Desperate to escape New York after too many weeks of gray skies, remaindered snow, and angrily crowded subways, my boyfriend and I alit upon a Jet Blue deal and the perfect spring getaway: four days in New Orleans.

It will be my first visit. I remember watching the Katrina coverage, sickened to my core but also shamefacedly selfish with regret that I had never gotten the chance to visit. Watching CNN in 2005, it didn’t seem like I ever would.

Back then my concept of New Orleans was based vaguely and entirely on Coming Through Slaughter and The Awakening, on my roommate’s annual King Cake and my batty French professor’s obsession with nearby Lafayette.

Now I’m wondering what I’ll find. I’m gleefully anticipating hurricanes and dirty martinis, beignets and gumbo, shrimp and crawfish and jambalaya, Terrence Blanchard and Buckwheat Zydeco. But then I come more soberly down to earth. A year and a half after America watched New Orleans drown, is it really already so blithely revitalized?

The New York Times reports that according to the Brookings Institution, “infrastructure repairs in New Orleans are ‘basically stalled’” and that out of 115,000 applicants for federal aid, only 2,300 have begun to receive access. I had to dig for these facts, though; New Orleans’s post-Katrina difficulties aren’t as high up on the media’s radar as Brad and Shiloh’s father-daughter strolls.

I worry: By visiting New Orleans as a tourist instead of as a helper, am I being selfish once again?

But the answer is no. Rebuilding isn’t the only thing that’s been slow to recover: tourism has been, too. Exploring historic New Orleans isn’t self-indulgent (um, entirely); it’s also bringing money and happier statistics into a place that needs and deserves them.

Besides, I’m going with a Tulane grad. I have a feeling most of my “touring” will be of the local bars.

- by Laura Arnold