Heb je plannen om tijdens de zomer een bezoekje te brengen aan New Orleans? In dat geval hebben we uitstekend nieuws. Het voormalige Roosevelt Hotel (sinds 1965 omgedoopt in Fairmont Hotel) heropent de deuren onder de originele naam. Het was in dit hotel dat Elvis verbleef, tijdens de opnames voor King Creole. Het hotel staat er nog steeds, en is meer dan ooit een stukje geschiedenis van New Orleans geworden – getuige ook deze column van Angus Lind, journalist voor de Times Picayune.

Return of the Roosevelt Hotel

I saw the headline last week that said: "Fairmont New Orleans will reopen next year under a familiar name: The Roosevelt," I thought: So what's the big deal?

It's always and forever been the Roosevelt. With all due respect to the good people at the Fairmont Hotel who owned it from 1965 until recently, no matter what the name on the marquee -- whether it was Fairmont-Roosevelt Hotel, as it was for a few years, or Fairmont New Orleans Hotel -- true New Orleanians referred to the hotel you entered from Baronne Street or University Place as "da Roosevelt."

It's an iconic institution, a beloved landmark, a revered tradition. And traditions here don't die hard; they don't die, period. Sure, Airline is now a drive and Veterans a boulevard -- fancy names -- but to most locals, they'll always be highways.

It's just official now. When the hotel reopens in the spring of 2009, the Hilton Hotels Corporation announced, the name on the marquee will once again honor the commander of the Rough Riders Cavalry in the Spanish-American War and the 26th president, Teddy Roosevelt.

With the Roosevelt operating as part of Hilton's Waldorf Astoria Hotel Group, the hotel's legendary Blue Room, where big bands and top entertainers performed for decades, will return to its glory days, the announcement said. The hotel always has been known as a gathering spot for the rich and famous, where you went to see celebrities in town, ever since it made its debut in 1893 as Hotel Grunewald, one of the South's swankiest.

Older locals will fondly recall turning on WWL radio at night and hearing the Leon Kelner Orchestra, the house band, live from the Blue Room. The show aired from about 1945 until the early '70s. If you'd ever seen them play, then you could visualize it easily while listening to the radio. WWL radio's home was on the hotel mezzanine for a number of years.

The very first show I saw at the Blue Room as a youngster was Jimmy Durante's. He indeed did begin the night with his traditional opening song, "Inka Dinka Doo," and ended with his signature closing line, "Goodnight, Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are." A great memory.

Then there was the night I saw Jose Greco and was introduced to flamenco dancing. First impression: Loud, very loud. I got him to sign the program, and the next day bragged to a couple of my classmates I had gotten Jose Greco's autograph. They wanted to know what team he played for.

Fats Domino's pink Cadillac with the gold trim would be parked outside the entrance on nights he performed there. And the list of entertainers who also appeared there was a who's who: Tony Bennett, Louis Armstrong, Sonny and Cher, Xavier Cugat and Abby Lane, Peggy Lee, Marlene Dietrich, comedian Joe E. Lewis and bandleader Ted "Me and My Shadow" Lewis.

Both Lewises, Durante and Cougat liked to play the Blue Room when the horses were running at the Fair Grounds. After their shows, they would go upstairs to Ben Weiner's suite, where there was a regular gin rummy game. The daily routine was an afternoon at the track, followed by dinner, the show and the card games.

Businessman Weiner, one of Tulane University's most ardent athletic supporters and generous benefactors, once told me he "went to the Blue Room every night for 35 or 40 years" and was virtually a greeter. He owned a string of horses, several of them champions, at the Fair Grounds. His celebrity pals also dabbled in thoroughbred ownership at other tracks.

Elvis stayed there during filming of "King Creole."

At the time, young Bob Walker, now retired WTIX "Oldie King," was an autograph hound who hung out at the Roosevelt so much, the registration desk employees knew him. "I asked the front desk gal for Elvis' room number, toting my faithful autograph book, and she gave it to me," Walker recalled.

Times were very different, very relaxed. Walker went to the sixth floor, knocked on Elvis' door, and The King himself opened it. "What do we have here, a boy this time?" he said to Walker. Elvis patted him on the head and signed the book.

Five years ago Walker and his wife Judy got a room there for his birthday weekend. It was on the sixth floor. "When we got to our room the sign outside said it was now called the St. Philip Suite," Walker said. "Then I got the chills. I realized it was the door that Elvis opened for me in 1957."

Many locals will recall their Christmastime walks through the Roosevelt's lavishly decorated lobby. The lobby was a block long, from Baronne Street to University Place. And like the title of the song, it was truly a "Winter Wonderland."

Seemingly every inch of the ceiling and walls was decorated with angel hair, creating a fairyland snow-like scene featuring beautiful oversized ornaments hanging down from above. Then there were lighted flocked trees, with bows and ribbons. A walk through there was as much a New Orleans tradition as sipping a Sazerac at the Sazerac Bar and a night at the Blue Room.

Ideally, everything, including those great murals in the Sazerac Bar (Huey Long's home court), will return, because tradition is what New Orleans is all about. So long live the Roosevelt. You could say welcome back, but it really never left.