On the first night of this year’s French Quarter Fest, country vocal trio Chapel Hart had just started their set closing out the Chevron stage on Decatur Street when frontwoman Danica Hart recounted the group’s ties to New Orleans. While most people became aware of the band after their breakthrough appearance on America’s Got Talent, far fewer, she said, knew that they actually got their start just a few blocks away from the stage, singing on Royal Street. It was there where she and her bandmates were first noticed and invited to sing at local venues, which in turn put them on a path to a record deal and, ultimately, national television and emerging stardom. While their success is significant, their presence on Royal Street as musicians was far from an anomaly—for over 50 years, City ordinance has deemed that a portion of Royal Street be turned into a pedestrian mall for five hours each weekday and eight hours on weekends, making it one of the most well-known busking sites in the world.
The next day, less than 24 hours after Danica Hart credited the street for incubating their success and despite plans released to the media that clearly stated that a portion of Royal Street would be completely closed to traffic during French Quarter Fest—one of the most pedestrian-heavy weekends in the French Quarter each year—the City of New Orleans decided, with no notice, to reopen Royal Street to traffic at noon that Friday, pushing musicians and performers to the margins, putting them in increased danger from traffic, and setting them up for conflict with enforcement agencies. This is far from the first time City and law enforcement officials have neglected—or attempted to eliminate—the Royal Street Pedestrian Mall. A decade ago, after the terrorist attacks in Nice, France, a conglomerate of business owners pushed for the street to be open to traffic permanently, but after a media spotlight the mall was restored. The collapse of the Hard Rock Hotel and subsequent street closures in October 2019 led to the suspension of the mall once again, and the onset of COVID-19 and ongoing restrictions stretched the suspension to nearly two and a half years. In the spring of 2022, frustrated that COVID restrictions had largely been lifted but the mall had not been reinstated, a group of street musicians staged a protest that seemed to work. The NOPD put out a press release stating that barricades would once again be placed during the prescribed hours and the pedestrian mall would be restored. Except it wasn’t. Barricades were not deployed—the mall was not reinstated. It was almost another year before the pedestrian mall was finally reestablished in the spring of 2023.
Now, just two years later, it seems the Royal Street Pedestrian Mall is more at risk than ever. In the early morning hours of January 1, with Super Bowl LIX rapidly approaching, the horrific truck attack on Bourbon Street changed everything. Amidst the global spotlight on the city’s security failures, the French Quarter became what can fairly be described as a militarized zone. In addition, the New Orleans Police & Justice Foundation, in conjunction with the NOPD, hired former NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton, now the executive chairman of risk advisory for Teneo (an international consulting firm) to complete a security analysis of the French Quarter and upcoming large events, like Mardi Gras and the Super Bowl. During his tenure as NYPD commissioner, Bratton was best known as being an enthusiastic proponent of the “Broken Windows” policing theory, which aggressively targets minor “quality of life violations” like panhandling, excessive noise, and jaywalking under the assumption that addressing “disorder” will prevent more severe crime—a strategy that critics say leads to the disproportionate criminalization of Black and Latino populations, and did in fact lead to the arrest of many of New York’s subway performers, who are largely young Black men. A month into his work with NOPD, Bratton gave an interview where he admitted prior to this assignment he believed Mardi Gras was simply a “day-long party.” In a city that prides itself on participatory culture in public space, Bratton’s previous stances on street performance and ignorance of New Orleans cultural traditions should have set off alarm bells behind the scenes. If they did, they weren’t heeded, and his work carried on.
By late February, it was starting to leak out that private meetings were being held with the mayor, law enforcement, City officials, business owners, and tourism leaders. During those meetings, it seems to have been made clear that Bratton and the Teneo team were going to recommend the full pedestrianization of a portion of Bourbon Street, and that if Bourbon Street was pedestrianized, the Royal Street Pedestrian Mall would be eliminated entirely. While we don’t know who specifically was included in that decision-making process, we do have a good idea who was not consulted—neighborhood residents, service industry workers, gigging musicians, and street performers, all of whom would be among the most severely impacted by any changes. When the Bratton/Teneo report was finally released to the public it did recommend fully pedestrianizing Bourbon Street from Canal to Dumaine Street but curiously made no mention of the residual impact this would have on Royal or any of the other surrounding streets whatsoever.
Over the past half century, the Royal Street Pedestrian Mall has given a platform to and helped launch the careers of hundreds of musicians, from local legends like the incomparable Doreen Ketchens and the late Elliott “Grandpa Elliott” Small, to those like Chapel Hart, who were born elsewhere but found Royal Street to be a stepping stone on their way to success, a group that also includes rising Americana and folk stars Charley Crockett and Leyla McCalla. Pictures of musicians performing on Royal Street are a staple of tourism advertising, and videos of performances often go viral. While no formal economic impact study has been completed, it is clear that the mall is a significant driver of tourism, easily generating millions of dollars of revenue at virtually no cost. Yet, throughout the Cantrell administration, City agencies have largely been indifferent—if not adversarial—to the mall, which has repeatedly led to the physical safety of musicians and audiences being put at risk. Now the administration seems ready to eliminate the Royal Street Pedestrian Mall entirely and permanently sideline the musicians, poets, and performers who utilize it in order to protect the tourist throngs a block over on Bourbon.
If you want to help protect the Royal Street Pedestrian Mall and support the musicians who play there, follow us on Instagram at @musicculture504 or email us at mailings@maccno.com. We will keep you updated on the latest information and steps you can take.
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