Jay Talking: 'Would New Orleans Be Better Off Without Bourbon Street?'

Last weekend I visited New Orleans. It is a great travel destination that offers an exotic break a mere three-hour hop from Boston, but each time I go, I am both repulsed and rewarded by a fetid, seething Bourbon Street. Stumbling, loud, sunburned tourists toting two-foot beakers of booze slush, looking for, as Jim Morrison sang, "the next whiskey bar," at first mangle the magic for me.
Then, as evening shades to nighttime, somehow the mess seems to make a bit more sense. I always wonder if I would like New Orleans better without the ambulating frat party that surges up and down Bourbon Street, or if the city's allure would be diminished without it.
What you say. Call #jaytalking on #wbz to let me know.

In:
• Travel
• New Orleans