Frenchmen Street in New Orleans has never been more popular. Is that also a problem?

As a young lawyer living in New Orleans in the 1990s, Ed Newman used to frequent the jazz clubs that were beginning to pop up along the newly hip Frenchmen Street in Faubourg Marigny.

The street’s old storefronts were being converted to music venues and restaurants, and jazz lovers like Newman were drawn to its authentic, funky vibe.

“There was a special feel to it,” said Newman, now a federal prosecutor in New York City. “It was this amazing place for music lovers and musicians, where you could pop into these clubs and sample the best of what New Orleans had to offer.”

On a recent trip back to the city, Newman returned to his old haunts and was surprised by how much things had changed.

“It was dirty, run down and there were gobs of people in the street just wandering around like they do on Bourbon,” said Newman. “They were there to get drunk.”

In some ways, Frenchmen Street is more popular than ever, with big crowds and traffic descending on the three-block strip most weekend nights. But the shaggy chic street that visitors like Newman once prized now has a coarser edge, resembling the neon-lit blocks of Bourbon Street, according to interviews with two dozen musicians, merchants, club owners and civic leaders.

The visitors to New Orleans who wander over from the French Quarter or are pointed to Frenchmen by hotel concierges seem less interested in sampling local music than in finding a street party scene, longtime regulars say. Some clubs now feature cover bands instead of the original music that built the street’s reputation in the 1990s and 2000s. Unlicensed vendors crowd the sidewalks. At least one restaurant now features a wall of frozen daquiri machines for grab-and-go cocktails.

Musicians and the artists who keep stalls at the nearby Frenchmen Art Market say making money has become harder in recent years as more of the action takes place outside. But on top of that broader shift to a street party atmosphere, say business owners and some city leaders, are a host of quality of life problems that have cropped up since the pandemic:  Vandalism, signs of public drug use, more people asking for money and a lack of enforcement of city laws.

There’s also the hulking, blighted building at the corner of Frenchmen and Decatur streets. Its owners, members of the Motwani family, recently abandoned plans to turn it into hotel and said they were putting it up for sale. For four years it has sat vacant, attracting squatters and graffiti that, until recently, covered much of the historic structure and still mars the steel support beams that prevent it from collapsing into the street.

“It is horrible that this is the entrance to Frenchmen Street and this is the first thing people see and the city doesn’t do anything about it,” said Jan Ramsey, the longtime publisher of Off Beat Magazine, whose offices were on Frenchmen in the late 1990s. “It’s a shame the city doesn’t recognize that this is a special area and deserves special care.”  

‘Hijacked the street’

New Orleans officials acknowledge that things have deteriorated on what has long been a prized piece of downtown New Orleans.

Michael Ince, who was recently named the interim director of the Mayor’s Office of Nighttime Economy, a position informally known as the “night mayor,” said he has been walking Frenchmen at night, hearing from frustrated business owners about their concerns on crowds, unlicensed vending, enforcement and other issues.

“I absolutely agree with everything they are saying,” said Ince.

He said he is particularly incensed by the condition of the Motwani’s building, fearing that the 190-year-old structure has been allowed to rot and could pose a safety hazard to pedestrians who are forced to walk into the street because of steel support beams and construction fencing that blocks the sidewalk.

The Motwanis had plans to open a hotel with rooftop penthouses and balconies. But preservationists and neighborhood advocates, noting the building’s historically significant architecture, successfully opposed the plans.

“It is absurd, deeply disrespectful and the property owners are entirely to blame,” said Ince. “To the detriment of business owners and residents, they have hijacked the street because they didn’t get their way.”

In response to Ince’s comments, an attorney for the family provided a statement from the project’s engineer explaining that the steel support beams cannot be removed because it would threaten the structural integrity of the building.

“However, Mr. Motwani has instructed the contractor to immediately apply for a building permit to address certain aesthetic issues at the property in order to address the neighborhood’s concern,” attorney Rob Mouton said.

Growing pains

Long before the Motwani building was an issue, Frenchmen drew concerns over its ever-changing nature. Though lined with historic buildings dating to the 1830s, it wasn’t a music or entertainment district until the 1980s.

The Dream Palace, now the Blue Nile, was the first club to open, followed by Café Brasil, now Favela Chic, and the venerable modern jazz club Snug Harbor.

By the late 1990s, Frenchmen was a mecca for musicians and music lovers, with a “critical mass” of venues along a densely packed, quarter-mile strip that was a hipper, more local alternative to Bourbon Street, Ramsey said.

But there were growing pains. In the 1990s and early 2000s, neighbors sought to restrict the decibel level of music coming from the clubs. A decade ago, existing establishments sought zoning rules to limit the number of nightclubs versus restaurants.

The extent to which those efforts were successful is debatable as Frenchmen became, in some ways, a victim of its own success, according to Tulane University geographer Richard Campanella, who has written extensively about the city and its neighborhoods.

As people new to the city discovered the strip in the post-Katrina years, locals sought ever cooler spots of cultural authenticity like St. Claude Avenue and the Bywater, Campanella said. The trend continued through much of the last decade as more visitors, including growing numbers of bachelor and bachelorette parties, began to view Frenchmen as a Bourbon Street alternative.

Still bright spots

Drummer Gene Black, who’s been playing on Frenchmen Street for more than 20 years, said musicians can still make a good living on the street.

Tourists line up outside clubs like dba and the Spotted Cat on weekend nights, waiting to hear bands like the Cottonmouth Kings, which Black plays with regularly.

Snug Harbor attracts visitors from around the world who come to hear performers like Jason Marsalis and Charmaine Neville.

Trumpeter Kermit Ruffins plays weekly at the Blue Nile, invariably drawing an audience that he later visits with out on the street. And popular bounce artist Big Freedia is working on plans to develop a boutique hotel with a restaurant and nightclub on the strip.

But despite the crowds, some club owners say business remains stressed since the pandemic, when the changes on the street became more pronounced.

Snug Harbor owner Jason Patterson remembers a decade ago, when people went to Frenchmen Street to hear individual musicians or bands. These days, visitors don’t spend as much and the street is rowdier.

“You don’t want a street scene because it changes the whole dynamic,” Patterson said. “You have people who come to hang out on the street, not go into the clubs.”

“Pre-pandemic things were much better,” he added. “Food and beverage sales were stronger, the costs of operating were generally lower, and the condition of the street was much better.”

Artist Joe Badon, who has been selling his works of cartoon surrealism at the Frenchmen Arts Market since 2016, said his sales also are down, which he attributes to younger crowds, who come to browse but not to buy.

Unenforced rules

There’s also a sense that rules aren’t being enforced. On a recent Friday night, street vendors peddled cheap trinkets, battery-powered fans, hair clips and snack bags of chips. Cars cruised down the street with music blasting, while street musicians set up across from clubs with cover charges.

Stephen Jeffcoat says the windows and picnic tables at his bar, The Rambler, have been defaced with knife etchings, a type of graffiti that’s harder to remove than spray paint.

“People say, ‘That’s just what you have to put up with in the Marigny and French Quarter,’” Jeffcoat said. “You shouldn’t have to put up with that.”

Haley Waldner, owner of Downtown Tattoos and Piercing, is equally frustrated. She complained to the city’s 311 line twice on a recent morning after the stop sign at her busy corner was stolen.

No one replaced it and she witnessed two accidents at the corner later that day.

Taking steps

Those kinds of incidents are unacceptable, according to Ince. He said he has begun to organize monthly meetings of business owners in hopes of getting everyone on the same page to address common concerns.

He’s also working with GNO Inc. President and CEO Michael Hecht, who was tapped by Gov. Jeff Landry to help prep the city for Super Bowl LIV, to clean up the street. Beginning in October, the street will be repaired and resurfaced on an expedited schedule.

The city is also rolling out a new pilot program that will send rideshare drivers to Elysian Fields Avenue to drop off their passengers, alleviating traffic congestion and bypassing the eyesore at Frenchmen and Decatur.

In the meantime, the NOLA X NOLA music festival, which began in 2021 as a way to help local musicians recover from the pandemic, kicked off Friday and continues through Oct. 6. It’s designed to spotlight the local music culture, with Sunday specifically focused on Frenchmen. 

“Music venues are struggling, not just on Frenchmen but across the city,” said NOLA X NOLA founder Sig Greenebaum. “We’re trying to make sure that these venues, which are so precious to our city, have the opportunity to make it another day.”