In Orlando, Florida, a man is suing two restaurant owners over ghosts.
The man is Lou Pearlman, the shadowy impresario who "invented" the Backstreet Boys and `N Sync and headed a fly-by-night company that convinced thousands of teenage "star" wannabes (and parents) to fork over thousands of dollars apiece for cheapo head shots (I know some of the photographers personally) and "a chance to get discovered."
Pearlman is asking a judge to rule whether a downtown Orlando building is indeed haunted by ghosts, and if so, to determine whether the ghosts like sushi.
The New York Times/AP is covering it here, and some intriguing (and gossipy) historical background relates directly to New Orleans' past and its future.
Caveat: I hope this story offers a brief respite if you are approaching New Orleans/FEMA/Bush/Brown/etc. disaster overload. I am, but I don't intend this to be any more than a momentary diversion -- we owe it to our children, our grandchildren, our country and the rest of the world to exorcize the evil spirits that currently occupy the White House.
The story:
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) -- The landlords of an Orlando entertainment complex are suing two restaurateurs for refusing to move into a renovating building because they claim it is haunted.
Subcontractors who worked there and other people have reported seeing ghosts or other apparitions, said Lynn Franklin, attorney for the restaurant owners.
"It's very serious," Franklin said Thursday. "A lot of people are corroborating having seen incidents in this location."
The $2.6 million lawsuit filed last month by the owners of the Church Street Station entertainment complex says an offer to hold an exorcism was refused.
"I asked them if these were good ghosts or bad ghosts, and if they were good ghosts why it was a problem,'' said David Simmons, an attorney representing the building's owners, who include boy band promoter Lou Pearlman. Simmons is also a member of the state House [and a Republican, who'd a guessed?].
Chris and Yoko Chung own Amura Japanese Restaurant -- a middling chi-chi sushi joint downtown. They signed a lease to move into Pearlman's building a year ago. Then they reneged. Now Pearlman is suing.
Here's why: Pearlman and his co-conspirators finagled about $2.6 million in City of Orlando "incentives" to buy this building three years ago (story here.) The restaurant lease is one of the keys to Pearlman's "incentives."
Former Orlando mayor Glenda Hood, who took over Katherine Harris' job in Tallahassee when rumors about Harris and Gov. Jeb Bush got out of hand and Harris was quietly banished to the House of Representatives, inked the "incentives" deal with Pearlman.
The building complex once divided "white" downtown from "black" downtown. Now, it's in the middle of a district city officials and developers are "rehabilitating" by running people of color out and building highrise condos for younger, lighter-skinned, higher-income residents.
That, folks, is the future of New Orleans, mark my words.
Another New Orleans connection: back in the early 1970's whizbang developer Bob Snow borrowed $12 million and "rehabilitated" this district as Orlando's "Dixieland jazz" version of the French Quarter. It was the third most popular tourist destination here after Disney and Sea World.
Snow went bankrupt in a Vegas casino deal. By the early 1990's grunge bars lined Orange Ave. a block away and Church Street Station was a ghost town (pun intended).
Pearlman and a couple more developers took over, buying 19 downtown buildings and "rehabilitating" them -- with city incentives that would be criminal anywhere else but the state attorney in Orlando is a Republican toadie and the local daily newspaper is Tribune Company toilet paper.
More than a year ago, Pearlman's first "incentive" deadline approached. As the Orlando Sentinel reports:
A subcontractor renovating the building told the Orlando Sentinel this year that workers removing a floor in the old building saw a ghostly bartender and two dancing girls reflected in a mirror late last year.
About the same time, the restaurant owners backed out of the lease.
"These reports, all independently provided, are strikingly similar in content," [restaurant attorney] Franklin wrote. "Apparently, these types of sightings are well-known to some of your employees but were not made known to Mr. Chung. As a Jehovah's Witness, Mr. Chung has deeply held beliefs regarding spirits and demons. These beliefs require him to avoid encountering or having any association with spirits or demons."
Further, according to the Sentinel,
The lawsuit also asks a judge to decide whether the building is haunted and, if so, whether the ghosts would interfere with the restaurant's business. Renovations have stopped on the building, and it remains empty.
Before Bob Snow "rehabilitated" Church Street Station, the building was home to the Strand Hotel. In the 1950's and 1960's, it served as one of two unofficial brothels in downtown Orlando. From the Sentinel again:
Visitors ... claim to have heard crying from the spirits of the prostitutes' illegitimate children, supposedly put to death to hide their well-to-do fathers' indiscretions. Others claim to have seen a slender man in a black coat playing a piano or reflected in a mirror.
The same article quotes a "paranormal" expert:
"Late at night, staff members and guests alike would hear the piano playing by itself," San Martin said. When approached, the man would smile, nod and disappear.
Well, that's the end of the story, but there's one more New Orleans reference that begs to be made.
What do you think will happen to what was arguably America's most libertine city? I'll bet the percentage of people of color post-reconstruction will be a fraction of what it was a month ago. What the Bush administration did last week, and what they will do in the next two years, is an enlarged version of what Orlando politicians have been doing on the west side of Orlando for the past decade: turning it into a pale white version of its formerly rich and colorful self, with faux Dixieland jazz musicians to amuse the tourists...and the ghosts of 40,000 souls to writhe in indignation.