Endymion and the Ladder People

On Saturday night, my wife and I went to see Endymion, the largest of the Mardi Gras parades. Although we had a good time, our experience was marred by the large number of tents and ladders people put up along the parade route.

The Endymion-ladder controversy is one of those issues that only a true New Orleanian can completely comprehend, but it has been ongoing for the last decade or so. The problem is that Endymion in particular has evolved into such a huge event that some people make a day of it, taking tents, barbecue pits, beer kegs, tables and chairs, and even television sets and stereo systems out to the parade route to enhance the party experience. Something like tailgating at a football game. People also take stepladders with them, sometimes 16 feet tall, and affix plywood seats to the top so they can sit up there and enjoy the parade above the heads of the crowds.

Here is the problem: the ladder and tent people arrive hours early (s0metimes even the night before) to stake out their territories. People who show up at the last minute are confronted with a wall of ladders and tents and can get nowhere near the parade. This is the worst for children. A three foot tall youngster can't see over an crowd of people simply standing up, so how is one supposed to see over a 10 foot ladder?

The ground these ladder people take up is city property. It doesn't belong to them. Yet in this matter they exhibit typical American behavior. They think anything they are not prohibited from doing must be their right. Have you noticed that about Americans? Anything -- whether it be blaring music from a car stereo, driving though a parking lot to avoid a red light, wearing shorts to high class restaurants, allowing children to run out of control in a store, or wearing T-shirts with obscenities inscribed on them -- anything that is legal is therefore a personal right. And the ladder people really do behave as if blocking other people's view is their Constitutional right. If you try to step in front of them, they will stop you and curtly inform you that they were here first and you have no right of passage through their claimed area. Negotiating an area full of ladders can be a sticky social experience.

The ladder people have been multiplying for years. Some people try to blame this phenomenon on tourists, but this is nonsense. Tourists don't know enough about Mardi Gras to think to bring a ladder or a tent to Endymion. I have been to the airport around Carnival season and have never seen a tourist loading a ladder or tent into a taxi cab. This is a local problem. And this is a situation where the rights of the few trump the rights of the many, because the vast majority of parade goers don't bring ladders. It is the doing of ten percent at the most.

Before Hurricane Katrina, the New Orleans police tried confiscating ladders, but this led to such ugliness that they gave up. As a result, the practice has grown and grown, and in my opinion, this year was the worst ever. My wife and I walked seventeen blocks down the parade route Saturday looking for some break in the wall of ladders. There was nothing, not even a four foot interruption along St. Charles Avenue from Napoleon to Washington Avenue. That makes for a tremendous number of ladders.

The strange thing is that the ninety percent of people without ladders put up with this. I think there are a few reasons why. First, many people don't want any trouble, and banning or restricting ladders could cause trouble. Second, a lot of people look at the wall of ladders and, instead of wishing the ladders were gone, wish they had ladders too. This is an interesting line of thinking because it explains a lot about the politics of elitism. Why, for example, does a large population put up with lousy public schools while a minority gets excellent schools? Because it is easier to be envious, and promise yourself the fiction that you will obtain what they have, than it is to demand fairness. The final reason the ladder people exist is that the majority do not know how to change the rules. The majority of people have never looked at an unfair rule, demanded it changed, and then watched as it was changed. People don't believe change is possible, and so the ladder people live on.

This is a job for an economist. Though I am not always pleased with the way economists explain human behavior, I think in this case an economist would offer the best solution. Economists believe that when people engage in undesirable behavior, the solution is not to ban the behavior, but to tax it. Following this line of logic, instead of banning ladders, the City of New Orleans should issue ladder permits. The permits needn't be expensive -- maybe $25 to $50. With the permit comes a large colored tag. Before the parade, city officials will canvass the parade route. Anyone with a ladder without a tag will have a choice, a ticket for $150 or they can buy the $50 tag with a $50 late fee tacked on.

One of two things will happen. Either the number of tents and ladders will dramatically decrease, or the city will make a ton of money. A win-win situation, I would think.

Note: If you look closely at the last photograph, you can see what I am talking about. The entire foreground of the photo is comprised of a row of ladders, shoulder to shoulder, all the way across. There is no way through it. And we picked a spot where the ladders were shorter, so we would at least have a chance to see something! 

Comments

[Karie]

I just discovered your blog and enjoyed reading your posts, especially the Katrina ones. I was born and raised in Metairie ( went to Archbishop Chapelle High School) and come from a long line of native New Orleanians. I've lived in Southern California for twenty-five years but I still have New Orleans in my heart. There is something unique and special about New Orleans and its people. Anyway, I hope you can go back and I enjoy your writing.

[Ex Utero]

Seems to me there needs to be the ladder people and the drimmel tool people.... If everybody just brought a charged drimmel tool and used it once or twice at an opportune moment (on the hinges), people would stop bringing ladders.

[Willow]

I like your ladder permit idea. Here's another idea: how about permitting ladders but only allowing them a certain distance away from the street, so that people without ladders can stand in front of them and see, too? If you're up ten or twelve feet in the air, you don't need to be in front, right? So ladders must stand back x number of feet from the curb.

[Mr. Gunn]

There already is a law stating that a ladder must be as far back from the street as it is tall. It's just not enforced.

The ladder people are mostly a problem on the neutral ground, and I find that it's nicer on the sidewalk side, anyways.

[TBTAM]

I agree with the commenter above - let the ladders do what they are designed to do - allow those atop them to see over the heads of those on the ground in front of them. Move 'em back!

Continue to love your blog, by the way. It is truly a slice of life experience to read it.