NEW ORLEANS—On a sunny spring afternoon, as the humidity rises and the temperature creeps toward 80, New Orleanians are enjoying a Sunday in their City Park.
Rowdy young men in shorts and T-shirts play a friendly game of volleyball on the front lawn of the New Orleans Museum of Art. Couples walk hand in hand through a sculpture garden. Fathers push their sons and daughters on the swings of a playground. Families picnic. Joggers pace along the sidewalk.
Isn’t this how life is supposed to be?
Less than three years ago, 90 percent of City Park was under water, incurring $43 million in damage when Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans.
Like the rest of New Orleans, the 1,300-acre park still bears scars from the storm. Some sections of the park remain closed. But many of the wide lawns are as green as ever. The botanical garden has reopened.
The City Park railroad chugs along narrow tracks, its open cars filled with laughing children. Massive live oaks still drip Spanish moss, a symbol of New Orleans’ old beauty.
But this spring, new trees are growing alongside the ancient oaks, replacing some of the 1,000 trees lost in the storm. Skinny young crepe myrtles and live oaks flank the road leading to the art museum, attached to stakes by guy wires so they will grow straight.
Although it will be years before these young trees provide much shade, like the volleyball players and picnicking families, they are a powerful symbol of determination.
Little by little—tree by tree, gallery by gallery, neighborhood by neighborhood—New Orleans is coming back.
Late in the evening, music and revelers pour out of French Quarter nightclubs. Along bawdy Bourbon Street, where strip clubs, bars and shops with names like the House of Voodoo dominate, high-spirited visitors walk shoulder to shoulder, carrying cocktails in plastic cups and following the energy.

chicagotribune.com


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