Hard times in The Big Easy: Boston Globe

Beyond the facade, hard times in The Big Easy - The Boston Globe:

"But the beguiling bustle of New Orleans can be deceptive.

Nighttime tells the truth. Nighttime tells that the city is not whole. Then, the great expanse of the city's center and much of its lanky eastern edge lie dark and silent and creepy. Block after block of homes, mile after mile, rot. Streets in the Treme neighborhood, home to so many musicians, echo in their emptiness, and fancy pads out by Lake Pontchartrain are hollow. Mid-City's little camelbacks and side-hall shotguns, archetypes of New Orleans architecture, are vacant, their doors smashed open by men in protective masks -- the houses' innards hacked apart and stacked on the sidewalk."