New Orleans Hotels Become New Town Squares

Before the sun rises on the hotels of New Orleans, doctors in scrubs pile into elevators, shoulder-to-shoulder with construction workers wielding their sledgehammers. The doors open and they´re off to work.

Soon, children are tearing through the hallways, pushing their toy trucks or playing tag as they get underfoot. A woman shuffles through the lobby wearing hair curlers and velvet bedroom slippers. A man lugs two bulging garbage bags up to his room; they contain all he has left.

The lobbies are bustling all day with everyone from FBI agents to real estate speculators. Later, in the bar, city lawmakers huddle over stiff drinks to plot their next move.

Welcome to New Orleans´ new town square. Hotels that once were at the heart of the city´s tourist economy have now morphed into a combination homeless shelter, board room and Wild West saloon.

Part of the reason is simple: The few hotels that stayed open through Hurricane Katrina quickly become oases of normalcy for the people trying to get the city back on its feet.

Even now it´s startling to drive through the mud-caked streets and into the valet parking lot of the Sheraton or the Royal Sonesta.

Indeed, many hotel guests have put small kitchen appliances, like microwave ovens, coffee makers and hot plates, in their rooms. Bellhop carts normally reserved for suitcases often are filled with groceries. On the Sheraton´s eighth floor, management has installed coin-operated washing machines and dryers.

Rooms at the Sheraton start at about $200 a night. King said the hotel has a long-term contract with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Of 140 hotels listed on the city´s official marketing site, 91 are open, but at least 21 are booked up for months, often on long-term contracts with private companies or with the federal government.

And its not just home to politicians. A whole host of other types walk the hallways: journalists, church group volunteers and disaster specialists, to name a few.