.
Others said they were still haunted by photographs of desperate residents trapped in flooded houses after the storm — or in the very convention center where thousands of technology wizards were now rubbing shoulders.
The stark contrast between then and now did not escape Jared Sayovitz of Bellaire, Texas, who worked outside the convention center as an emergency medical technician after Katrina. For him, seeing the downtown transformed was a “joyful” experience.
“I expected to see the city still shut down, based on how bad it was the last time I was here,” Sayovitz said. He still has two dogs, orphaned by Katrina, that he rescued in his ambulance after the storm.
Stephen Lieber, president and chief executive of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, said he made several trips to New Orleans after the storm to determine whether the city was fit to host a convention that would draw nearly 25,000 visitors. He said his confidence only increased with every trip.
“When we first came nine weeks after the storm, the city was incredibly quiet,” Lieber said. “I joked with people at the time that the coat-and-tie restaurants had become windbreaker restaurants. Canal Street at 6 o’clock was a ghost town. Bourbon Street was so empty that you could roll a bowling ball down the center and not hit anybody.”
He continued, “The thing is, in talking with people in the convention and entertainment industry, we could see they were committed to bringing their businesses back. This is too big of a convention center to sit empty. It was clear that this was going to get serious focus, not only from the professionals that run the facilities but from local government structures as well. We saw that spirit here.”
HIMSS held its last conference in San Diego, and Lieber said the city’s supply of rental cars ran dry before the convention was over. He said he heard of no such complaints about infrastructure in New Orleans.
The conventioneers themselves had a few quibbles. Two women from Athens, Ga., said public transportation was lacking, and one Chicago traveler said he could not find a direct flight into New Orleans. Others were disappointed that downtown stores, including those in the Riverwalk, closed early in the evening. But all visitors said cabs were abundant and that it was generally easy for them to get around.
Tony Garland, a security consultant for IBM Health Care and Life Sciences, was visiting for the first time from Washington, D.C. He crinkled his nose at the displays of drunkenness he saw on Bourbon Street. On the whole, the city struck him as a little bit dirty.
“The people are great, especially in the restaurants, but it is not the cleanest city,” Garland said.
The impression was different among repeat visitors who had seen the Big Easy in its older, shabbier days, before City Hall hired a new garbage collector to keep the French Quarter spiffy.
“I think the city is cleaner than it used to be, but maybe that’s because I’m not out in the middle of the night like I was when I was younger,” said Judi Spillers, who had driven to the conference from Florida in her RV. This was her fourth trip to New Orleans.
Teal Heath, a program director for Centura Health, had come to the HIMSS convention from Colorado Springs. She said she was spooked by recent radio broadcasts about the crime sprees in New Orleans, so she called her Uptown hotel before arriving to see if she’d be safe.
Heath, an avid runner, has gone jogging every morning and every evening along St. Charles Avenue. She has felt perfectly safe the whole time.
“I was a little bit leery before I came here, but the city has been lovely,” she said.
If conventioneers were enjoying the city, local businesses were pleased to have them here. Steven Pettus, a managing partner with Dickie Brennan and Co., said the restaurants have been packed with visitors — well-to-do ones at that. He said the technology experts and physicians that came to town for the convention are the sort that order multiple courses and appreciate a good bottle of wine.
“We have high-caliber conventioneers here in large mass. It creates it a certain degree of energy downtown,” Pettus said. “It is totally different from what was here a little over a week ago for Mardi Gras. This is a professional crowd here to do business and to enjoy the benefits the city has to offer — the hospitality, dining, architecture and all the other elements of the city that we love.”
Pettus continued, “There is a residual benefit that comes from groups like this. These guys from are from different parts of the country, and they become emissaries for New Orleans when they leave here. That is why we put our best foot forward.”
Kate Moran can be reached at kmoran@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3491.
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tpupdates/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tpupdates/archives/2007_02_28.html#241382
Conventioneers tell a tale of two cities
By Kate Moran
Staff Writer
Ronald Shamlaty Jr. traveled to New Orleans this week by way of the Biloxi airport. As he moved westward in his rental car from Mississippi to Slidell to New Orleans East, he was arrested by the devastation that suddenly came into view from the interstate.
“As we went over the bridges,” Shamlaty said, referring to the Twin Spans, “we noticed apartment complexes just destroyed, their windows all boarded up. What really got us — we got that frog in the throat thing — was seeing all the trailers still there a year and a half later.”
Shamlaty said he didn’t know what to expect from New Orleans when he came to town this week for the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society’s annual convention, a gathering that brought 24,600 visitors to the city.
What he found was two different worlds compressed into one city — a perimeter of devastation encircling neighborhoods like the French Quarter and the Warehouse District that survived Hurricane Katrina largely unscathed. For him, the divide between the city’s tourist playground and its other neighborhoods was surreal.
“The French Quarter is almost like a mirage,” Shamlaty said. “What we are seeing here is not what is going on elsewhere in the city.”
Conventioneers descended on the city this week with a host of conceptions — and misconceptions — about what life is like in a regrouping city. Some expected blight and found world-class restaurants instead. Others had an inkling, cemented by news coverage of two successful Carnival seasons, that tourism was alive and well.
Tom Lowry, a regional sales manager for the InterSystems Corp., came from Chicago nervous that the city would not have the amenities that business travelers expect.
“I thought things would be worse,” he said. “I was a little apprehensive when I came that we’d be roughing it. What we found instead was that businesses are back up and running, the hotels are doing fine and the service level is fantastic. You would not know there was a catastrophe here a year ago.”
Lowry had traveled to the city before Katrina, and he said his return experience was just as “pleasant and delightful” as it was on previous trips. As he puffed on a cigarette outside the convention center, recounting his trip to Bourbon Street the night before, he also said it was just as much fun.
“What the news stations put on television is not what actually happens here,” Lowry said. “For a visitor, things are pretty much back to normal.”
The notion that New Orleans is limping along owes much to out-of-town news organizations, which for better or worse tend to gravitate to areas that are still struggling. Convention-goers said the French Quarter and other intact areas tend to get blotted out by stories focusing on devastation.
Others said they were still haunted by photographs of desperate residents trapped in flooded houses after the storm — or in the very convention center where thousands of technology wizards were now rubbing shoulders.
The stark contrast between then and now did not escape Jared Sayovitz of Bellaire, Texas, who worked outside the convention center as an emergency medical technician after Katrina. For him, seeing the downtown transformed was a “joyful” experience.
“I expected to see the city still shut down, based on how bad it was the last time I was here,” Sayovitz said. He still has two dogs, orphaned by Katrina, that he rescued in his ambulance after the storm.
Stephen Lieber, president and chief executive of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, said he made several trips to New Orleans after the storm to determine whether the city was fit to host a convention that would draw nearly 25,000 visitors. He said his confidence only increased with every trip.
“When we first came nine weeks after the storm, the city was incredibly quiet,” Lieber said. “I joked with people at the time that the coat-and-tie restaurants had become windbreaker restaurants. Canal Street at 6 o’clock was a ghost town. Bourbon Street was so empty that you could roll a bowling ball down the center and not hit anybody.”
He continued, “The thing is, in talking with people in the convention and entertainment industry, we could see they were committed to bringing their businesses back. This is too big of a convention center to sit empty. It was clear that this was going to get serious focus, not only from the professionals that run the facilities but from local government structures as well. We saw that spirit here.”
HIMSS held its last conference in San Diego, and Lieber said the city’s supply of rental cars ran dry before the convention was over. He said he heard of no such complaints about infrastructure in New Orleans.
The conventioneers themselves had a few quibbles. Two women from Athens, Ga., said public transportation was lacking, and one Chicago traveler said he could not find a direct flight into New Orleans. Others were disappointed that downtown stores, including those in the Riverwalk, closed early in the evening. But all visitors said cabs were abundant and that it was generally easy for them to get around.
Tony Garland, a security consultant for IBM Health Care and Life Sciences, was visiting for the first time from Washington, D.C. He crinkled his nose at the displays of drunkenness he saw on Bourbon Street. On the whole, the city struck him as a little bit dirty.
“The people are great, especially in the restaurants, but it is not the cleanest city,” Garland said.
The impression was different among repeat visitors who had seen the Big Easy in its older, shabbier days, before City Hall hired a new garbage collector to keep the French Quarter spiffy.
“I think the city is cleaner than it used to be, but maybe that’s because I’m not out in the middle of the night like I was when I was younger,” said Judi Spillers, who had driven to the conference from Florida in her RV. This was her fourth trip to New Orleans.
Teal Heath, a program director for Centura Health, had come to the HIMSS convention from Colorado Springs. She said she was spooked by recent radio broadcasts about the crime sprees in New Orleans, so she called her Uptown hotel before arriving to see if she’d be safe.
Heath, an avid runner, has gone jogging every morning and every evening along St. Charles Avenue. She has felt perfectly safe the whole time.
“I was a little bit leery before I came here, but the city has been lovely,” she said.
If conventioneers were enjoying the city, local businesses were pleased to have them here. Steven Pettus, a managing partner with Dickie Brennan and Co., said the restaurants have been packed with visitors — well-to-do ones at that. He said the technology experts and physicians that came to town for the convention are the sort that order multiple courses and appreciate a good bottle of wine.
“We have high-caliber conventioneers here in large mass. It creates it a certain degree of energy downtown,” Pettus said. “It is totally different from what was here a little over a week ago for Mardi Gras. This is a professional crowd here to do business and to enjoy the benefits the city has to offer — the hospitality, dining, architecture and all the other elements of the city that we love.”
Pettus continued, “There is a residual benefit that comes from groups like this. These guys from are from different parts of the country, and they become emissaries for New Orleans when they leave here. That is why we put our best foot forward.”
Kate Moran can be reached at kmoran@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3491.
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tpupdates/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tpupdates/archives/2007_02_28.html#241382