Is There Still a Streetcar Named Desire?

The author disagreeing with Tennessee Williams in front of a mural near the Streetcar route 2015

I will be the first to admit Tennessee Williams spelled better than me, and it’s highly probable he wrote better than I do. While I once got engaged at the Tennessee Williams table at Galatoire’s, he certainly never ate at the Jeff Shyman table at Cajun Seafood. So, yes, he beats me on all counts… almost. The man could never have excelled in the tour guide business—I definitely have him beat there.

“They told me to take a streetcar named Desire, and then transfer to one called Cemeteries and ride six blocks and get off at—Elysian Fields,” says Blanche as she comes up to the double shotgun that is now home to our bike tour company, A Street Tour Named Desire.

Williams wasn't yet knee-deep in the uppers and downers he would eventually get hooked on, but he had to be smoking something at the bottom of his bowl of red beans to make him hallucinate a route like that. The actual Desire streetcar line went right past 632–634 Elysian Fields. Why on earth would someone, upon passing the address, get on another streetcar line on the completely opposite side of the Quarter out toward the cemeteries near the lake, and think they were going to get back to where they started?

I get it… Desire, then Death, then a mythological paradise… he’s the playwright. But I’m the one who sees tourists holding antiquated maps, scratching their heads.

And don’t even start with me on where the bowling alley around the corner was in the play—because it wasn’t. It was actually about a 15-minute walk away. By the time I entered the picture, it had become the God Is Good thrift store—a cavernous place, the size of a bowling alley, one might say, for the few clothes they had. But it was my go-to every time I needed something clean for a new dead-end job when I was younger.

https://youtube.com/shorts/KHmH5iqG1Wg

The author in front of the Kowalski's at 632 Elysian Fields where the bus is still named Desire.

A Bus Named Desire

A Streetcar Named Desire is arguably the best-named play of the 20th century, and, in my humble opinion, the main reason the play is still taught and studied today.

Tennessee Williams originally gave it the god-awful working title The Poker Night. If he had never changed it, nobody besides Tennessee’s mom and boyfriend would ever have heard of Stanley Kowalski. Luckily, the Desire streetcar line ran right past where Tennessee was living, and he was inspired by the city's long history of great street names.

His timing was impeccable. If he had written the play just a year later, the streetcar tracks would have already been torn up, and the play would have been stuck with the title A NOPSI Bus Named Desire—NOPSI being the distinctly unpoetic acronym for New Orleans Public Service, Incorporated.

Eventually, the streetcar did yield to the bus. You can still see the Desire bus ferrying folks from the 9th Ward through to the end of the French Quarter along that route. It no longer goes through the Quarter, but the streets of the city aren't cobblestone either. Things move on.

"No New Customers"

We still see people stopping by our shop to ask about the play—and often about the movie, which was actually filmed on a soundstage in Hollywood, not at this physical address. I love telling them how the whole point of using 632–634 Elysian Fields in the play was to highlight how rough and working-class this neighborhood was back then. The irony, of course, is that Frenchmen Street and million-dollar double shotguns surround us now.

In fact, up until around 2008, one of the last remnants of those older days was right here where our bike shop sits, on the 634 side of the building. It was run by a local barber who had worked in that spot for decades. Even after he moved out to the suburbs, he would still come in a few days a week to cut hair, displaying a handwritten sign in the front window that simply read: "NO NEW CUSTOMERS."

God, I loved that No New Customers barbershop. I always wanted to walk in and get a trim, but I was too intimidated. Looking back, what’s the worst that could have happened?

When our landlord of 15 years bought the dilapidated building, I asked if I could save the sign, but somewhere in the renovation, it got misplaced. To this day, I still dream of renaming our company No New Customers Tours, because you have to respect history. Riding through real New Orleans history is what we do best. Want to explore the Bywater, Marigny, and French Quarter on effortless single-speed cruisers? Book your tour with A Street Tour Named Desire today!