this here IS elysian fields, honey

yesterday we drove around town with gloria, our friend in new orleans. gabriel’s worked with her, organizing his performances and puppets for various krewes over the years. we are staying in her house in the by-water.
we drove out elysian fields in gloria’s van. it was night but the street lights and the lights of most of the houses made the tree lined street nearly as bright as it would have been pre-katrina. like so many other new orleans streets elysian fields is further evidence of city planners' familiarity with shakespeare, virgil or just about any other classical source. i was thinking about this as we drove along. much of the debris from the double whammy of hurricane and flood is gone, but there are still mattresses, piles of mold-tainted rugs and furniture in the neutral ground (the grassy area in the center of the street where the trolley formerly ran). many of the traffic lights either aren’t working at all, or are set to a continuously flashing red. red metal stop signs on small metal stands are set up near the curb. major intersections are four-way traffic stops.
in the past when ive first hit the city and run into elysian fields with its mangy neutral ground and tatty trees ive always been reminded of blanche dubois not believing that she's arrived at her destination when she steps off the desire streetcar in that well known play. these memories are poignant now. as we were driving along i also remembered that an interviewer once asked tennessee williams if he imagined what happened to blanche, postscript to the play’s plot. he answered that she was released from the mental hospital and went on to open an elegant dress shop in the french quarter. “blanche dubois is a survivor” he chuckled to the interviewer.
gloria was so glad to see the lights of the street and the lights of the houses. each holiday — thanksgiving, christmas and mardigras — has brought more returning residents, more dumpsters, more debris and refrigerators on the curb; but also more lights, more lives, to the city. gloria said the lights made her glad but “you know the best part will be just to see all of us, and to see we’re out on the street and that we’re all here and that we’re all together”
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"[blanche] is carrying a small suitcase in one hand and a slip of paper in the other. as she looks about, her expression is one of shocked disbelief...there is something about her uncertain manner that suggests a moth. a sailor, in whites, enters...and approaches blanche. he asks her a question, which is not heard because of the music. she looks bewildered, and cannot, apparently, answer him...
eunice: what's the matter, honey? are you lost?
blanche: they told me to take a streetcar named desire, transfer to one called cemetery, and ride six blocks and get off at elysian fields!
eunice: that's where you are now.
blanche: at elysian fields?
eunice: this here is elysian fields. (negro woman laughs.)”
--tennessee williams, streetcar named desire, 1947.