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

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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

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Photograph © 2007 Morgan Katz

we’re number one

New

Orl

eans

ret

ains

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titl

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der

capi

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f th

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nite

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tate

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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: tom@tomvariscodesigns.com

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

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