A Walk Re-focused

We had planned to walk up Poydras Street and take photos of some of the street sculptures along the way. The results of that walk will be shown in an upcoming entry.

But the walk, never-theless, produced some other sights that were worth noting. Some of the architectural details on buildings on the way to Poydras (above) and on the lower part of the street (left) were characteristic of earlier days.

The details shown above are in contrast to the moderistic design and details on the First Bank and Trust Tower, one of the mainstays on the "Poydras corridor."

But the walk was interrupted by this scene on the sidewalk.

Our first response is to look for cameras among the crowd. There were too few people on the edge of the scene for it to be the filming a scene from a movie and too many folks for taking still photos for a magazine photo shoot.

So that left filming a commercial as our best guess for all the activity.

Zeroing in on the fellow behind the desk revealed that it was "the Progressive Insurance guy." A few passersby stopped to shake the spokesperson's hand before the serious work began.

At one point, a cyclist stopped by and sat down at the desk. As the interaction continued, we began trying to decipher the message that the scene was to deliver. Bicycle insurance?

We continued our walk.

We came upon four of the remaining sculptures (from a total of 69) from the 2008 "Streetcar Named Inspire" project.

Laxman Kewalramani
We the People of New Orleans

In an article in The Times-Picayune (2/26/09), Doug MacCash reported that the "'Streetcar Named Inspire' project was formulated by the philanthropic Young Leadership Council to aid local artists

Dennis Procopio
Hands Across the Water

recovering from the flood, raise money for a Canal Street public pavilion, and call attention to the post-flood rebirth of the St. Charles streetcar. Sponsors paid between $5,500 and $7,000 per sculpture. Local artists received $1,000 each to decorate them.

Linda Lesperance
Meals on Wheels

"The project's purpose is noble, but the aesthetics are lousy. The once-amusing Cow Parade (NOTE: an earlier street sculpture project) concept has run its course, the loaf-shaped miniature streetcars remained defiantly uninteresting

Linda Lesperance
New Orleans Musicians’ Express

despite desperate attempts at decoration, and, worst of all, some cars have been converted into shameless sponsor advertisements, draining away any poetic spirit the project might have had. A bad idea from almost every angle."

We returned to our original purpose for the walk up Poydras Street.


A couple of days later, we noticed this motorhome occupying a site in the RV Park.

By the subtle markings on the home on wheels, we could see that the crew for the KISS concert had arrived for the concert in a few days.

An interesting few hours of unplanned activities.