The New York Time
(http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/29/opinion/29greene.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin)
<http://www.nytco.com/>
When the Librarians Come Marching In
By BOB GREENE
THEY'VE recarpeted hell.
They've given it a deep cleaning, taken a deep breath and opened its
doors for business.
This week an estimated 18,000 men and women from around the United
States have been attending the annual trade convention of the American
Library Association. The gathering, which ended yesterday, was
remarkable not so much for what was being discussed and merchandised —
books, library equipment, software — as for where it was held: The
Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.
Last September, if you had dared to suggest that by June this city would
be playing host to genteel trade shows inside this building, shows
punctuated by the lilting sounds of laughter and music, you would not
have been believed. The convention center, as much as the Superdome, was
New Orleans's symbol of wretched helplessness, of utter degradation.
Twenty thousand people, it was estimated then, had sought refuge in the
Morial center — a sweltering place of no lights, no food, no water, no
protection from roaming criminals — and for three days federal officials
had no idea they were even there. There was something primal about the
shivering revulsion the rest of America felt when hearing of the people
stranded there. The stories of human waste soaking the floors, of
violence, of people crying out in the heat for buses that would not come....
The buses arrived like clockwork this week — air-conditioned to the
verge of freezing as they dropped off attendees at the curb and then
waited, motors idling, to ferry others back to downtown hotels. This was
the first major national trade show to be held at the convention center
since the hurricane — and to walk through the newly reopened parts of
the 3.1-million-square-foot complex next to the Mississippi River was to
shake your head at what has been shaken off.
"Never Have Dry Skin Again," a sign at a booth offering moisturizing
lotion invited. "Need Relief?" beckoned another booth, promising cures
for "bunions, corns and calluses." The business of the convention was
books, but no potential want of the out-of-towners conducting that
business went unaddressed. The Massage Break booth, "Targeting
Convention Tension," offered rubs of the neck, back and shoulders, for $35.
"There were dead bodies right here, so they had to put in the new
carpet," a cashier at the convention hall's Caribe Grill told me, and
although there is no way she could know if this was literally true, the
fact is that the bright, fresh carpeting — in splashes of reds, oranges,
golds, blues — is so unrelentingly cheery that the sight all but
commands you to consider what it replaced.
Where there was hunger and thirst, now there is abundance: more cold
bottles of designer water, soft drinks and juice, placed in coolers
every few dozen feet, than the visiting conventioneers could possibly
drink; so many restaurants and food stations that there were seldom long
lines. Where the refugees waited days for someone to feed them, the
Allegro Pasta booth now offered linguini with a choice of marinara or
Alfredo sauce.
The convention center may have opened for the librarians to gather, but
eight of the city's 13 public libraries were deluged by the hurricane,
and only one of those is back in operation. In the Morial center this
week, a security officer, Terry Hardiman, 57, said that he was one of
the people trapped in the stench and suffocating lightlessness of the
building after the storm. "We just kept thinking, 'Maybe today is the
day someone will come and get us,' " he said. "You can't erase those
memories."
The floors of the convention hall's far concourses have been polished so
ferociously that they gleam; if someone should happen to drop so much as
a paper clip, a member of the custodial staff snatches it up within
seconds. At one booth, personalized business cards, designed and printed
within minutes while you waited, were offered for sale.
It's not that this feels like someplace unique; the intention is the
opposite. Convention centers across the country are, by their nature,
bland, bright, steadfastly sterile places. You could visit a hundred of
them and not remember, in the end, which was which.
That, it seems, is what the Morial Convention Center is striving for as
June heads toward July, and as the trade shows, slowly, begin to return:
not to feel like a place apart, but somehow, again, to be just one among
many. The earnestness of the effort is understandable: like the victim
of a beating smiling a little too ardently, hoping to show that he's
healed.
Outside the center's walls, the National Guard patrols parts of New
Orleans, and large portions of the city remain devoid of life. But
beneath this roof, whatever was here is gone, willed away. The place
smells great, in that mysteriously bracing convention-center way. Where
in September exhausted people prayed for rescue, a wheel-of-fortune game
was now being played.
"Come on, big money, big money!" the barker called. Someone screamed: a
winner.
The convention of the Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship
International is scheduled to arrive after the librarians leave, and
then the National Truck Driving Championships come here in August. To
just another convention hall. That, or so it appears, is the
not-so-modest dream.
Bob Greene is the author of "And You Know You Should Be Glad: A True
Story of Lifelong Friendship."
Copyright 2006
<http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html> The New
York Times Company <http://www.nytco.com/>
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