Preservation Triage

This is a post I originally posted to www.squanderedheritage.com

On the drive back from NC today, I got a call. I have to attend a hearing tomorrow morning to save this structure from the wrecking ball. Again. There is a spiritual sense regarding my return and fragile properties. I was not surprised. Last time I came back, the Apricot St. house was mistakenly demolished, and I had this sense to call Karen, "check on Apricot". Sure 'nuf, it was gone. Due to an error on the part of Tony Faciane, which I later learned through documents we obtained from an RFPI. Apricot St. was our sacrificial lamb and the lessons we learned in that case gave us the confidence to work harder to avoid marginal mistakes.

This little house on N. Robertson had been on the imminent danger list last year because it's in a bad way. However, Miss N. and her husband bought it after the storm along with some other properties in the immediate area of N. Robertson and Ursulines. They have already stabilized and redone most of the properties they assumed in this very high risk block and have made an enormous impact with other investors, including Gladys Marigny and Scott Veazey, two well known historic renovators in Treme. The first thing they did was remove the damaged roof from 1114 N. Robertson in order to stop further deterioration. It has become a race against time.

I jumped through all kinds of hoops to get this off the Army Corps' Red Sticker list last year, getting an engineer's report and submitting all the necessary insurance paperwork to City Hall to help save it from demolition. That effort was a success.

Before Katrina it was on the market for a mere 30K and I even gave serious thought to buying it myself but I went ahead with the very large Gothic Eastlake on Gov. Nicholls instead. So this house speaks to me. Miss N. and her husband are going to rebuild it, it's in the queue of their projects in this area of critical mass in Historic Treme. As many people know, N. Robertson has been the core problem crime street for Treme. Before the storm, some of the properties here were simply not for sale. After the storm, the Bynums took advantage of their respected position in Treme to acquire some essential properties with the collective goal of bringing the area up out of its slum state. Chrabonnet funeral home is one property that backs up on this block and has been completely and beautifully renovated. It's an historically important anchor in Historic Treme, home to many landmark Jazz funerals and is now fueling this larger effort toward an architectural rennaissance on N. Robertson and Ursulines St.

I got a call on the way home today that it's on the docket for the Good Neighbor adjudication process for 9 am tomorrow, and N. has to attend a meeting for Women of the Storm so I am going to the hearing, to, yet again, rally hard for giving them every opportunity to get this property back into commerce.

It's brick between post makes it unique because even though it looks bad, the walls are only supporting themselves and can be saved. It probably dates to the mid-to-late 1800's and brick between post construction is unique to the quarter and Treme, so it's worth the all-out effort to save whatever we can. Furthermore, it doesn't post imminent danger to any structure in the immediate vicinity, making triage completely worth the effort.

So this is my welcome home. . . I will attend the hearing on the owners behalf. They have a construction crew working their way to this, fragile structure. Having been through this process, I am confident I can buy them some time. We know, with storm season upon us, time is now of the utmost.

Of Old Men and Young Boys

I forget that my Father is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. He was my Dad but he was also a veteran of the Vietnam War. I was looking to see if there was a directory of burials at National Cemetery. There is, but it's hidden in the Veterans Affairs website.

My father was drafted just after I was born, he was fortunate to make it back from Vietnam, he flew choppers on reconnaissance and sprayed agent orange which earned him a Purple Heart. After being back in civilian life for about ten years, my father contracted cancer from those chemical defoliation missions and was part of the lawsuit that the government weaseled their way out of. The texture of our lives changed dramatically for the next many years, always aware of the reality of days quickly dwindling.

Discussing my Father's last wishes became casual and matter-of-fact. Our family disagreed with his insistance on being buried so far away in Washington,D.C. We whined that it wasn't necessary to validate his courage, we preferred him to be close to home. We voiced our attitude regarding the Government, but he really felt like the Government owed him at least this much.

Military funerals are very moving and majestically beautiful, but I refuse to romanticize it. It's a dead body garden, of war. No amount of ceremony makes up for the suffering and the waste of lives of young men brainwashed by the selfish greed and poisonous pride of angry old men.

Cockade City

I haven't been able to get Petersburg,Virginia out of my mind for the past two years. One day, in about 2005, while driving from D.C. to NC, my companion pointed out that there was this town that seemed to have a lot of old houses he could see from the highway. Being curious, we had to stop. The town was almost a ghost town. All we could see in street after street were drug dealers. Where were all the people? This small community is a charming underdog of a city with a remarkable Victorian housing stock. Due to severe economic depression, much of this grand and elegant architecture has fallen into a blighted and marginal state. The affluent population seems to have moved down the road a piece to where the big-box growth is at the next highway exit.

Since submerging myself in the task of recording damage/blighted property in New Orleans since Katrina, this town has been on my mind for the quality and quantity of blighted properties to be found as well as the social phenomenon of property abandonment.

When something grabs my brain like this, I can only reconcile it by going to see for myself, to set the record straight in my mind. After two years, I was looking to see if; a) it was as good/bad as I had decided in only a drive-thru visit the first time and b) to see if the city had rebounded from its bleak state and if not. . . if not, how could it be worse?! If it was improving, could we learn anything that we could apply to the severe problems in New Orleans? Yesterday, I spent the entire day feverishly examining the architecture and layout of Petersburg, VA. Having given, literally about a hundred tours of New Orleans, I have learned how to crash-course myself in a new city.

I was encouraged to see that Petersburg is making great strides today. The real saving grace for poor little Petersburg is its history. Similar to New Orleans, in 1860, Petersburg claims to have had the highest percentage of free men and women in the slave holding states of the Confederacy and the Union.

Architecturally, Petersburg is the steward to a precious stock of antebellum masonry buildings in it's Old Town area near where the once reknowned port provided steady economic stimulation. At the center is a hexagonal market which was shuttered upon my last visit. It is now being conserved, as are many buildings in Old Town.

The Old Blandford Church, built in 1735, was closed and left to blight after a new church was built in 1791. This church has the distinction of being one of only a few churches whose entire program of stained-glass windows was completely designed and conceived by Louis Comfort Tiffany. Each window depicts a Saint for each of the States who voluntarily sponsored their own window to honor the soldiers from their region who died for the Confederate cause in the Civil War. Even more compelling for New Orleans, is that the Louisiana window was commissioned, not by the state, as is the case with S. Carolina, N. Carolina, Texas, Alabama, Virginia, Missouri, Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida. New Orleans' window commission was proposed with the stipulation that it be presented by the Washington Artillery of New Orleans, a private elite organization. Thus, as we often feel in New Orleans, though we are a city, in many ways, we are our own state. Washington Artillery Park is located on Decatur St., next to Cafe Du Monde.

Also of note, the Memorial Day fashion of rememberance, the decorating of graves of fallen soldiers, was said to have begun by Nora Maury, here in the cemetery of Blandford Church, the shrine to Confederate Soldiers. Here, June 9th is the city's own memorial decoration day, commemorating the Siege of Petersburg. There is a lot more to learn from Petersburg, I feel fortunate to have stumbled upon it. New Orleans' own historical contribution is much greater, we must continue to find a graceful balance to expand on how we can teach visitors about this history through our architecture. Oh, and though they have so much blight, they also have those giant garbage cans.


A large factor fueling the current preservation progress in Petersburg may be its location. It is located only 110 miles from Washington, DC, an enormous economic engine. Also important, the Virginia-based Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities was the United States' first statewide historic preservation group, founded in Richmond.

Flckr Photo Set

Emotional Equations

The ability to generalize about things is often considered one of the great human attributes. As someone actually said to me yesterday, from the safe and the normal conditions in Kansas City, MO, one can easily generalize the emotional equation of life in New Orleans into a collective wallowing. She was, "Crocheting clothing for trolls."

Anyway, it's an easy default to meet this collective dismissive with collective anger. Collective anger eliminates the feelings helplessness and abandonment by exchanging it for a moribound sense of community. Feelings of abandonment and distrust flourish in situations where someone really has been humiliated, cheated, or insulted. This was affirmed yesterday in the Senate Subcommittee hearing, our Government is less than willing to assist the citizens of New Orleans beyond the current anemic level of allocation. Yet, today, the Senate passed Bush's Military spending bill without any timeline for ending the cash guzzling quagmire. We will continue to shovel money into the war in Iraq, which was largely based on lies, just as we have for the last five years. It's somewhat sinister that this military spending bill includes $17 billion in unrelated domestic spending, with considerable portions earmarked for rebuilding infrastructure in New Orleans. It seems, that rather than giving money to people to rebuild their homes, it was ok to hand it to Bush's big buddy contractors and banks.

Our real, long-term, heightened state of insecurity is exhausting on its own. But it looks like we are going to continue to be hostages to Bush's Terror Nation mentality, so he can continue to pipeline cash to his friends.

It turns into emotional trigonometry. The best thing we might do is to try to keep the equation linear. We need to remind ourselves that anger is often rooted in fear. Fear is often based on some 'unknown' which ultimately results in zero sums for us on the ground. After another nine months, citizens in New Orleans seem to be locked in a long series of unknowns. Our life in variables. At the beginning of another hurricane season.

Siberia

In a situation where one thing has collapsed and something new does not yet exist, many people feel hollow and frustrated. This state is fertile ground for phenomena such as scapegoat-hunting, radicalism of all kinds, and need to hide behind the anonymity of a group whether socially or ethnically based. It encourages hatred of the world, self-affirmation at all costs, the feeling that everthing is now permitted, and the unparalleled flourishing of selfishness that goes along with this. It gives rise to the search for a common and easily identifiable enemy, to political extremism, . . . to a carpetbagging morality, stimulated, by the historically unprecedented restructuring of property relations, and so on and so n. -Havel

It is hard to imagine we could live in a world so instantly connected to up-to-the-minute events and yet still feel so isolated. So left behind. I watched citizens from New Orleans testifying today to the Disaster Recovery Subcommittee in Washington, D.C., begging for more funding and expedited processes from the Road Home. Residents did their best to explain with dignity how their lives, without using the word, were ruined. They were still waiting. Waiting for real hope or waiting for Godot? As Havel says, there are different kinds of waiting.

Citizens struggled today to connect the human and moral element of politics. To make up for lost time. To overcome years of convenient separation from politicians by the mass media. Today in front of the committee, citizens of New Orleans struggled to speak. If you have not lost your home, your spouse, job, you have heard thousands of stories of your neighbors who have. You have helped them to manage as they rebuild. Or you have stood by them as they waited.

It was a difficult to watch our citizens being forced to 'sell' their sorrow on tv to convince politicians to allocate more money to the program while ICF officials, who also testified, reside in criminal comfort.

In Over Our Heads

Alright four readers. Go get ya a Guiness and sit down. This is bad news, unless you're just in New Orleans to exploit us for a story . . . you know, it's so exciting.

Matt McBride is leaving. Matt McBride, author of Fix The Pumps is the person who has been watchdogging the Army Corps since last year to be sure they do the work they promised. The work necessary for this city to survive. Matt McBride was sort of my only hope. When I found out I was nauseous, Karen, my partner on Squandered Heritage felt faint. For days we had this ominous feeling we couldn't shake. Without a functioning drainage system, which depends, not just on the popular and overused L-word, but heavily on the floodwalls which line our drainage canals and our mammoth pumping system, we are, uh, fucked. Nothing matters. I do not need to explain the necessity of monitoring the Army Corps.

Last night there was a meeting of a small group of citizens to try to reorganize behind him, to keep his work going. At least to focus on one major issue at a time. Matt sent out an 800 lb reading list (aka Head Explosion) today and some Actions for the Field Work:


Reading:
National Historic Register nomination study of S&WB pump stations

USACE Project Information Report for rehab of outfall canals;
Revision 1

Revision 2

Revision 3

Revision 4

USACE PIR for rehab of Orleans Parish Pump Stations

IPET report, final version, chapters 5 and 6 (including sections of appendices dealing with Orleans Parish failures)

Team Louisiana final Katrina report

NSF-sposored Katrina investigation, based out of Cal-Berkeley


FEMA-sponsored study of flood mitigation in Broadmoor, as well as
other documents available at UNO Floodhelp portal

Every entry on my blog (including everything I've linked to)

Every entry on thread titled "Thanks Flood Advocacy!" on broadmoorimprovement.com discussion board.

Floodgates Operating Manual

View my September PowerPoint presentation (requires free PowerPoint viewer,available at Microsoft's website), which, while it is wildly out of date, still contains important introductory information.

Read sections of Broadmoor and UNOP plans dealing with flood mitigation

I would estimate this as at least two weeks of solid reading, but
probably more like a month.

Sofa Citizens

The sad truth is, the city has been in a bad state for the last 40 years and while the post-K landscape seemed like a good time to change the way things had been, as we all can see, this is not going happen. That's the truth. This is a provencial town and will never change. It doesn't matter how many meetings are held. The BS stays the same. Just look at the elections--everyone except 3 people are from the old guard. People don't want things to change here.

-- Anon

Is it necessary, at times, to practice indifference to keep one's sanity, live normally, enjoy a fine meal and a glass of wine, as the world around us experiences harrowing upheavals? . . . Indifference elicits no response. Of course, indifference can be tempting - more than that, seductive. . . A blur between light and dark. Indifference reduces the other to an abstraction.

-- Elie Wiesel

Three new people on the Council is rather courageous in an unstable environment. There have been other changes; Levee Board eliminated, Assessor Consolidation passed, Wetlands funding is gaining steam on the Hill, Criminal Justice Reform movements are being formalized. Will we get an Inspector General too? And don't forget your new garbage cans.

Bush Smackdown Gaining Momentum

Here in NC, I am on a research and writing retreat, cleaning house. It's good to leave to gauge how things look from outside the hot-zone of desperation. I am catching up on what's happening here in this very progressive mid-size city of 193,755 people. While Winston-Salem is often overshadowed by it's larger nearby 'twin', Greensboro. Winston-Salem is a college town, it offers a much more tranquil balance. W-S is the home of the North Carolina College of the Arts, the first state-supported school of its kind in the nation. It's also the home of the prestigious private liberal arts university, Wake Forest. Because of this W-S is very diverse for it's size and also has a great medical/teaching facility. Wake Forest University Baptist Center And it's clean. And I haven't heard gunshots nor sirens in a week . . .

One thing I saw was a handmade sign on the main drag that said MOMS Against War. There seems to be a fairly well organized anti-war movement around here and from the photos, looks like they have not overlooked Bush's failure in New Orleans and are using it as leverage. Wow, imagine THAT !

North Carolina World

Winston-Salem

Straddling Success

It's pretty unreal that I have been so behind in this blog but time in New Orleans moves in such jerks and starts and too many people pull me in too many directions. When I have had time, I have been writing for Metroblogging. The bottom line is that I am tired and beginning to feel pretty jacked around in every respect, like most people who have been here since Oct. 2005. No one here knows what they are doing, they have no experience in rebuilding a city. So they focus on their own specialization, make their own best contribution. All talents are valuable here these days. Well, not necessarily cash valuable. Good jobs are not easy to come by. Everyone is full of angst here and I am pretty damn happy right now to perhaps fall back on this to publish my own interests rather than material for a specifically defined topic. In other words, no one actually reads it.

In the past few months, I have had some great opportunities to write and also to meet some very talented writers. I have been asked to also contribute an Op-Ed to the Times Picayune on the state of demolitions in New Orleans.


Here's the text of my assignment:

I check in on Squandered Heritage occasionally, and was struck by the thought-provoking essay on Richard Nickel. I wanted to invite you to write something for the op-ed page on why it's important to preserve our architecture, including seemingly ordinary private homes, here. I think some people look at these houses and don't see anything special. Then there are houses that appear to be falling down, or were badly damaged in the flood.

The exact treatment wouldn't work for our op-ed page, since Nickel was from Chicago and the long passages quoted aren't ideal for us. It would need to be local, personal, about 600-700 words long and to argue a point. I am not really sure how you'd get into this topic, except to say that a Point of View is just that: Your point of view, hinging on your experience. Perhaps you could start with an account of watching a house be demolished, or one restored. Perhaps you could describe the death of Richard Nickel in explaining your work documenting the vanishing architectural heritage of N.O.

We can include a photo and certainly a mention of the Web site. The writing on SH.com is very strong, so I feel you'd be up to the challenge, if it's something you think you'd like to do.

Unfortunately we don't pay for guest commentary, but we do find that guest op-eds stimulate discussion on the issues. I understand you're probably very busy, but consider it an open invitation if you don't have time right now!

Thanks for your consideration and I hope to hear from you soon!

Annette Naake Sisco

Treme Transformation Continues

Since Katrina, the Historic Faubourg Treme Association has gathered a lot of steam. Our neighborhood is changing as people have begun to realize that this area is prime, non-flooded real estate. The Vieux Maison Francaise (French Heritage Foundation) is helping to renovate and save three historic homes. The Soulie cottage on Treme St. and the Passebonne Cottage at the African American Museum and one of the houses that are part of a set of sister houses called LeBlanc Row.

We have been having meetings every couple/three weeks, to get our infrastructure in place and this week I was accepted as an at-large board member. I seem to be attracted to nothing but the most challenging neighborhoods. We have a grant to invest in beautification projects, planting trees and landscaping and installing some historic markers. We are also getting more and more very talented new residents. Post-K new faces include Judge Rose Ledet, Daniel Taylor, the architect for the LIFT project and Pat Evans just moved in on St. Claude St, she is a professional neighborhood advocate who works at UNO. We already had some unique people who love our city in Treme, like Scott Veazey who does top notch renovations and has done a couple more renovations in Treme since Katrina. His house will be featured in New Orleans magazine this month. Of course, Naydja and Adolph Bynum who already own many beautiful properties and they have bought four more and are about half way done with two of those renovations now. Meg just bought this house at St. Philip St. and uncovered a historical legacy that was buried under brick and old asbestos siding.

So much is happening in Treme, it's hard convince people that aren't here. You have to see it to believe it.

Meg's Gets Medieval on the Termites

Meg had a case of drywood termites in a house she renovated about two years ago. This creole cottage is quite a sight tented. Meg's at her friends house while the gas procedure is done which takes a couple days. Her dogs are with someone else and her food is at yet another place til she can get back in.

Marmorino Veneziano on Ursulines Street

You're probably wondering what's going on with my rebuild. I'll post an update on that tedium soon, we're all in the hands of the evil insurance companies and so it's like the whole city is in a coma. If you didn't have to file a claim, you have no idea how frustrating it is and how it makes you want to just walk away from the whole city. So, to fight that feeling, I figure that this is a good time to spend on the neighorbohood organization, writing grants, and to gain inspiration from local artists. Part of the reason I think I haven't been posting here so much is that I have been working in the superior blogware over at Metroblogging and now this Blogger formatting pisses me off because it takes me too long because it has too many glitches.

My neighbor and I have been having this ongoing discussion about superior interior details as she rebuilds her house from the flood. We have been going on and on about this interior paint finish using wax over plaster. It sounded like so much work that I just shrugged it off because I am not big fan of the faux finish except in the historical context found in antebellum plantations and some turn of the century homes in the city. So my friend, MaPo took me over to her friends house on Ursulines in Treme to see the results of this technique which involves a couple thin layers of a plaster with crushed marble in it and then an application of a wax paste that is then buffed to a soft glowing finish. It's really the finish as much as the color/texture that impressed me, a finely buffed wax that is fundamentally a matte finish but with a translucent quality that reflects light. Sandy says that she cheated and used a power buffer and it was fine and saved a lot of time and energy.

In addition to the wall work, I was really happy to be able to see Sandy and Bill's house. It's one of those houses I have always looked at from the outside and wanted to go in, and finally I got to see it. One of my favorite things in New Orleans is getting invited to private parties just to see the inside of people's homes here because you never know what architectural elements you will be treated to once inside. A beautiful courtyard, a carriage house, balconies or galleries you can't see from outside, old fireplaces, beautiful woodwork including some inspiring custom cabinetry and sometimes brick between post walls or the view from above, in this case, St. Augustine's steeple !

For more details:
Stucco Italiano

Historic Faubourg Treme Association Takes Aim at Blight, Crime and Grime

Adolf Bynum, Beautification Committee Chair, Initiates Treme Cleanup Day

Since Katrina, Naydja and Adolf Bynum have spearheaded a new and more solid neighborhood organization in Treme. Prior to the storm there were a number of factions vying for control of this neighborhood because it stands as an icon to the culture and history of the city. We have the Backstreet Cultural Museum which is dedicated to the history of the Mardi Gras Indians, St. Augustine Church, the African American Museum, and Charbonnet's Funeral Home, and we were also the home of Joe's Cozy Corner, where Kermit Ruffins spent a good deal of his time. We also have Armstrong Park, home of Congo Square and we can claim the old Treme Market as part of our colorful past as well as Storyville. So there has always been a high degree of interest from various groups to steer the neighborhood.

Pre-Katrina, it suffered from a rash of drug violence which has been plaguing the second line scene for the past few years. Joe's Cozy Corner was the site of a few murders. North Robertson street still suffers from some bad elements who persist but we could see that the storm had created a vaccuum of leadership and for a while, crime. We decided this was the time to get start a very solid and very professionally managed neighborhood organization that would welcome all residents, erasing the past bad feelings that existed between old, ineffective groups that had failed to make any real positive impact in the area. After Katrina, the blighted ghetto looks more like a slum. The Historic Faubourg Treme organization is dedicated to the smaller historic area of Treme and focused on our main problems of Crime, Blight and Grime. In order to be successful, we have to keep our mission very focused, we want to make a measurable difference.

Trash is a big problem citywide right now. People can't seem to remember what a trash can is used for, throwing household trash in the street in grocery bags. Debris, which is everywhere was being picked up by the Army Corps of Engineers but we need to get residents back into the habit of renting dumpsters for construction debris.

We cleaned up a couple blocks of N. Robertson in late July preparing for our first ever Night Out Against Crime. This, the day after a quadruple murder on St. Ann and
Claiborne. But we hosted a very nice Night Out event and the media showed the good things happening in our neighborhood. We're a determined group.

On Aug. 20,2006 Adolf hosted a cleanup of most of the neighborhood that included many many residents and the city's sanitation department provided staff and trucks.
It was another great step toward our mission.

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.