Lost Our Dreams?

This is the boat in Stephen's yard. 10/1/05


Stephen called on Friday, Sept. 2nd to tell he had been in New Orleans until Wednesday the 31st. I was horrified because Meg and I had thought he'd gone to Baton Rouge. His voice had a very haunted sound, all that he could say was, " It's just like on t.v. ". So, sadly told me he made it down our street in Treme and that our house had collapsed in the force of the storm. I knew that structure wouldn't have a chance against winds most humans cannot begin to imagine. We were prepared for the worst, I just hoped it wouldn't land on anyone.


The good news this, two weeks later, that once the federal help arrived, things would improve very quickly. It is.

We have reports that the water uptown is on and the pipes are being flushed and they have cleared some trees and they are putting the power lines back up on St. Charles Ave. Thank goodness that we are right on one of the most important streets in the city, they must get the streetcar up and running. Also, the headline in the paper today says there are the estimate of fatalities was higher than what they are finding so far. We can only hope that more people were rescued than we thought. They also estimate that they will get the water/sludge cleaned up in just a few weeks!

We have lost entire neighborhoods, and many beautiful, jewels that make our city unique. For me this house project was a dream come true. So if you had your hopes and dreams in New Orleans, you have to ask yourself, "have we lost our dreams?" Or exchanged them for nightmares? I say, no, of course not. You just adjust your definition of your dream a bit.

I hope we won't lose our memory and will rebuild New Orleans as it should be according to the cultural style unique to our city. Like clothes, architecture is a personal expression and we have a responsibility to carry forth the personal expression of those who had the vision to build our beautiful city. We must carry that vision forth. Now, we may feel closer to them and their stuggle to develop our graceful city on a festering swamp but are luckier because we have the wisdom of Then and Now. I can't wait to get back. Can't wait to smell the sweet olive trees.

Thanks to Jacques for saving Stephen ! He said he had a photo, hope to get it to you soon. Right now, what we have is this link to our aerial view of the downtown area.
You can zoom in but only if you know where to go.
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24427976.jpg

Profound Despair

We are out of harms way at this time and in contact with friends who have escaped the path of this monster. I can't do anything but watch the coverage from WWLtv on the web.
This is the one.
The essential personnel in the city are in our thoughts as they stand by to deal with the damage. We are trying to come to terms with the total devastation that we will see once we can return.
We feel nothing but despair for our beloved city.

http://www.wwltv.com/ for a live feed of local news.

Stephen and Stafford's Huge Project

Stephen and Stafford, our neighbors next door inherited this creole style shotgun house. Stephen grew up learning how to shore up foundations and he is doing this to his house now. There was extensive termite damage.











Shoring is incredibly hard work and to pay a contractor is very expensive. They have to replace sills and piers throughout the entire house. I have been watching the progress over there and thought you should see it because it's not the fun type of esthetic progess that people enjoy but it is essential. It's hard to believe two guys can do this. Stafford spends all of his time under the house, it's tight under there but he says it's not too hot but actually somewhat cooler than the outside temperature. Unfortunately, Stafford had to return to college for the fall semester and Stephen's trying to find a contractor to help him get the job done. I always tease Stafford that he does all the work and Stephen just stands around talking to the neighbors and I said while he was gone Stephen would probably just put a lazyboy in the yard and be hanging out. We miss Stafford back in the ghet-to but I bet he doesn't miss being under the house all day. Stephen probably would like to have demolished most of the house and started from scratch and he teases the preservationists about it but he knows
he's doing the right thing.

Don't Faint.....

I know ! How about that ! ? I can't believe it either.....the guys from Arrow Fence took a long time to get here but they were good. Swweeet ! The ironwork is going to have to be replaced. The cost of repairing is more than buying it new so it come out but we're going to hold onto it.

I was in Colorado when they finished but my spy boy, Derryck called me. He's great that way. It's a team project. There are going to be many people to thank when we're done.

The architect is working on full sets of drawings then we must get approval from the HDLC. I love it that we have a YARD. I think I can plant one Oleander! It needs flowers. Can running water be far behind?

Joe's is Closed

Joe'sCozy Corner is closed. It's taken me a while from the day the announcement was made, to believe it. Joe Glasper owned this bar and our renovation home. In 2004, he went to jail for shooting a man who insisted on selling beer illegally outside the bar. Here's a link to a nice history of Joe's: http://www.southernspaces.org/contents/2004/spitzer/1.htm

Joe owned our renovation project, he died in jail right before we went to the act of sale. It was in the middle of Jazz Fest. I went to Joe's jazz funeral, when they came through and they brought his casket in the bar. Then I went out Jazz Fest where I heard performers on stage acknowledging the loss of someone who had been a leader and good neighbor in Treme.

Much later that night, after that funeral, there were shots fired and someone was killed. Of course the neighbors caught flack from the hoodlums, accusing the neighbors of calling the cops. This rationale makes residents kinda crazy. Yep, we're the bad guys. We ain't the ones in the street shooting people. Unfortunately, Joe's had become one of the bad hot spots around the corner and while it used to be an institution, drugs and violence have taken it away. Now they have dismantled the shoe-shine stand out front and things are pretty quiet. It was Kermit Ruffins' favorite place.

Things change.

Check out the news about the incident that landed Joe in jail: http://www.bayoubuzz.com/articles.aspx?aid=1533
This is a link to Nick Spitzer's first hand account. It's good.
http://www.southernspaces.org/contents/2004/spitzer/1.htm
Having trouble locating the story about the shooting post-jazz funeral but I will keep trying.
Stay tuned !

The Old/New Clawfoot Tubs

In addition to working with my architect and trying to get the fence krewe out to the property, a friend sent me a notice from the Faubourg Marigny list-serve that these tubs were for sale for $100 each. Today I was very very lucky that I could get the refinishers to meet me at the site to pick them up. Refurbishing runs between $600-$800 per tub depending on their condition and size.

Orleans Parish Criminal Sheriff's Office

Ok, this is the bag I found under the house on Sunday, the 17th. It's a bag from someone's personal effects, left under my house apparently on their way back from the pokey. It had some clothes in it, I would have thrown the whole thing out but thought you might like to see it....O.P.C.S.O. is the Orleans Parish Criminal Sheriff's Office. yep, probably the dude sleepin on the porch. Cindy wiped out the anti-napping glitter.....time to reload.
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This is Stephen Peychaud. He's my neighbor on Gov. Nicholls street and he entertains my egragarian side as a homeowner. I can't see much progress right now but mowing the lawn
is cathartic. Problem is, I don't have a mower and no place on the property to store one yet.
(Don't ask where the fence guys are....) So Stephen loads his in on the weekend and we sweat our asses off. Here he using the backup mower cuz we busted the new one already. He calls this trusty old workhorse "old reliable"....but I know I am going to owe him a mower.....and a weedeater.
His M.O. is to keep a low profile, we both dig that approach. He and his nephew, Stafford, have been under their house next-door jacking up the sills to stabilize the foundation/frame. It's nuts that they are crawling under the house for hours. I will try to get a picture.

July 10 ~ Funeral for a Chief ~ Photos and Article By Ian McNulty

This spring there was a bad rumble between the police and Mardi GrasIndians during a traditional nighttime gathering of the brightlycostumed maskers near one of the city's housing projects. Meetings werecalled to talk down the situation in the aftermath, including a hearingbefore the City Council in late June. One of the speakers from theIndian camp was Big Chief Tootie Montana, age 82, the most prominentand beloved of the Indian chiefs and known in his circles as the chiefof chiefs. Surrounded by supporters, he began an impassioned speech tothe City Council about the need to ease the tension between cops andthe community. He said "I want this to stop," then collapsed to thefloor and a short while later was pronounced dead at Charity Hospital.Heart attack.


Mourning rituals by the Indians and others began almost immediately.This weekend was his actual funeral. On Friday night he laid in stateat the city's opera hall, the Mahalia Jackson Theater, for visitationand Saturday morning a service was held at St. Augustine church in theTreme. Thousands gathered outside the church for the jazz funeralprocession to the cemetery. There was a brass band, with musiciansattired in traditional caps, shirts and ties, and what looked to beevery Mardi Gras Indian in the city turned out in their feathers andjewels. Naturally, the heat was broiling and even people in lightclothing were dripping sweat. The streets around the church were packedfor blocks around by onlookers and the area was buzzing with MardiGras-like energy. There was zero sadness expressed. The air was allbody scents, tropical blossoms from front gardens and wafting dopeclouds. Men were selling beers and mixed cocktails from tailgates,women hawking sweet potato pies and pralines from baskets held overtheir heads in the crowd. People were wearing hats decorated withclippings Montana's newspaper obituary.



The coffin emerges from the church and Indian whoops and tambourinerattles light up. The coffin is pushed into a black, horse-drawn hearsecarriage with a tuxedoed driver at the reins. The brass band sets up adirge and every one creeps forward with exaggeratedly slow steps as theprocession begins. The pace is miniscule, step by step in the blazing,crowded heat. Around the hearse, Indians and others in zoot suit paradefinery and ornate sashes chant and sing. The brass band picks it up alittle with "Didn't He Ramble" and "I'll Fly Away" as the processioncrosses under the bloodstream pattern of oak limbs lacing overEsplanade Avenue. Continuing through the Sixth Ward, shade disappearsand the heat intensifies. People run into corner bars and run out againwith beers and napkins to mop brows. Dancers and mourners wearing suitsare soaked to the lapels in sweat. Jostled in the crowded smallstreets, people bump into parked jalopies and burn themselves on thesun-sizzling steel. Dressy parasols and plain black umbrellas sproutup.



















The procession makes a brief stop at Montana's home and loops around beneath the elevated interstate en route to the cemetery, St. Louis No.2, a walled and crumbling city of the dead fronting the Iberville housing project. The hearse clops slowly down the cemetery's main thoroughfare, past all the brick vaults and whitewashed tombs. The rotting smell of the recently interred is evident. People are crawling onto tombs of various heights and packing into the slim alleys between them to get a look at the coffin leaving the hearse, carried by soaking wet pallbearers to a tomb recently opened for the chief's arrival. He goes in, and last words are spoken, the Catholic lord's prayer recited. A kid falls from a tomb in a crumble of bricks and dusts himself off. Mourners pass by, placing a hand on the coffin inside the tomb and,when they're done, two workers from the archdiocese haul out a bucketof mortar and tools and wall in the coffin one aged brick at a time. Everyone disperses back through the Treme, where a repass reception is waiting in the community center. The criminal sheriff has sprung for lunch and at either end of the center's indoor basketball court twodozen prisoners wearing "O.P.P. Inmate" T-shirts spoon out bowls of redbeans roped thickly with sausage over rice, overseen by armed deputies. Around this time in the afternoon it became certain that Hurricane Dennis and its 130 mph winds would strike somewhere else along the GulfCoast, sparing New Orleans once more.

Some pictures of the above are below.
Ian

Goons v. Glitter

So an new goon has been on the property which would'nt even be worth mentioning except he took the board of the porch window. He ripped it off, so I replaced it with a much thicker board before I took off out of town. I don't mind the old guys who go back there and drink beer, they don't hurt anything and they'll have to move on soon.

However, on June 25th when I was over there to show my friend Andrea the project, this new fella crossed the line by breakin into the place. It's important to keep the crackheads out. In fact, it's a miracle this house hasn't been inhabited by them in the many years it has been empty. Our best guess is around 15 years. I feel responsible for keeping it that way for the safety of
my neighbors and they can't wait for my fence and the electricity to be up. My neighbors have both said this to me. They will be relieved.

If you have been through any kind of robbery, then you know that you tend to start thinking
'booby traps'. There's a fine line you have to walk in executing booby traps, you can't cause anyone to be hurt but you do want to deter. I went out and bought six cans of spray glitter and coated the porch thoroughly. I took a photo but it's the glitter didn't show up.

I just imagined the street thug comin back there at night and taking a nice relaxing nap on our porch and then being totally covered in glitter. Rather an embarrassing state for street toughs And any real New Orleanian knows how impossible it is to get that glitter OFF. My neighbor and I suspect that maybe since they shut down Joe's Cozy Corner, the thugs that did biz over there are looking for a new storefront.

T.S. Cindy really did a number all around town. No power uptown for a day, trees down all over. I had to replace a board up in a really icky part of the house, I couldn't do as well as the old board but it's band-aids until construction. I also had a dead bird to pick up, it was rather awful. I had a down moment about the hassles of this waiting period.

So, while the architect is drawing, I'll try and gather some stories from around the neighborhood.

The Organ

I was going to be back in NC while the tenting happened but I have some work
related duties and had to return early so I am happy to document the process
for you.

Interestingly, David, from House Call, set up a job that piggybacked on my job.
This organ has termites so they asked if they could put it on my porch to treat it. Of course, I am always willing to help a local musician. It's a gorgeous instrument.

Treme Resident: Lionel George

Y'all need to meet my neighbor around the corner. Lionel George turned 82 on Monday and he's proud of it. He makes a little money on the side selling 'Frozen Cups'. These are basically plastic cups of kool-aid or lemonade frozen. Lionel's known all over downtown for his recipe. He is one of the neighbors who helps chase away the crackheads who like to sleep under the house. My back porch is right behind Lionel's house.

Lionel has lived in Treme his whole life and has 3 children. He is a retired baker and still sells pies and cakes to people in the know. In addition to baking, he also delivered flowers for 17 years. One of his boys is a member of the Treme Brass band, his daughter has worked in the government and enjoyed early retirement, and one is a Baptist minister even though Lionel sent his children to Catholic schools.

In talking about the musical heritage of this neighborhood, Lionel added that he was unhappy that Kermit Ruffins moved from his place on Ursulines to one of the bordering streets. He said Kermit 'sold out' and when he sees him, Lionel said he'd throw a brick at Kermit for moving out. Did I hear him right . . .? It's a tight community with much to be proud of, what can you say? Well, I said, " he's still real close to Treme". Literally he is just up the street, you would think he moved across the lake. Anyway, I saw Kermit last night and I passed this along, maybe he'll go stop by Lionel's for a frozen cup. I didn't tell him he might get a brick thrown at him....

Lionel shares a lot about the history of the neighborhood and I am happy to see him everyday. Today, he told me how the brick church up the street used to be a carriage house with mules and horses that pulled the produce carts around town. We also talked about the demise of the old Treme market. I have seen the old photos of it, we both wish it was still there.

House Call Rocks

All the guys from House Call did a great job from beginning to end.
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Length of the House

Bye bye termites !

Tenting Complete

The pigeons are probably pretty mad they can't get in their house tonight!

Deadly Poison

This might be more effective in keeping the crackheads off my property than a fence.

A Sight to See

This attracted a lot of curious folks ! At this point, the toxic gas has been released into the house.
A fan, run by generator, ensures even circulation throughout. They have a man that stays on the site overnight and monitors the level of the gas and also makes sure no one attempts to
crawl inside.

Underneath the Tarps

This was an interesting perspective as they used a light colored tarp over the porch.
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On the Ground

They laid the rolled up tarps on the roof the day before. Some tarps weigh 100 + lbs. Doing it all in one day in this heat is not rational, they spot the job the day before. This is about 9:00 am. They have been on site since about 8 a.m.

Back to Front

They begin tenting the house from the back. The back is not stable in all areas, this made me nervous to watch. They told me they could feel that back area moving.
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