How can you tell if an event is going to be of extraordinary historical importance? Well, there are many ways, but for this discussion, it would be if it happens at 3:10 a.m. on a Sunday morning on the Canal Street neutral ground, and there is a large gathering waiting to experience it. An extra touch is if two guys from Morning Call unexpectedly come by, set up a table and serve free beignets and coffee.

Historians will note that the date was April 18, 2004. The weather was cool but pleasant. Ahead would be a moment of redemption. An urban planning mistake implemented 40 years earlier, on May 31, 1964, when the Canal Street streetcar line had been shut down, was now, mercifully, being reversed.

Many cities had abandoned their trolley lines by the mid-'60s as automobiles took over the

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