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a specia l issue of observat ions and opin ions about new or leans summer 2007
24
Illustration © 2007 Mark Andresen
A N I N C O M P L T E S T O RY
Phot
ogra
ph ©
200
7 To
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Illustration © 2007 Brad Benischeck from his book Revacuation published by Press Street
The total of new condo units
slated for the metro area,
including projects announced
before Katrina, is 3,000,according to a Metairie-based
real estate expert.
A 12-condo project at 8416 Oak St. before
Katrina has sold all but one of the condos. Fifty percent of the units, priced from $250,000 to
$369,000, have been sold to
people whose homes flooded.
According to a local sales agent, people with damaged homes prefer to rent now while waiting for insurance settlements rather than buy another piece of property such as a condo. People from flood-affected areas such as St. Bernard Parish can’t afford to buy a condo in the city, he said. At the Cotton Mill condominium building in the Warehouse District, the average unit price is around $270 a square foot. Some other condos in the Ware-house District sell for twice as much, a 1,000-square-foot, two-bedroom, two-bath unit would sell for roughly $270,000 at the Cotton Mill.
From New Orleans CityBusiness, Deon Roberts, 2006
The challenge of rebuilding New Orleans and providing housing for its residents is immense, with tens of thousands of families displaced, their former homes destroyed or damaged beyond repair. Across the metropolitan area, nearly 228,000 homes and apartments were flooded, including 39 percent of all owner-occupied units and 56 percent of all rental units (Brookings 2005). Residents have returned to some relatively unscathed areas, such as the French Quarter and Algiers, but the devastation in more hard-hit areas is over-whelming and it is not yet clear whether or how these areas will be rebuilt.
From, Rebuilding Affordable Housing in New Orleans, Susan J. Popkin, Margery Austin Turner & Martha R. Burt
Rebuilding the devastated housing stock of New Orleans is essential for the city’s recovery. Without places to live, people cannot return to work, pay taxes, frequent local businesses, or send their children to school. But the challenge going forward is even greater if New Orleans is to avoid old patterns of concentrating assisted housing and poor families in a few isolated communities. If assisted housing—whether temporary or permanent—is systematically excluded from the city’s better-off neighborhoods, New Orleans will simply reproduce the severe neighborhood distress and hard-ship that prevailed before the storm.
Adding to the challeng-es ahead, some low-lying areas that were home to large numbers of the city’s poorest residents may never be rebuilt.
Illustration © 2007 Brad Benischeck from his book Revacuation published by Press Street
Illustration © 2007 Brad Benischeck from his book Revacuation published by Press Street
It’s a different kind of Left Behind,
a post-apocalyptic scenario of comic book proportion. Welcome to New Orleans
in the year 2, a place nudged by calamity out of the present tense and into
the future conditional. With roughly half the population missing in action,
them that remain must ponder what inaction, inertia, circumstance or
desire has led to the fact that they are still here. Them that remain must
observe the tenuous bond of civility and, ironically, the quirky solidarity of
a life in exile in their own hometown, banished liked bewildered children
to their rooms for crimes they do not understand.
Two years out and it still feels strange crawling back into our own
skin. Maybe the trauma of the Great Dislocation had been
slow in letting go its grip. Maybe the disconnection
nurtured by weeks and months from family, friends,
workmates, schoolmates and the thousand routines
that comprise a life has both strengthened and frayed
the bonds between New Orleanians. Maybe it rewired the
social synapses, making folks both familiar and unfamiliar
to themselves. Finding continuity—in past and present, who you
were and who you are, what was and what is—is a difficult
business and perhaps one of the few worth pursuing.
So hoist the fleur de lis flag and slap the Saint’s
“FAITH” sticker onto the bumper. Launch your own blog,
nail up your own street sign, or ink in your own NOLA tattoo.
Like JFK, look out to the horizon and proclaim “Ich bin ein New
Orleanian.” Or be Sputnik-like, orbiting ghosted neighborhoods surveying
the hobbled march of recovery. Sift through the Times-Picayune as you
would tarot cards. Check the calendar to make sure time is still ticking. Or
send up a bottle rocket and hear it shriek and crackle “happy new year”
as its sparkle flickers dreamily into the summer night. And welcome the
tempest-tost one by one as they rejoin the weary, wistful, whacked ranks
of them who are here.
by n
ick m
arinello
Illustration © 2007 Mark Andresen
we’re number one
Mos
t sp
orts
ana
lyst
s pi
ck t
he S
aint
s to
fini
sh fi
rst
in t
heir
div
isio
n.
Photograph © 2007 Morgan Katz
we’re number one
New
Orl
eans
ret
ains
its
titl
e as
mur
der
capi
tal o
f th
e U
nite
d S
tate
s.
Photograph © 2007 Morgan Katz Photograph © 2007 Rebecca B
Illustrations © 2007 Caroline HIll
Neary two years have passed since Hurrincane Katrina tore New Orleans apart, and the media seems to have moved on.
Illustrations © 2007 Caroline HIll
Neary two years have passed since Hurrincane Katrina tore New Orleans apart, and the media seems to have moved on.
Source: MTV.com 2007
gone green and every tree-lined street in town turns into a gloriously
soggy, thick, drooping canopy. And beyond the big w
et, there’s the
endless thickness of being. The humidity – forcing us to learn the
crucial lesson of life in New
Orleans day after day, year after year,
a lesson equally applicable to our mental health as to our physical
well-being: “W
alk slow and stay cool.” R
ain, humidity, and the rich
aromas of our w
et world. The steam
off hot pavement after a rain.
The rich brown earth. The funk of our bodies – the great equalizer—
every
time w
e step out our front doors. That’s the New
Orleans that keeps m
e
here, why I’m
proud to keep swim
ming hom
e.
Why S
tay by Marianne Thom
pson
There are countless “nowhere else buts” about N
ew O
rleans that make it
special. Like families living in “shotguns” and “cam
elbacks.”
Street nam
es that only we can pronounce and spell. The streetcars.
The food, music, architecture, history. B
ut for me –
the why of living here, staying here – keeps com
ing
back to the weather. C
all me crazy. I’ve lived in a few
wet
cities – Boston, S
eattle, and Washington D
C am
ong them – but none can
put on the show our thunderstorm
s can. I never doubt Zeus is alive and
well w
hen our own rolling thunder review
hits the sky. Followed by
mornings after, w
hen the grass has grown by a foot overnight, brow
n has
Photograph © 2007 Jackson Hill
gone green and every tree-lined street in town turns into a gloriously
soggy, thick, drooping canopy. And beyond the big w
et, there’s the
endless thickness of being. The humidity – forcing us to learn the
crucial lesson of life in New
Orleans day after day, year after year,
a lesson equally applicable to our mental health as to our physical
well-being: “W
alk slow and stay cool.” R
ain, humidity, and the rich
aromas of our w
et world. The steam
off hot pavement after a rain.
The rich brown earth. The funk of our bodies – the great equalizer—
every
time w
e step out our front doors. That’s the New
Orleans that keeps m
e
here, why I’m
proud to keep swim
ming hom
e.
Desire welcomes your participation. We accept submissions of poetry, short fiction, essays, interviews (500 words or less), and black and white artwork or photography. All submissions must be accompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope. Although reasonable care is taken, we assume no responsibility for the loss of unsolicited materials. Please send submissions to the address listed below.
Desire is the registered trade name of Desire, L.L.C.© 2007 Desire, L.L.C. 608 Baronne StreetNew Orleans, LA 70113 e-mail: [email protected]
CREDITSPublisher: Tom Varisco DesignsContributing Editor: Whitney StewartArt Direction, Design: Tom VariscoDesign, Production: Jeff Louviere, Rebecca B. CarrPrinting: Garrity PrintingPaper Stock: Accent OpagueType Face: Trade Gothic
Phot
ogra
ph ©
200
7 To
m V
aris
co