African American Museum Reopens

The African American Museum had been bogged down in political and financial scandal
for the past three years due to mismanagement and fraud in the Morial administration. It was painful to see it from the street everyday and not be able to go inside or to see tourist traffic around the area. My friend Meg is on the board now and one of the board members is a key player in Jazz Fest too, so there are much more qualified people running it now. The building and the grounds are gorgeous, it's a great place to host an event. The jazz photos currently on display are the best I have seen, really, a must see collection. Tomie is the Director, she's got a great personality.

The buildings on the site suffered little or no damage from Katrina. A tree fell in the front, busting up the wall but missing the building by only inches.

Tubs Finally Come 'Home'

Pre-Refinishing, back in October.

The people at Southern Refinishing have been so unbelievably nice to me. They held these tubs without charge since they took them in August. They could see the situation I am in. They expressed their regrets, we've all lost so much. They told me that they had evacuated to Mississippi from the Westbank and the house they were in was ripped apart. The son said he'd always wanted to see what a hurricane was like. He's over the curiosity of hurricanes. The father told me he lost his wife in January. It's getting to me, lately. I am in another wave of sudden tears again.

The most valuable part of these tubs is the feet, they are hard to get and the tub is useless without them. In my excavation, a set of feet turned up, they were in the POD. I gave this set of clawed feet to them.

Larger POD Arrives

I had to empty all the stuff out of the POD because I finally got the PODS exchange done this week. Whitney helped me get the stuff out and Jen helped me put the ironwork back. The new pod was from corporate, the old pod was a franchise pod, they are all on the same lot. However, they couldn't be there at the same time . . . but they did make it in the same day, that was important so that my stuff wouldn't be out there all night.

Treme Begins to Recover

The students from Tulane's Dept. of Public Health worked to help the neighborhood recover in October. My neighbor, Jen, in the uptown building is a grad student in the department, so we did a couple of great projects together. We did the Rapid Population Estimate for the city and got St. Augustine church cleaned up so they could open a food pantry with Second Harvesters which was very successful. The students were invaluable to the neighborhood and the church. They also did resident surveys to help assess the needs of the neighborhood. Their presence has been so good for Treme. Recently however, there has been some strife regarding the church and our local Momma D. (there are more than one in the city, I think they are regional matriarchs for large ghetto areas). One day, Momma D. said to one of the students who has worked tirelessly for the food pantry, "I'm sick of you white girls comin' in here thinkin' you gotta help the niggas . .. ". This is the crap that goes on in Treme and makes us the most dysfunctional neighborhood in the city. This made poor Erynn cry. These Momma D. women used to impress me, I thought they were the most functional and visible in the poor black community. Over the years though, I have seen this other side too and in some way reveals how afraid they are because they can't perform the supportive function in their neighborhood that they portray. I think they are counterproductive because they are unwilling to volunteer with the students. They want the credit or they won't do anything at all and they tear down the people who are trying to help. God forbid those people be white.

Recently, the archdiocese was going to cut funding and fold St. Aug parish into Peter Clavier parish. The kids from Common Ground rallied with the parishioners and just last Friday the archdiocese relented and announced that they will support the parish for another 18 months and keep Father LeDoux as priest. During this time, the parish must prove they can be sustainable.

Another great step in the recovery is the French government's announcement that they will help rebuild the Passabonne Cottage which is part of the Villa Meilleure, otherwise known as the African American Museum. My friend Meg is on the new board, so that is finally moving forward from the quicksand of the Morial fraud investigation by the feds.

On the bad side, the gangstah element began to rear its ugly head in the form of a renegade street party on Sunday two weeks back. This began in the front of the Candlelight, one of the few functioning bars left on N. Robertson St. When the cops failed to show up to shut it down, after about five hours, a bunch of us women, both black and white, made an appointment with Jackie Clarkson, our councilwoman and the Supt. of the 1st Dist. of NOPD. It was a good meeting and the following Sunday, the cops had this huge mobile police unit parked in front of the bar. Thank god it's election time for one thing but we do have a good relationship with the police who don't want to see the shoot 'em ups on N. Robertson start again like they were prior to Katrina.

Another great development as of this morning . . . the pile of debris from Mette Skou's property has been cleaned up! God, what a relief. Somethings that were bottlenecks seem to be dissolving. The neighbors across the street landscaped their
easement, it's gorgeous. Looks better than their building.

Mardi Gras Day and Thursday

I walked by my property on Mardi Gras day, after going by the Backstreet Cultural and St. Augustine Church. They are threatening to shut St. Aug. The diocese doesn't want to commit the money. There were reporters from Sweden interviewing Father LeDoux. I took some photos of him being interviewed. I love that church, as do all Tremeans. It was a little depressing if you think I was supposed be staying there by Mardi Gras. It's all too depressing if you think about it too much at all. None of my immediate friends are in my place, that's making it a little hard at this immediate moment too. They try. But these are the cards in your hand. How ya gonna play em? You can throw down anytime. Or maybe throw away one at time.

If you recall, I had two clawfoot tubs I had refinished way back in mid-August.
August 3rd Post Well, over the last couple months I called them, waited a couple weeks, they had a death in the family. A couple weeks later they called me back to say the tubs are ready. That was a couple weeks ago and it's my turn to call them back. Keeps poppin back into my head, gotta take care of it. I have to find a place for them. The pod is full. I open it, stare at it. Shake something around. Close the door, walk away. I think I have decided that I have to empty the pod and get a bigger pod. The pod people can come on St. Pat's day, the 17th. The lady over the Southern Refinishers on the Westbank was super sweet. She knows how hard these things are to DO. They are holding them for me and she assured me not to rush and compromise the finish of my tubs. How 'bout that.

I am working on that and calling contractors for estimates. HA ! I actually had a couple call me back and they are so tired. You can tell over the phone. I am very fortunate because my architect gave me four numbers of local guys who know and love old buildings. And they are calling me! The principal calls me, not some secretary and they are just beggin me to be patient that it will be at least a couple weeks. "Call me back and remind me and I'll keep you on the list", they say. I say, "Ok, Will do, Please keep me mind".

So yesterday, I go pull the weedeater off the property for a couple friends who need to use it and discover that there is this pile of debris from the neighbor's house on N. Villere in my freakin yard. I am pissed.

This morning I go over there and I am trying to straighten out the tarps and drain water off them. Two seconds goes by and my hands are bleeding already (cuz as someone would yell at me for not puttin on my gloves). Some white lady is coming over to talk to me. It's Mette Skou, she's spends part of the year in Sweden and part in Treme. She gets just inside the fence when I start tellin her that I am in a rancid mood and not fit for human consumption. You know, mental health professionals encourage us to just say how we feel. So, I admit it straight away, Look, I'm a raging maniac, stay 500 ft. back and be ready to run at that. I tell Mette Skou, sorry and that I tried not to get out of bed at all today . . . but I always fail at that promise to myself. It's her debris. She's going to pick it up. So, now we will be having that banal chit-chat I wasn't in the mood for today.

Magically, this nice black dude that is not at all cracked up stops to give me a hand. He doesn't say a word. He hops off his bike and jumps up on the foundation with me. I know he'll want a bit o'money and I'll offer it before he even brings it up, save his dignity, because he kicked ass and we had a very good chemistry, like we'd been tuggin at that tarp together for a week. We had that zen thing going on that I could use more of lately. I hope I see him again. Leonard.

The dog is at the vet, she's not too well. The CD player in the van is broke. That means a trip to the dealer on the Westbank. And I am tired of tinkering with the spaces between sentences on this blogware. Mardi Gras was five days off for me but now I need five days off to recover.

NPR Story

Eve's producers at NPR finally broadcasted her story regarding recovery preservation in New Orleans. Willie White sounds great. This past week I started working at the Preservation Resource Center which is already fun. It's really a great opportunity for me, I will learn so much !

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5157649

Our insurance company presented us with a check for a pathetically inadequate amount of money. That fight will continue. For all of us.

The Red List

Willie called today, " We're on The List, you know." I said, "Yeah, I know, I have to change the signs." He agreed, that's a good start. None of us can quite figure out who you call to get off the list. Signs are the very the least I can do. http://www.nola.com/katrina/t-p/index.ssf?/katrina/pdf/redlist010506.html

The List, is the list given over to contractors for the Army Corps of Engineers to go out and demolish and clear houses that are causing a hazard to the people and structures around them. All structurally unsound homes. So, I have been watching the news regarding protesters who don't want someone tearing down their 'home' without their permission and I was thinking that mine was, you know, not applicable anymore. But, as Willie pointed out, the subcontractors don't know what they are looking at, they just want the cash money they get per home that they make, 'go away'. I mean, there's all my materials out there.

So, I'm still in purgatory with the red-sticker demons but I can look back a little and I am very grateful to have Willie White and Meg Lousteau keeping me on top of things. Emily and Brian for going to see it with me for the first time. I also owe a lot to Jim Louis for getting me out there with the chainsaw in the first place. It was a breakthrough day. It was the first thing done and then I just kept going and going. Even Preston Browning at Mercy Corps who called out of the blue one day to offer his help. THIS made me bawl my head off uncontrollably for hours but the only way I would stop crying was to get to work. On something, anything. So, I mowed the lawn around my corpse of a house. And Stephen Peychaud, for being a good neighbor and friend. I can't think of anyone else who I would have wanted to deliver the bad news. He's on one of the sub-committees now for the rebuilding process, this makes me feel good.

So I really do know how hard it is for many people just to begin taking those small steps toward cleaning up this mess we have here. I am a pretty self-motivated gal, but we don't really do anything alone and I am really lucky to have people to support me through this thing. We might not realize how the little things we do might give someone the push they really need to get over the psychological weight and go forward.

I'll put this sign up on Monday.....


NO TRESSPASSING

Attention Army Corps of Engineers or subcontractor:

This property, 1502 Gov. Nicholls, was on the Red, Danger List due to damage from Katrina, however the owners have already done all necessary excavation on this property and salvaged materials and are preparing to rebuild. This address is no longer a ‘red sticker’ property. However, how we officially remove our address from the list is unbeknownst to us at this time. We have paid a professional salvage expert out of our own pocket in order to prevent further damage to affected structures. This property is now stable.

Thanks for your help in rebuilding our city and providing a very necessary service that will save many people a lot of money, however, this property is NOT in need of excavation nor demolition.

Contact the owner, Laureen or the excavation expert, Mr. Willie White if you have any questions.

Salvage/Excavation Finished

Here's a little before and after for ya. Willie White and his guys picked the rubble apart by hand and it's done. There are numerous posts and millwork pieces I have saved. Also window casings which will help so that we can match them or remill them. The ironwork is in the pod, which we now refer to as 'the office'.

We debated whether or not to pull up the floors and we are going to attempt to wait for a variety of reasons. One good reason to keep them is that it keeps the footprint solid and also avoids the need for an industrial container. The risks are water and thieves but I have a lot of eyes and ears in the neighborhood. These tarps are very thick and with some tweaking, should be
good enough. The grass is pretty ripped up so the good news is that I won't have to mow for a while.

The next big thing is the insurance settlement. We are still waiting for Lloyds to send some sort of number to us that we will most likely reject. We'd love to get in there and get back to work, as many property owners in New Orleans would like to do but the sluggish response from the insurance companies are causing a huge bottleneck in the rebuilding process.

Gables Come Down

The Gables came down today. Wow, what a process . . .this is the only time Willie has had to use a power tool. All the rest has been taken down with crowbars. Eve, NPR reporter, came by, all excited. "This is a huge story!", she said. She has been researching all the aspects of preservation and salvage. It is fascinating and an industry unto itself. The interview should be on NPR later this week. It's beginning to feel pretty sad that my house will be gone. Well, it will be in a giant box.

Sorry if the photos are wacked, I had a heck of time with that part today.

The Treasures

So my neighbors, 4 of them, who are affected by my fallen house, had to be notified of the excavation so they can tarp, etc. Not surprisingly, only one person called.
Gladys Phillip.
She just wanted to know if my insurance was going to pay to fix her house. . . . I was waiting for these calls. I told her I would ask my adjuster and would do what I could to toss some
corporate cash in her direction.
No go. Gladys didn't have insurance. Pensioner,
has paid the house off years ago. I did tell her about the PRC's rebuilding together program but that was the best I could offer. She asked me if I could tarp her roof or something and Willie did mention he would do his best to seal the affected homes. So, I underpromised, overperform. That's my M.O. anyway.

The majority of the floor has been uncovered. The boards are way warped. Don't know if they, the very most valuable part of the house, can be reused. However, these tiles around the fireplace are intact in the the 4 fireplaces that had this original detail. Willie has also retrieved the millwork, some windows. It's really fascinating and surprising what survived !

The Autopsy

The work of picking apart the house has started. Willie White is the best in the biz. He was recommended to me by the Dir. of the LA Landmarks Society and he really is great. He got my permits through the back-door in one day and is fine with me keeping some of my own wood rather than pressuring me to sell it to him. Some I will let him have, some I will keep and some I will donate to the Green Project. I am giving some tiles to a friend so he can patch his roof and they have a large pile of maybe 1500 bricks they have salvaged already. NPR did an interview with Willie and I about salvage, I hope it makes it to the air. He did a great job, I want to hear it.

There is an unscrupulous band of architectural raiders who steal this stuff from people's houses and a master pirate who pays people for these stolen items. So we are pretty worried about our
stuff over there being stolen. I am on the task of getting an industrial container for the wood which could be on our property for months before we can rebuild.

I have to head to the restaurant and am always under some sort of thing to do so I apologize for
the brevity today. I want to tell you about the damage to the neighbors....remind me.

More Blogging ......

This blog has earned me a spot on Metroblogging ! It's hard doing both blogs and besides, working at the restaurant along with the volunteering stuff I have been doing, it's making
it hard to do anything regarding the house itself. Plus, we still have nothing in writing from the insurance company so it 's a war. I am not the only one. Much of the city is in limbo for this same reason.

So to keep up, here's the link: http://neworleans.metblogs.com/ It's linear, you can cruise the
articles for mine through the link on the left for the archives pertinent to the current month.
If you forget the link, just search blogs new orleans, it comes up. Don't be a retard and ask me a million times for the link...it's called a bookmark, if you can't use it yet, check into a nursing home.

I was approached by Mercy Corps to help salvage my item of desire from the home, then let them keep some wood for reuse through the Green Project here in the city. In this deal, they
would do the excavation for free. However, they can't touch the asbestos shingles. This is so ridiculous and it causing a lot of problems for many homeowners. As one person put it, "asbestos shingles are eating the lunches of a lot of contractors right now." If I could get up there I would pick them off myself. The whole thing is utterly stupid. The absurdity makes me just want to leave it. No one cares.

I did commmission my very dear friend, Jason Hawkins to do a painting of the house. He's not going to do the end result nor the blighted state, somewhere in between. He paints all kinds of
houses in New Orleans and has a degree in preservation. His work is on display all the time
at La Crepe Nanou and is for sale. Since the storm, his stuff is moving !

"Jason London Hawkins is a native of North Carolina and a New Orleanian since 1995. An ardent preservationist, Hawkins lives in the restored former residence of Kid Ory, Louis Armstrong's mentor and a leading jazzman of his day. His paintings are mostly of famous churches, whorehouses and gothic mansions. "http://www.bestofneworleans.com/dispatch/2005-07-26/art_review.php

Uptown Askew, Uptown Anew

The building on the left is at the tipping point. It's so blighted that one small breeze is going to bring it down. This building is located on a hoppin' stretch of Magazine street, it's right across from Whole Foods. The window casings are all bent, it's a real life Michalopoulos. Check out his stuff here: http://www.michalopoulos.com/gallery.html

The photo on the right is the pocket park at Toledano and St. Charles. The neighborhood took it upon themselves to clean it up on Saturday. One man paid for a dumpster or two and everyone came out and got rid of all the tree debris and trash. It's so beautiful. We can't wait around for the city to maintain public areas here in the city so folks are doing a great job of doing things for themselves. The area was a dumping ground for the last month, this is such an enormous
improvement. I sure am glad the residents were able to come home and pitch in. It took about
10 people the whole day to get it done.

Excavators and Adjusters: the renovation revisited

So I have met with an adjuster, who was very nice and he told me that we would probably get close to the entire amount of our policy as this was trully destroyed. He then drew up an estimate that was about half of our policy amount. Now, this is not a half destroyed home....it's a totally destroyed home. We did not
pay only half of our premium. We are furious.

This week I lucky enough to get an excavator/salvage guy to come out and tell me what we could and should save. I have to attempt to contact the owners of the 4 other homes the house has fallen on before we can begin work. We need their permission to enter the property and some will need to get tarps on their roofs. This will not be easy. They are not there. Ever. Then I have to get a permit. Then they can begin picking this mess apart.
Someone will buy some of that old wood and later, I suppose I will be buying some of it back.

I have a feeling we will be making some big alterations in the scope of this 'renovation'. I may just do a smaller house without the camelback, I may go with those new metal roofs (pictured) on my friend Meg's down the street. They held up the best in the storm. And they make them in copper! Imagine that ~

Le travail quotidien

Jill and Eva came to town to do some work on their homes. Things went really well ! Jill got
some major things done like cleaning up her yard, getting a new water heater, meeting with an adjuster. It was a very productive 6 days.

We toured the damaged areas of the city and saw the giant debris heap on Ponchartrain Expwy~ whew.

When they first arrived, like most people, they were pretty overwhelmed by what they saw. It was just a matter of days, however, before they were passing thru neighborhoods saying, "oh, this is looking so much better!". I had to laugh at this transition because we all swing very heavily between the emotions that accompany this shift in our perspective and many of us feel like we don't know for sure if we are ok with how we
feel about the city. Good, hopeful one minute, tired, fed-up, disgusted, exhausted, wondering if it's worth all the work, where is everyone?, who are all these people?, proud, indignant to those not here helping to get our services up . . . it's a wide gamut of emotions. With every friend we see again, we feel happy and reassured. I am putting a curse on everyone who bails on us right now. Sissies can just stay away. It's totally doable and it's not infinite and it's not dangerous unless you're stupid.

A fine example of daily life in New Orleans right now happened this morning. First, there are
3 coffee shops open uptown. One has no espresso, he is waiting for a new one to arrive, his
shop was looted. Each day I go to the one near me and I get and iced breve. Today, he has almost no half-n-half. I am tired. I put my head down and just order the espresso and figure I can just go buy some half-n-half at the store. Instead, I went and bought about 5 jugs and brought it back to the coffee shop because I know what it is like from my filling in at La
Crepe Nanou......you don't even have the staff to get supplies sometimes. Turns out that his
dairy man, a local distributor, Brown's Velvet, somehow shorted his shipment. That guy is probably working overtime too, so he's probably exhausted like the rest of us who are really
pitching in to help local businesses get back up and running in addition to our friends and our own homes. It's cars on a cable and some folks don't get it. I do, and I will be getting some free
coffees I am sure, they really appreciated it.

Some guy was giving the manager of CC's on Jefferson such a hard time this morning because they aren't able to be open on Sunday! What a jerk! Grab an apron, asshole. Help them, don't yell at the poor man. He is bringing employees in from Baton Rouge to help have the coffee shop
open 6 days a week and we should be thankful.

I see a lot of people who seem to have the time to sit in the coffee shop and linger. Boy, those were the days!

And those local folks who were always like, "you're not FROM here", meaning you weren't born here. Well, there are some of those "local" people who aren't here either and I can't wait to run into them some night! They can never say that again, I will kick them right back to their silly little high-school.

In an effort to give you a complete picture of the current status of things, another example is that at La Crepe, we can't offer a full menu because the two chefs and the dishwasher are doing all the prep work too. So anything that's high maintenance, like fondue or their signature french onion soup we can't offer. Mussels we are doing with great effort.

One of the owners said perhaps one night we should have only those high maintenance items
and none of the other dishes. I think it would be funny. I am getting a kick out of working there and I learn so much about how they make the dishes and how they make decisions.
I am also surprised how many people ask for alterations to standard offerings, which to me is
somewhat insulting to the chef. Jeff and Son go out of their way to make people happy.

For Becky

Yep, that's Ozzie ! He's was hard to get a photo of but at least Becky can see he's ok. We had not seen him for about 3 days. I posted this for her while she is away, it's like KittyCam!

People In and Out

Many many people are coming back and then having to leave again for obligations and so they are in and out and need to have someone on the ground meet people and check their houses, etc.
That's me.

I am glad to do it but I had to start telling people no as of today. No new 'clients', I am getting too burned out. The restaurant work makes my whole body ache too, I am not used to it so I can't spread myself too thin.

So my friend Becky went to W. VA for her mom's birthday. Her cats were here during the hurricane as she was out for a short trip when it hit and they are outside cats and hard
to get a hold on. The cats were fine, it's a miracle and they don't want to leave.

The neighborhood is a giant construction zone and large machinery drones all day and the cats just stay. So I am feeding them while she is out. You can sort of see the deck is all messed up, it is detached from the house. She had about 5 feet of water. Her place is salvageable, Becky had someone gut the part that was flooded. This is north of Claiborne Ave., uptown. Helping the kitties actually cheers me up a lot. Pet therapy.

Librarian/Dishwasher/Real Estate Broker/Animal Sitter

On Monday I went to see if I could help my friends get their restaurant open. They put me on as a food runner/dishwasher on Tuesday. I was terrified having not done this type of work for about 15 years. We only had 2 original kitchen staff, the chefs. Then we did have some fill in folks with much restaurant experience, like Mike who everyone knows from Dick & Jennie's.
Then we also had a few people like myself who just want to help. It was fun, we actually had a great opening night. The second night, the dishwasher broke. We barely kept up but we did keep up. The teamwork is unbelievable in that place right now.
The owner was washing dishes too. Here's a link to their website !
http://www.lacrepenanou.com/
I need to get a photo up here of Son's AK-47 hanging in the kitchen. He's the Vietnamese chef and he returned to the city really early before many people were back and was there cleaning out the kitchen, he had to bring his own protection.

Brave New World

I arrived one week ago, on Friday, Oct.14th and I was struck by how bad things looked to me again, after being gone for a week. When I returned it was so depressing, I wondered, "Can I do this?"

Well, I am doing IT ! I have been so busy it's hard to impress upon readers that every day in New Orleans right now feels like it's only five hours long. The first thing I did was help out with a great project sponsored by the mayor's office called "Clean Magazine" on Saturday. It was great! Hundreds of residents helped bag leaves and trash along with hundreds of National Guardsmen. Then these guys came behind us with huge trucks and machines to gather bags, piles of debris and appliances.

By the end of the day the entire street was so much more beautiful and they even had a streetcleaner give it a wash. Now businesses are up and running. I also saw a mailman! I still have not received any mail but my friend Emily is getting mail regularly. I am guessing this is because her carrier has returned.

Go New Orleans !

You have to look up sometimes ~ this was great.
All over the city people from all over the world are here putting our city back together again. It's
up to our citizens to get back and help in that effort. I met people from everywhere from the Netherlands to Cuba and people who left their families for long periods to help us. I thanked
everyone I could personally.