The Pontchartrain Expressway is a snip of freeways that feeds I-10 and Highway 90 and the East Bank approach to the Crescent City Connection bridge over the Mississippi. The area under the expressway marks the border between the Central Business District and the sometimes rougher Central City neighborhood.
The area is also home to a permanent though constantly shifting community of homeless men and women (and, sadly, kids as well). Periodically, usually when there is an expected surge of tourists before an sporting event or a holiday, city crews sweep through the area, tossing the possessions of the people living there and encouraging them to take up residence elsewhere.
Last week, one of the unofficial “leaders” of the community, a man who gives his name only as John, took some of the money he’d hustled that day and bought a Christmas tree. He brought it back to the Expressway and set it up by his tent so the area’s residents could have a bit of holiday cheer.
And then came the Grinches, in the form of city sanitation crews. In one of their regular sweeps, they snatched up John’s tree and dumpstered it. A resident grabbed it from the dumpster but the crews took it off in a trash truck, chased by residents.
Local television station WDSU, whose studios are on the Expressway route, reported the events on it’s Facebook page and the story started getting legs on social media. Dozens, then hundreds, decried the city’s obtuse heartlessness.
And they did more than gripe. By midday Saturday, the area around John’s tent was filled with trees and ornaments, brought by people from all over the area, along with other gifts. One of the WhoDats of WhoDatville, Butch Nutter, drove down from Hammond, north of the lake, with a tree. Said Nutter, “It just touched me. He spent his last little (bit of) money for a little Christmas tree for everybody, him and his little family," Nutter said. "I just wanted to show him that there is good in this world."
To Mr. Nutter and the other WhoDats of WhoDatville, rest assured. John and a lot of other people definitely got the message. And our hearts grew three sizes that day.
