In 2003 Baty Landis opened the Sound Café as a coffee shop and performance space for the Creative Arts magnet high school, NOCCA, a block away on Chartres Street. But this historic two-story building with floor-to-ceiling doors that are often splayed open to Port and Chartres Streets, has turned out to play a more integrated role in the everyday life of New Orleans and the Marigny and Bywater neighborhoods. After Katrina, the Sound Café was the first high ground coffee shop to re-open downtown and researchers, journalists, planners, politicians, and residents all flocked to the café for coffee, wireless internet, company, and information. The Sound Cafe was the hub of a citywide movement to protest the rise in post-Katrina violent crime. Baty Landis formed the non-profit “Silence is Violence” with her neighbors Ken Baty and Helen Gillet after the murders of Hot 8 drummer Dinnerral Shavers and local artist and film maker Helen Hill. The Sound Café has always stayed true to its commitment to music and the arts in New Orleans, hosting live music performances, book and poetry readings, and panel discussions, among other events. A series of free youth music clinics at the café sponsored by Silence is Violence is teaching young New Orleanians how to play music in the city’s brass band and jazz traditions.
The Sound Cafe acts as a neighborhood hub. Photo by Bethany Rogers.
Interview with Shelley Jackson
Shelley Jackson, Sound Café barista and yoga teacher, said, “After the storm, I was back in Mid-city, and it was just still completely bombed out there. I just really didn’t really have hope for that neighborhood at that time. And coming down here to the café felt like riding into civilization every day. And it was interesting because it was all these people at the café that were involved in city planning. There’s a lot of talk about stuff like that that happens here. So I was getting a lot of inside information about what was happening, and what was being planned. I felt like I went from living in a cave to suddenly being just full of information. I’ve never been so excited to come to work.”
Interview with Baty Landis
Baty Landis, owner of the Sound Café, founder of Silence is Violence, and Ya/Ya Inc Director, said, “To have a space that’s just available, it’s really a luxury to have, as I’ve discovered, especially with ‘Silence is Violence.’ Anything I want to do, basically, whether it’s activist in nature or social or cultural in nature, I have a space. That’s really not to be underestimated. What a benefit that is, what an advantage that is. Certainly “Silence is Violence” would never have been the organization it is, if I didn’t have the coffee shop at my disposal. And so I’ve come to use it in a way that I was trying to make it available for other people to use. And that’s why it’s made me realize, ‘Okay, this is why it’s important to the neighborhood to have places like this that feel very accessible and for artists to know, they can use this space if they need to.’”
