KNOA Studio

2007-01-16T11:01:00.000-08:00

KNOA Studio

Kentucky New Orleans Architecture Studio
3301 Chartres Street
New Orleans, Louisiana 70117

In response to the massive devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, The University of Kentucky College of Design has initiated the KENTUCKY NEW ORLEANS STUDIO, a semester of “study-in-action” designed to give students the opportunity to participate in the rebuilding effort via a series of design/build projects. Led by faculty members Liz Swanson and Mike McKay, a native of New Orleans, the goal of the studio is to complete specific design and build projects that fulfill needs for communities in an effective and artful way. By working directly with affected communities and local experts, students will gain invaluable experience by seeing their work as designers in action and therefore, the power of architecture to improve people’s lives.

The program offers 15 credit hours including architectural design projects, volunteer service, and concentrated seminar topics including sustainable building methods, landscape, preservation and social factors in design. We anticipate working closely with local organizations to complete specific programming, urban planning, and design/build projects. In addition, the studio will participate in the on-going conversation of how to rebuild the city.

We envision the New Orleans Studio as a permanent satellite studio resource with the capacity for expanded collaboration with other universities throughout the country. While the task and enormity of rebuilding is daunting, we are optimistic about the city’s future and believe that this situation, though tragic, also presents unique opportunities for progressive design, innovative thinking and exciting opportunities for new relationships among all those actively engaged and committed to the rebuilding of New Orleans.

For more information or inquiries about working with the KNOA Studio, please email Liz Swanson at: lizaswanson@uky.edu.

Residents of New Orleans

2006-12-31T15:19:00.000-08:00

New Orleans is a one of the oldest cities in America and has seen numerous flags occupy its territory. It is a city steeped in mystery and a place that has been unknown to me until recently. The New Orleans that I was familiar with was one that embodied phrases like “The Big Easy” and “Laissez les bons temp rouler (let the good time roll).” For me, it was a place where anything goes and the party never stops. Now after living here, those preconceptions have changed. Those phrases still exist and are apart of the city, but now after Hurricane Katrina I’ve found that community and the preservation of cultural heritage are new phrases I associate with New Orleans. After the storm, the importance of communication and the intensity at which they exhibit it is something that is at the heart of every New Orleanian.

My first experience with the residents of New Orleans was when I was invited to the first meeting of the UNOP. The UNOP is the Unified New Orleans Plan that is being organized and hosted by Concordia, which is a community based planning and design office that my friend Tony was working for over the summer. He called me on July 30th, the day of the meeting, and asked if I wanted to come by and witness “the first planning meeting of New Orleans.” I had just moved down here with three other students two weeks prior and was eager to see how the planning and rebuilding process was turning out.

My roommates and I headed to City Park where the meeting was taking place. It was clear and sunny Sunday afternoon and people were lining up outside the Botanical Garden entrance to register with the Concordia representatives. Since we were now official residents of New Orleans we decided to participate in what could soon be an historical afternoon. We waited in line and came to find our friend Tony working the registration table.

He commented on the unexpected large turnout and we each registered our address and marked our place on the district map, which was in district 3. When we entered into the Botanical Garden, we walked through a covered arch and then through a set of double doors into the main meeting hall where there were two rows of district booths flanking a central walkway where food was setup. The space was nice but extremely small for the amount of people that showed up to the meeting and since the planning was already such a sensitive topic the cramped room added to growing tensions.

When we waked into the main room, the meeting was just starting and people were told to report to their respective districts. The goal of the first meeting was to talk with district representatives and generate a series of questions that residents wanted the planning teams to consider on August 1st, which was the scheduled second meeting. We all felt a little out of place and thought our participation in the discussions should be kept to a minimum because we had only been residents of New Orleans for two weeks.

The meeting was very intense with confusion and frustration being felt by all the participants. I walked around and listened to the different groups discuss what they felt was important for the planning teams to know about their communities. Numerous topics were discussed ranging from social equity to cultural and architectural preservation. The theme I felt every group had in common was the idea of maintaining their neighborhood uniqueness and individuality.

The intensity in which the people fought was to preserve their unique neighborhood individuality. Every neighborhood seems to have a cultural identity unique to that particular area. All of them have their similarities, yet they have their differences too. It was interesting to experience first hand what residents at the UNOP meeting were so adamantly trying to defend and preserve.

Rebuilding with color

2006-12-09T14:04:00.000-08:00

Driving into New Orleans for the first time was quite somber. I had been traveling along I-10 when it suddenly turned into a 12-mile long bridge over open water, Lake Ponchartrain. The thought of running off bridges into water has always scared me, so I tried closing my eyes. It was hard not to steal glances and stare out the window, however. I was completely surrounded by rocky waters, with no clear sight of land. Temporary bridge sections had been erected along the stretch of floating road, which made my stomach turn even more. How did people ever escape this water? How could something that can look and sound so peaceful be such a beast?
When we finally reached dry land, I opened my eyes and breathed a sigh of relief, only to be taken aback by what I was now staring at: total devastation. New Orleans East was almost completely destroyed and it looked as if only ghosts lived there. I didn’t say a word—just took it all in as my parents and I continued to drive along the bumpy highway. I wondered what my new house would look like. I knew it was in good shape now, but what had it looked like right after the storm? I also knew that a big part of my new neighborhood had avoided flooding and it only suffered from wind and rain damage. But, what was it going to look like now? Would the bright, blue tarps acting like roofs be as abundant around my house as they were out here? This place was a mess—like a bomb had gone off; it was almost like pictures you see from war zones, but I was really witnessing it. Houses with missing walls (so you could see its’ insides that had been completely gutted out), entire roofs blown away, trees down, brick fences completely knocked over, and as expected, a trailer in many of the yards.

We got off the interstate and drove down Elysian Fields Road toward the river. Almost there. We were stopped by a light right in front of a hot pink building that was covered in big, yellow signs that read “24 hours” and “Free Drink with Every Po-Boy.” Wow. I don’t think that I had ever seen a hot pink building before in my life. It called to me.

The light changed and we found our way onto St. Claude Avenue toward Independence Street. Some of the buildings we passed were completely empty, ready to be bull-dozed over, while others were freshly painted with bright colors, colors most people would never imagine putting on the outside of a house. I smiled. I like bright colors and it made me feel that all was not lost. I think the houses were smiling, too, thankful to have survived and once again be a home for spirited people.

The more I’ve explored my neighborhood since then, the more houses I have passed by that are wrapped in vibrant, flamboyant color combinations. This neighborhood is called Bywater—one that is full of diversity and character, in both houses and people. Everyday, I see a house and think, “oh, I love that color! That’s what I would use on my home!” I wish I had my own home to paint. Right now, my dream house would have been repainted about 25 times. When I was a little girl I always wanted to paint my bedroom walls and ceiling so many different colors that would all fade into each other. It was never allowed and I was stuck with boring, white walls.
I often wonder why some people choose to paint their houses in plain, dull colors, while their neighbor might produce such wonderful eye candy. Back in Lexington, there is a small row of houses on Oldham Avenue that breaks out of the plain-house rhythm. Every strip of trim is a different color and I love walking down that street to see them.

The influx of Mediterranean and Caribbean cultures is what influences the people to paint houses multiple colors. Creoles have been painting their houses like this since the turn of the 20th century, the Victorian Period here in New Orleans. During the 1950’s, however, most residents began painting their homes white with green shutters, because of the low-cost. Then, in the 1970’s, a new group of people moved into the neighborhood that were artists and part of the H.I.P.P.I.E. culture, and made the houses sparkle again with different colors. The area has taken on a bohemian attitude and attracts people who like to remodel houses. Since Bywater was listed on the National Historic Preservation list in 1993, the neighborhood has celebrated their local architecture by painting more and more of them in bright colors.
Since Katrina, however, many of these colorful homes have been left with physical reminders of what went wrong here. X’s and water lines form a layer on almost every building and home in the city. Bywater was barely touched by the flood, but as you drive through the rest of the city you can see the water lines gradually rise and fall, letting you know the depth of the flood. How people have responded to them makes me sit and ponder. I’ve noticed that some have completely put new layers of fresh paint to begin again, celebrating their survival and showing the world that everything is okay. Some people have only covered up the X itself with paint, letting you see that it is still there, only now disguised. The rest have left their houses as is, as if to let everyone know, everyday that this city is not okay and must not be forgotten.

New Orleanians are working hard all day, everyday, trying to bring back what they once had; but they also celebrate the memory of their city and their survival and show that the true New Orleans is not lost. The physical appearance of the city was damaged, but its heart and playfulness is alive and well, more apparent day by day, through singing and dancing and lots of color.

-k. McOwen

The Search for Ignatius

2006-12-05T10:08:00.000-08:00

When I put down A Confederacy of Dunces, I breathed a sigh of relief. Had 394 pages of my life been wasted on as trivial a matter as the life of the obnoxiously-eccentric Ignatius J. Reilly, or was this something that would be set aside mentally, as so many things are, until one day I would stumble upon why it really mattered? Days after finishing the book, I was struck with two urges; the first to completely rid myself of such a loathsome character, the second to try and truly understand the reasons why Ignatius had become such a seemingly-important figurehead of the New-Orleanian lifestyle.

My "quest" to find Ignatius began quite unintentionally. Frequent solitary trips through the French Quarter would lead me to various characters, identities that would capture my imagination for a split second whether by means of a simple verbal exchange, a hanging glance, or some sort of intriguing attire. Whatever it was, often times this brief interaction would lead my thoughts back to this literary character, and my curiosity of whether or not he truly existed.

At times, I found myself running through the Quarter trying to spot the elusive Ignatius. The man strumming his guitar and singing at the gates of Jackson Square, after it had been locked for the night, was a likely candidate, with his friendly smile yet seemingly contentious air towards whatever tourist or local he decided to despise. Legs crossed seated in a small chair, he would strum his guitar, eyes sometimes locking with mine and at other times so distant that I felt as if my presence was an interruption. These times that he played for his own enjoyment rather than that of the passersby, as if realizing the charitable people had turned in for the night.

And then there was the dancer, wild stringy red hair, black jeans, and the checked flannel shirt that pulled his attire together. He appeared at a local music festival as if a beacon for those happy to be alive; shuffling feet, shaking hips, all without breaking his intent gaze upon whatever soulful performance was going on. Inhibitions removed, these moments reminded me of Ignatius...a man gluttonous only through the description of others, proudly flaunting his strange outfits and unnatural movements.

Next there was the old man resting on a bench under the flagpoles of the French Market, gazing intently at what I perceived to be nothing. So I sat and watched him sit. And all he did was sit. He clung to a black leather satchel, enough to warrant its importance yet loosely enough to show his leisurely approach. His disheveled appearance and rigid stance - fist cocked against what appeared a full belly - seemed fitting of my perception of Ignatius. It was a portrayal of forcible readiness mixed with a somewhat content knowledge of his existence. At that moment I could envision Ignatius ditching his hot dog route after indulging quite heavily for the day, instead deciding to spend the afternoon under his favorite tree and admire all the ridiculous tourists and undeniably-hideous workers.

It was at this point that I realized that these observations were no longer happenstance, but instead were meaningful and real. So, rather than put them aside and wait for the next encounter with an Ignatius-like character, I decided to go find him. Naturally, the first stop on my journey was the infamous hot dog company, employer of our now-beloved character. Though named Paradise Vendors in the novel, New Orleans has long been served by a company under a different name; Lucky Dogs. This profitable company began shortly after World War II, when brothers Stephen and Erasmus Loyacano began marketing their invention of a cart that could "steam cook 100 dogs, buns, and chili..." as well as "store everything for 300 more". Though their business was short-lived, it was purchased many years after its demise by Doug Talbot and Peter Briant in 1970. After implementing a series of new health regulations within their vending appliances (i.e. the sneeze guard and hand washing system), Lucky Dogs and everything they stood for were put back on the market. Since, they have thrived, or, as Ignatius would put it, "Fortuna" had "smiled down" upon this poor-mans business.

"Paradise Vendors, Incorporated, was housed in what had formerly been an automobile repair shop, the dark ground floor of an otherwise unoccupied commercial building on Poydras Street. The garage doors were usually open, giving the passerby an acrid nostrilful of boiling hot dogs and mustard...The powerful stench of Paradise Vendors, Incorporated, sometimes led the overwhelmed and perplexed stroller to glance through the open door into the darkness of the garage."(152) Ironically, as I should have assumed, Lucky Dogs was located a mere 3 blocks away, at 517 Gravier St. Because the hours of operation stretched until 3:30AM, I began my exploration in the wee hours of the morning. What I found was precisely what I had envisioned: a rundown, seemingly-abandoned building basked in the green glow of the street lamps. Though there was no visible sign defining its current use, a thread of light crept from under the front door of the otherwise-dark building and from somewhere inside mens' voices erupted in coarse intervals. I hesitated until a man approached from the bar across the street; I dared ask if this was, indeed, the Lucky facility. He grinned and replied with a nod, stating that he, in fact, had been an employee of the very business almost 15 years prior. When asked about its history, he told me that it had been open almost 40 years yet had never had a single marking to advertise its presence on the block. He continued to say that their luscious dogs were no longer cooked at the place - all Lucky Dogs did was distribute the fine goods to the public by use of the Loyacano-brothers design. Affirming he knew nothing more of their mode of operation, this slight Ignatius withdrew into the shadows, and I retreated back into mine.

At this point, there was one spot left to visit, a place that, over the summer, had often become a detour during my various bike rides between Calhoun and Canal: the Prytania Theatre. The building itself dates back to the early 1900s and is the last single-screen theatre in Louisiana. At first, I had been drawn to it purely out of curiosity, but now I envisioned Ignatius creeping inside to escape the rigors of work, his loving mother, or simply the day itself, in order to catch a movie he would soon belittle.

During this visit, however, it wasn't the red brick finish, the domed entry, or any other elements of its storybook majesty that struck me. Rather, it was the sign placed in front of the business which read, "Prytania Theatre: STILL OPEN". Those words struck a chord, at once compounding the vast number of intangible ideas I had been trying to grasp. Maybe looking for Ignatius was merely an excuse for understanding a much larger idea: the stubborn resilience of a culture creating an unwillingness to give up in the face of tragedy and destruction. Due to the events little more than a year ago, thousands of people's lives were completely disrupted and they had been forced to start anew. The message on the sign seemed the slogan of all those who had stuck it out and refused to give up; we're still here.

As I walked back to my car, I wondered if Ignatius J. Reilly really ever mattered.

-TonySaba Shiber

Driving Hope

2006-11-25T09:24:00.000-08:00

Being a child from a family history of car dealers, I grew up with a passion for driving. Maybe it was the power I craved of gripping the large leather wheel and the ability to maneuver such a massive vehicle anyway I wished. As soon as my legs were long enough to reach the pedals, my father and mother felt no apprehension in allowing me to test-drive whatever car we had for the week. I undeniably, as everyone does, made my share of errors along the way. My first reckless mistake behind the wheel was backing into our steel swing-set quickly realizing the need for more brake and caution and less acceleration. Another vital lesson learned was to smoothly rotate the wheel around curves rather than jerking the car nervously. I quickly understood to relax, breath, remain confident and let the yellow and white lines, the symbols of the road, guide my path.
Many people I know don’t enjoy driving, especially alone. They find it long, boring, and lonely. I am quite the opposite. Driving is the best, especially when alone. I turn the music of my choice up as loud as I want, listen to a song as many times as I desire, and sing along with horrific, yet joyful melody. But also on my journeys of driving, I discover moments; moments my professors have described so well as “ah-hah” moments. These are the moments where time seems to pause and I am warmed with a greater appreciation and understanding of the world in which I exist. They are physical symbols in my life, visual events etched in my memory that inspire a trust in what lies ahead. Driving seems to enhance these moments. It allows the witnessing of the sun in the spring resting behind navy hills sprinkled with pastel purple bushes and colors of the new season. Another experience, struggling through a thunderstorm on a barren highway and the promising sun finally pierce the grey clouds with comfort and relief. It’s as if the moment was intended just for me and one I know I can’t describe; an experience that warms deep in my stomach and excites my existence. It is blissful to drive and see the shadows change with the passing landscape and the numerous events that unveil with my acknowledgement.
While living in New Orleans the past few months, driving is an experience in itself. Beginning in the historic residential Garden District and crossing Canal Street with its trolley rails into the French Quarter is a drive I look forward to each day. With my warm, steaming coffee mug in hand, I drive cautiously on Decatur avoiding the scatter of tourists randomly crossing the street at any moment. As I drive deeper into the Quarter, I approach the heart of New Orleans, and recognize to my left an iconic symbol of both New Orleans and the Quarter: Jackson Square and its backdrop, Saint Louis Cathedral. The cathedral is the oldest Catholic Church in America, and its physical symbol, the cross, pokes at the blue sky from behind a green canvas of trees and an iron fence speckled daily with various paintings. My first visit to the cathedral was on the afternoon before, after my early morning drive from Ft. Hood, Texas where I said goodbye to my fiancé before his departure for war. While in the famous cathedral, I was awed at the amount of people touring with guides through the sanctuary, I went to the sanctuary to find peace and comfort from my worries, but I didn’t stay long. I felt as if I was also on public display with the church.
While waiting at the stoplight, I gazed at the tourists who strolled along the colorful exhibits of local paintings by the artists that sat quietly in the shade near their work. A particular pattern caught my eye of what seemed to be a voodoo-inspired, or as its properly pronounced “hoodoo”-inspired painting that contained vivid human figures and distorted physical symbols I had seen before in New Orleans, the capital of Voodoo. I was struck by the proximity of these two beliefs: Catholicism and Voodoo.
As I was gazing at the elements of both religions, my thoughts shifted by a billboard on a local transit bus resuming speed and trailing dark grey fog with each gear shift as it pulled from the bus stop. The billboard on this bus, similar to the one I saw earlier on the side of a trolley, displayed in bold letters, “City of Hope” New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Hope. Hope, it’s definitions differ. Is hope the same for all in the city of New Orleans? The dictionary describes it as “to wish for something with expectation of its fulfillment; to have confidence; to trust; to expect and desire.” Catholicism, which obviously plays a vital role in the history of this city, says that “hope is the desire of something together with the expectation of obtaining it; a movement of the appetite towards a future good, which though hard to attain is possible of attainment.” This is a faith that is directed towards the soul of the human and the intimate trust in the Almighty…in God.
Voodoo, originating from the Fon word Voudon means “the power; that who is invisible; the creator of all things.” This belief is a combination of African tribal religious beliefs and elements of Roman Catholicism. In the 18th and 19th centuries, New Orleans was the number one port of entry for slaves, who were forced to discontinue their religious beliefs and accept a new one. Severine Singh of New Orleans Voodoo Crossroads stated, “Yet in the terrible conditions of their enslavement, the African’s only hope lay in their very faith. Amidst broken tribes and families, they found unity and solace in God and ancient rituals.” By creating Voodoo, these slaves embedded their original beliefs within the Catholic tradition, so their original beliefs could not be taken away, much like the dreams of the individual mind. The most famous physical icon of Voodoo is Marie Laveau, a 19th century New Orleanian who proclaimed herself the Pope of Voodoo and who was also recorded as a “devout catholic, going to mass each day.” She was even given permission by the church to perform rituals behind St. Louis Cathedral.
Just like voodoo offered hope for the slaves by preserving meaning to those who had lost so much, and Catholicism offers comfort to many, I wonder what else might offer the hope for this city. Are there other sources, signs and symbols of hope within New Orleans that continue to drive people forward with their lives, especially with the recent devastation of Hurricane Katrina? So many people lost so much, including members of their family and community, friends, and/or their homes. Is the present symbol of hope in this city spray painted on the sides of their homes? The symbol “X” tagged by search and rescue groups in the days after Hurricane Katrina still relics on many buildings. Is this residue of “X” a physical reminder of hard times overcome? Is this a modern symbol of encouragement for this City of Hope? I wonder if Catholicism and Voodoo played a role in providing hope for New Orleanians. Most people who live elsewhere assume New Orleans is a deserted ghost-town of sewage, trash, and sadness…but it’s not that at all. Well, there is a little trash. The New Orleanians I’ve met are strong-willed individuals with the expectation of a bright day...hanging on to any and all signs of a hope. I can only imagine the bittersweet homecoming to New Orleans. A drive many New Orleanians made; they returned to their homes, picked up what remained and, now, seem to really appreciate life and all that it offers.
As I return to my reality, the light turned green and I proceeded behind the yellow and white bus matching the yellow and white lines of the road. My thoughts flashed to yesterday morning: 6:00 a.m. Driving; down a black reflective road in which yellow and white lines were all that guided me. On this morning drive, the reflection of my headlights on the wet surface reminded me of what I was doing, driving…away…from him…How could this be? All of a sudden, driving seemed like torture.
Now, only days later (days that felt like hours), the familiar painted lines on the blacktop seemed to be on a revolving belt, driving me on a surreal band of darkness. I realized again, I was driving alone. Warm burning tears tore my cheeks as they fell. I breathed…jerky breaths. I felt as though the sky and world around me consumed the automobile in which I sat, mocking my sorrows. A ball of sadness and self-pity lodged deep within my throat. I took another breath. The road filled with a fog, tears drowned my vision, then plunged down my face. A large salty drop hinged at my chin. I wiped it. Above the road, I notice the beginning of a bright datum of the horizon. Warmth and hope. The warm smile of the sun peeked through the dark curtain of night like a child waking from its slumber. A smile…the sun. A promise. A new day. A moment no picture can capture; no words can adequately describe. It was a moment of comfort; sensual and deep. A pocket in my soul and a part of my being that can’t be forgotten. I felt hope. Hope to drive on.
Where to? New Orleans. Camp Street, my apartment. Piety and Chartres, my school. Although I didn’t want to drive further, the light led me. Brighter. Lighter. I put my hand on the wheel, tightened my grip in its proper position and took a breath. I drove… to the City of Hope, I drove.

-Ashlea D. Beardsley-

Sportsman's Paradise

2006-11-16T14:23:00.000-08:00

The last fishing line had nothing but half eaten heads of bait fish on the remaining two hooks, and to make things worse this last trot line felt like a snag. As I started to pull in the line, I began to worry that I would be going back empty handed, when suddenly my 13-year-old, 115 pound frame was jerked toward the surface of the Mississippi River. My eyes widened, my heart started to race, and I began to fight back. After I had won most of the line, I could only see a white blur dancing beneath the surface of the cold, murky water. Then quickly, with a splash, my step-dad dipped in the net, scooped up the fish, and threw it in the bottom of the boat. Back home, we weighed it at 23 pounds, cleaned it, and then ate the blue catfish for at least two goods meals in the days after.
Now, 676 miles down the Mississippi, I find myself living in Sportsman’s Paradise: a place that’s peppered throughout the state with swamps, that produce hundred’s of trophy size fish, game birds, and alligators year after year. After living here for a couple of months, I realized I had still had not taken advantage of this luxury; so I decided that when my parents came to visit, I would try to get a glimpse of this wildlife paradise, and take a swamp tour.
On a warm, Saturday afternoon, my mom, step-dad, and I arrived at an old shack, which housed the headquarters for the Honey Island Swamp Tour, with an empty stomach. My step-dad and I decided to have a taste of the gator filled menu. We both agreed on the gator dog, but this wasn’t a good choice; I think the whole menu might have been the same way. After eating half of this tough-skinned gator dog we, boarded the boat and headed off, down the Pearl River.

Once on the river, we took detours off the main channel through little pockets of swamp land. Inside these finger-like extensions of the river, the first thing I noticed was a three foot ribbon of water-lines that stretched across all of the trees. What I noticed about the best way to live in the swamp is to build a corrugated metal shack on floating devices that moves up and down along with the water levels. Since this was a nature reserve where trees are not allowed to be cut down, most of the structures had been built around these densely growth of trees.
Suddenly, my attention was pulled away as the boat dipped forward and the wake behind the boat rushed back towards us, sending the boat rocking back and forth. At the same time, the tour guide stood up, raised his hand, and pointed out the first gator of the day. He described how to estimate the length and guessed it to be at least 12 feet long. After everyone got a picture of the animal, he started the engine and continued forward towards a denser part of the swamp. While snaking the boat through the Cypress trees and knees he continued to describe how one would go about fishing for alligators. “Now, the key to getting the biggest gators,” he explained, “is to hang the chicken higher up, about one and a half to two feet above the surface of the water. You see, the bigger the gator, the stronger it is, so the higher they can jump for the bait.” He continued to describe how the alligator will actually swallow the chicken whole; the hook would then set itself inside the stomach, and later kill the gator.
After that, we began gliding through an area of water blanketed with small green leaves that moved with every little ripple in the water. Because of these leaves, we ended up right next to two beady eyes popping out of the water. It was a gator that had been watching us approach him from some distance away. Once the tour guide spotted it, he playfully threw marshmallows at the motionless alligator. Most likely bored of marshmallows from previous tour guides doing the same thing, the alligator swam off after the third mallow hit him straight between the eyes. Once the excitement was over, the setting sun and chilly breeze recommended that we head home. While zipping up the Pearl River for the last time, I noticed a fishing camp on the bank with a fisherman unloading his catch of the day. In that moment, I was reminded of my sportsman’s paradise 676 miles up the Mississippi River.

sweat.

2006-11-07T13:47:00.000-08:00

(Poland Street Wharf, the hottest place I have been to in New Orleans.)
Sweat will remind me of New Orleans. Twenty years from now, I will step out of my
air-conditioned car and into the hot summer heat in a supermarket parking lot. Little beads of sweat will appear instantly on the end of my nose and in the small of my back as I lock my door. It will make dark spots under my arm pits and soak my socks. I will pause as I reach for a shopping cart in the cart caral and the overwhelming heat takes me back to the hottest experience in my entire life.
I have been to a genuine desert in the middle of Colorado at the base of the Rocky
Mountains. It was a small park, probably nine square miles, a deposit for sand that was funneled through a crack between two massive mountains.

In the glossy informationpamphlet, the Park Service reminds visitors to wear thick-soled tennis shoes or hiking boots. No flip-flops or any other open-toed shoes, it warns, as direct contact with the scorchingsands could result in third degree burns. I went on a three hour hike over the sand duneswith no water and came out both sunburned and windburned. With my recent experiencewith heat in New Orleans, I now look back on that experience with pleasure. “There was such a nice breeze. Not like here,” I tell my parents over the phone wistfully.
I come home every day with evidence that all the sweat from my entire day is still
sitting on my skin in thick disgusting layers. If I really want to gross myself out, I can take my fingernails and drag them over my skin and be rewarded with sweat in a solid form. Often I will ride my bike for hours on end, exploring the city and its tiny cracks and crevices. I come back home and there are white salt stains on the shins of my pants, small deposits of salt embedded in fabric. I think they are disgusting. I remember my grandfather telling me that cows and deers are attracted to salt deposits and will lick them for nutrients. If that’s so, then they would probably love to lick my pants at the end of the day. There would no doubt be lots of delicious nutrients for them.
Sometimes my legs get so sweaty that I have to roll up my pants, take my thumb
and pointerfinger in the shape of a “C”, and squeegee the sweat off of my shins.

Then I flick it onto the hot blacktop. It evaporates in a matter of seconds. I have counted. Substantial drops of sweat will sit on the pavement, and BAM! three seconds later they totally vanish into the atmosphere.
New Orleans is definitely the hottest place I have ever been to. It is consistently hot. Now it is the very end of October, and while it might be freezing in Kentucky, I can still expect a sweaty back if I go biking with a backpack on. It is very hard for me to picture a New Orleans before air-conditioning was invented. There would probably be a lot of cranky, smelly people walking around. That is how I picture it.

There are two things I have noticed through intensive research and extensive
personal experience that may have helped people deal with the suffocating heat and humidity: one is the shade produced by large trees, and the second is the shotgun house.

The shotgun house type migrated to the Southern United States from Haiti and
Africa by way of the slave trade. To the Haitians, this tall, skinny, extended structure was the building type used for meeting halls (“togun”, meaning place of assembly, possibly being reprocessed into “shotgun”). New Orleans was the first place that this housing type waswidely used, first seen here definitively in 1832. It has nice cooling qualities. In my shotgun house on Poland Avenue, we can open all the windows and enjoy nice breezes as they carry the sounds of our neighbor Vanessa yelling at her four yelping chihuahuas over Celine Dion. On special occasions, we can hear the sound of Vanessa yelling at her mom. This is also usually accompanied by
Celine Dion. When all the windows are open, the house becomes a large shed roof with
no walls. I like this very much.

I also like the shade under trees too. It becomes a nice place to go to when
Vanessa’s whole family comes to visit.
Sometimes I like to sit at Markey Park, the park a block up from studio that we are
designing this semester. The shade is perfect there at certain times of the day, but you have to be careful where you step because lots of dogs like to use the park. The users of the
park have brought generic plastic chairs and left them under the trees. There is really no
other place to sit except for the ground.

I find these chairs to be very beautiful. They are white resin chairs under all the coats of paint people have applied. Over time these coats of paint have been chipped or worn off from sitting and constant use, which makes them more interesting. The people in the park can simply move them from sunlight to shade whenever they feel like it, as opposed to fixed benches, which cannot be moved and are not responsive to the lighting conditions in the park. Some people resent resin chairs. They find them tacky and tasteless. I always try to find the best in chairs. I like them all. The resin chairs have a noble lineage- Eero Saarinen dreamed of producing a chair that was a “structural total”. “I look forward to the day when the plastic industry has advanced to the point where the chair will be one material,” he once said. These chairs are Saarinen’s dream come true.
My favorite chair is a smaller resin chair that I sit in whenever I
get coffee and there is good weather.

Your first impression might be, “Wow, this is a really ugly chair,” and you would be right. It is a really ugly chair. Usually when I see chairs this ugly they are in the trash. It was originally made from a light cream resin, then it was painted
dark blue, and then a rust colored coat was crudely sprayed on at a later date. It is now possible to see all the way to the light cream coat through all the scratches. It is very comfortable, though. It cradles me with its cool plastic skin. The back gives slightly when I lean back. I like this chair. I can carry it around the park with me. I can sit in any combination of shade and sunlight I want so I don’t get too sweaty.
The weather is finally starting to cool off here. The temperature dips below sixty at night and never rises above eighty in the day. Regardless, I will always think of New Orleans whenever I break into a sweat .

-Caleb Sears

Bourbon Street is a rumor.

2006-11-01T20:42:00.000-08:00

How does one describe Bourbon Street? Since I live in New Orleans, my friends are curious to know what its like on this famous avenue. New Orleans is renowned everywhere for its rich culture, music, architecture, and cuisine, and Bourbon Street is a category in itself. It has evolved into a social and cultural icon that New Orleans has invested upon. The city even relied on Bourbon Street after the storm to bring back the tourists. But what makes Bourbon Street like no other place? I began to wonder why so many people were fascinated with a place they had only heard stories about and very few witnessed. In a way, Bourbon Street is a rumor. Rumors are stories that spread like wildfire, they are believed and passed whether they are true or not, and its truth is only revealed upon firsthand experience. Before now, I heard the stories and had built it up in my mind as this crazy place that acts like its Mardi Gras every night. So naturally, I had to visit. To discover my own interpretation and also to find out the truth behind its iconographical status, I had to visit the place myself.
I started my journey on a cool, crisp Saturday afternoon. Deliberately avoiding the narrow, tourist drawn streets of the French Quarter, which are especially packed on Saturdays, I decided to park my car in a parking lot about three blocks away from Bourbon Street, on North Peters Street and walk around. As I made my trek up Toulouse, I passed the intersections of Chartres and Royal, filled with groups of impressionable tourists carrying maps and shopping bags.
As I finally reached my destination, I realized the nearly empty street was almost silent, with the exception of the sound of a lone saxophone coming from an even emptier bar. I noticed many trash cans that were overflowing with the contents of the night before. As I passed a few bars, I couldn’t tell if some of the them were closed just during the day or have remained that way since Hurricane Katrina. So in a way as Bourbon Street is recovering, so are the people that partake in the late night festivities on the avenue.
I soon became thirsty and was in search of a quick refreshment. With so many choices, how does one decide? It was just my luck, as a daiquiri bar on the corner of Bourbon and Conti caught my eye. It was called “The Jester” and like many of the bars and clubs along Bourbon Street, it was very open and inviting. There were three people seated at the bar and a very colorful, yet knowledgeable bartender.
“What can I get ya, Babe?” he asked.
Hmm. There were twelve flavors to choose from and each one sounded very delicious. I asked the bartender, Eddie, he would later tell me, what his favorite was. He suggested their specialty named for the bar, the Jester and I trusted his choice. He served me the green concoction and my mouth felt a surge of lemon lime goodness. Since he wasn’t busy with the other customers, Eddie and I began to make small talk with Eddie. I told him I was from Kentucky and new to the area. Eddie said he had lived in New Orleans for the past seventeen years, including the two months he spent outside the city during the aftermath of Katrina. He returned because he missed the sound of the city that would echo in his home in the French Quarter.
He seemed rather informed about the area so I asked him my burning question. When and how did Bourbon Street become so popular? Eddie believes the nostalgia of Bourbon Street began when its former district of Storyville was forced to close in 1917, due to the United States Navy refusing to have its base so close to legalized brothels. Storyville culturally constructed the image of New Orleans as a good time town and today, Bourbon Street conveys that image with its bars and gentleman clubs. Its first night club opened in 1925 as well as the opening of its first burlesque clubs for soldiers when World War II began. When the war ended, tourism increased as well as the need for more restaurants and hotels, and other means of entertainment. Over time, businesses began to focus on more evening associated entertainment. “But why Bourbon Street,” I asked. It is simply because it’s positioned on a major thoroughfare in the district. Interested in witnessing the nightlife firsthand, I said goodbye to Eddie. But before I left, he added that its popularity may also stem from allowing American tourists to experience something that isn’t available in other parts of the United States. I thanked him, grabbed my “go-cup” and went on my way anticipating the experiences that would await me later in the evening.
When I returned that night, I again passed groups of tourists now carrying drinks and many strands of colorful plastic beads. The once nearly empty street was now flooded with revelers taking in the wild nightlife that Bourbon Street has to offer. I walked by five star hotels that were within walking distance to gentleman clubs. Even on street corners there were moments of disparity where a scantily clad cross dresser was sharing a street corner with a highly successful business man. Bourbon Street has the ability to bring together different people and places to coincide.
There are music clubs that line Bourbon Street as well. The closest association to where jazz was developed in New Orleans, I was told, is at Preservation Hall. Wanting to take in the scene of traditional jazz amidst an array of karaoke bars and dance clubs, a worker informed me that they were closing. The only way I could come in was to get a drink. I was upset by this news and settled for dancing to a melody-challenged singer crooning on a karaoke stage across the street at the Cat’s Meow. Before too long, the dance floor became extremely crowded. A late-night misty rain had fallen, which forced some to take shelter inside, while others remained dancing in the streets.
Eventually, just like the rain, my night on Bourbon Street had come to an end, although it became clear to me that the party would still live on even without my presence. The neon signs that lit up the dark cloudy night would still burn just as brightly as they would during the day. Musicians would hang up their microphones and close up their pianos just to perform again the next night. Dedicated revelers would resist signs of weariness before they ultimately gave up to its clutch.
I returned home still as unclear as to the true meaning of Bourbon Street as when I had left. I interpreted Bourbon Street as ambiguous. It can’t be defined. It’s an experience. It must be felt. Don’t believe the rumors and don’t believe what I’ve told you. Come see it for yourself.

-Lindsey Fister-

New Orleans is a Scorpio

2006-10-24T14:42:00.000-07:00

The French Quarter is truly a puzzle when it comes to parking, especially in the morning. But as it so happens, it must've been my lucky day; I found a spot on Phillips St. right off of Decatur. I parked and fed the ticket machine 80 cents from my right pants pocket. I then placed the freshly printed parking pass on my dashboard, locked the car, and went through a short checklist to make sure I was prepard to document my trip properly. Cash? check. Notebook? check. Camera? sort of check. I had just bought some of those rechargeable batteries, but after opening the package and trying to operate my camera with the energy I thought they would provide, I discovered that one must first charge the batteries before one can actually use them. Thus, on my way to Jackson Square, I stopped in a gift shop to pick up some AAs. My checklist was complete.I made my way down Decatur through a stream of older tourists until I reached Jackson Square, which was sparsely decorated with pedestrians, a napping homeless fellow, and puddles from a morning shower. I walked around the park looking for psychics, viscerally heading toward the north side. Two fortunes tellers had set up tables facing the cathedral: a woman with her dog, whom I had heard reputable things about from various sources, and a disheveled man with decrepit lawn chairs and a drinking problem. I knew the woman would be my psychic of choice, but there was a short wait. To pass the time, I decided to wander through the Square. This provided a great photo opportunity, that, I am sure, many people have taken advantage of before. The Cathedral looked very elegant in front of the overcast sky. So did Andrew Jackson. However, I think they looked the most magnificent when they posed together. I walked back to the north side of the Square to find it was still not my turn for a reading, so I walked into the Cathedral to pass even more time. The interior was beautiful. I walked up the nave to photograph the altar and then back to the doors to photograph Louis IX and Joan of Arc.

I left the church and noticed the fortune teller I desired had finished her private meeting with the earlier client and there were no other potential customers in the area. Perhaps this was my chance to move in closer and ask her to read my fortune. Dare I move in and have all of my hopes, dreams, and fears revealed to me? Yes I dare. I greeted her and she greeted me while closing a plastic container with a large chicken finger in it. I asked her about her profession. "You read fortunes and stuff?" I asked. " I need someone who is an expert in palm reading." She replied that her skills were not only proficient in palm reading, but in tarot card reading as well. I sat in her red cushioned chair and we began the typical small talk with introductions. Her name is Terry, but she goes by Velvet. My name is Graham and I am from Kentucky. She wanted to start with a tarot card reading. I agreed. I picked ten cards with my left hand, since, she explained, the right side of my brain is the intuitive side. This was for a general reading. The reading told me about who I am now, what will happen in my immediate future, my personality, my relationships, and my destiny. While she was giving me my general reading, her dog Sangria, or as Velvet called her, Gri-Gri, was constantly whining. After shushing the dog several times, Velvet gave her the last chicken finger from the plastic container. As the dog ate, Velvet gave me another tarot card reading. This one specifically geared toward my love life, a tangent of the general reading. After completing this tarot, she moved on to a palm reading. I extended my right hand and watched her as she studied the lines and cracks in my skin. She told me I had a long life line, that I was an old soul with many past lives, and potentially psychic. She asked me if I ever felt psychic. I wanted to tell her about the time when I hadn't thought about a certain friend of mine in months and then one day, a week or so ago, I was wondering what he was up to and then he called me within an hour of the thought. Instead, I responded "Sometimes." Then it was my turn to ask her any specific questions I wanted answered about myself. This is when I told her about my big idea. I had been curious about the idea of reading into the future or past from lines on a surface. I then combined this with an interst of the lives and deaths of cities throughout history. People have been getting their fortunes read for years, so why not a city? If the lines produced on our hands produced by a certain higher power or DNA or whatever could be read, was it possible for the lines on a city map, designed by planners, to be read? Could she read the fortune of New Orleans? I wasn't comfortable drawing tarot cards for the city, but a "palm reading" seemed totally objective. I took out a map of the city and unfolded it on her table while explaining my idea. She was intrigued and very excited to give it a try. At first, she had trouble reading the map, but a quick orientation of our location and the cardinal directionsgot the stars to start aligning. She was quick to not that the base of the city actually looked like the base of a palm and identified a long life line, which I recognized as I-10. She also picked up on a long heart line, which means the city is deeply loved. Before, I had only noticed this heartline as Earheart Boulevard. She went on to note that she could not read too much more into the map itself, but she knew the city was a Scorpio since it was founded in Novemeber. Apparently Scorpios are related to the Pheonix, a creature that rises from the ashes of its death. All of these are very positive signs: The city is loved, it has a long life line, and pheonix-esque characteristics. I folded the map and she closed with a final personality-related tarot. As it turns out I am too hard on myself. She gave me a green stone as a parting gift. Its supposed to remind me to find serenity. I paid Velvet and told her she had been very helpful. As I walked back to my car I thought about my fortune. I'm a dreamer with money in my immediate future. I will find true love, I have a "star" personality, and I am destined to become very successful. Of course, this was music to my ears. And as I turned the corner to see the hot orange envelope of an NOPD parking ticket on my windshield, all I could do is put my hands deep in my pocket and rub my green serenity stone.

A Path Through New Orleans

2006-10-19T13:51:00.000-07:00

It wasn’t until very recently that I rediscovered the experience of riding a bike. In the process of moving to New Orleans, I decided that I could save a good deal of money on gas (and tires, thanks to all the nails and potholes) if I didn't bring my car, and instead used a bike to get around. Not having ridden a bike for some time, this became quite a life-style change as I had depended on my car to get around for the entirety of my post-adolescent life. In college, I had always lived close enough to school to walk, and if I couldn’t walk it, I drove it. Now, living in a new city, having to travel farther than ever before to get to school, I was without my Oldsmobile!

My house is located in Uptown, a neighborhood about seven miles from our studio, which is located in Bywater. At first the distance was somewhat intimidating. Previously, I had never had to travel more than half a mile to get to my classes. The thought of embarking on a seven-mile journey through one of the most dangerous cities in America twice daily made me at times, question my choice not to bring a car. But my fears were soon curbed, as I realized that biking it in new Orleans is the only way to go. The roads here are totally flat, and almost all one-way. It is also much easier to avoid annoying traffic laws such as stop-signs. Riding my bike to school allows me to experience the city in a way that could never be achieved in an automobile.

My daily journey begins on Magazine Street. where I live. Now, Magazine is not the ideal bike route to take. It is extremely busy, and extremely narrow, which is a bad combination. Instead, I cut up one block and take Camp Street, which is wide, and predominantly residential. Because it follows the river, Camp Street is continuous and runs the full length of the distance I have to travel. What is so great about this particular route is that in its entirety, it runs through some of the most beautiful, historically famous areas in New Orleans, and probably in all of North America.

The route begins in the college are of Uptown, which is close to Tulane and Loyola. The houses here are modest, but beautiful. Mostly shotgun style, they rarely reach more than two stories, creating a consistently low urban streetscape throughout. The live oaks along the street tower over the avenue and the houses, creating a tunnel like condition, that provides shade for the long ride.

Crossing Louisiana Avenue, the houses begin to grow considerably, as do the spaces between them. This is the garden district. In this area of the city, one starts to sense a real change in scale. Houses are at least two stories, and each is surrounded by plenty of green-space. The vegetation, however, is what is so defining about this area. Every house is surrounded by huge live oaks, banana plants, flowers, and shrubbery, and is unlike any neighborhood I have ever been in.
The beautiful, gigantic, grand houses of the area take a backseat to the gardens that surround each of them. In places it feels like a tropical forest, and I forget that I am am in a city at all. The smell of the flowers becomes overwhelming at times, and you have to remind yourself to watch the road and not the scenery.

Soon, Camp merges with the inbound traffic of Magazine street, and I once again have to start really minding my surroundings. The speed limit goes from twenty-five to forty-five, and the street widens into two-lanes each way. This is I get my first view of downtown New Orleans.
Approaching the Central Business District, the buildings begin to increase massively in scale, and the experience changes totally. I am now an ant in a deep crevasse, desperately trying to keep up with the larger, faster moving traffic.

Finally, after about twenty minutes of riding, I arrive at a large intersection, which dramatically cuts short the overwhelming scale of the surroundings: this is where Canal Street, which is, in fact, an urban canal cutting through the city, separates the CBD from the French Quarter. Crossing this road is like a time-warp, because if it weren't for the cars, you wouldn't be able to tell what century you were in. On one side is the fast-paced, American-urban experience of the 21st century; On the other side, one travels back in time, to an entirely different era or country. Camp Street now becomes Chartres Street, and where the buildings stand at all the same height, and create a long shaded cavern of widened lanes and side-walks. The sights and smells along this part of the route are unbelievable. The minute I enter the French Quarter, my senses become totally overwhelmed, as I pass tourists, bums, strippers, chefs, business men, and cops all on the same path. An aroma of garbage, stale beer, and the most wonderful food one could possibly dream of eating all enter my nose at the same time. As for biking, the traffic is still pretty dense, and I really have to watch out for the opening car doors.

After a few blocks, the road stops abruptly at Jackson Square, and I am forced to leave the street and weave through the tourists, the fortune tellers, the pigeons, and the homeless. Upon leaving Jackson Square, the French quarter becomes quiet. There is no longer any traffic, and I truly begin to feel the age of everything around me. At times I even wonder if the person I'm passing on the street is really there, or just a ghost of New Orlean's past. I pass by streets like Frenchman, that on any given night are full of life, and the best music in all of the city, but in the morning, one might not even notice.

Leaving the French Quarter, I enter the Fauburg Marigny, originally a French residential neighborhood. The houses here are once again all shotgun style, one-story, but they are much closer together than the houses of Uptown or the Garden district, creating a denser urban fabric. At this point I start to notice that the traffic is no longer dominated by automobiles, but instead by bicycles. The Marigny is home to artists, musicians, transvestites, and "freaks and weirdos" from all different walks of life. They travel around on their bicycles, coexisting without the slightest effort in a part of New Orleans which for me, has become one of the most intriguing. This is the point on the city grid that bends or breaks from the rest, disrupting the linear axis of the preceding streets. It does this physically and metaphorically, mirroring the paths of the people who occupy it. New Orleans has always been a home to rougues, outlaws, and people who refused to go along with the confines of the social fabric of American culture. Many still find refuge at this breaking point.

The final stretch of the journey takes me into the Bywater. The dense houses disappear and are replaced by large warehouses. Along my path to the right is a large wall that separates the neighborhood from the mighty Mississippi where one can see the tops of large cargo ships creeping along the edge. The effect of the hurricane starts to reveal itself more than ever as I start to notice the debris on the road, and the coded FEMA spraypaint that marks each building, jolting me back to the reality of why I am here.

While the route I take to studio everyday is beautiful, scenic, uplifting, and amazing in everyway, it is in no way representative of the state of New Orleans. The small stretch of land is not unlike a preserved artifact that tells a story of what used to be, not what is. It is easy to lose yourself in the beauty and grandeur of everything that these places offer, but the red sign spray-painted on the wall of our studio tells the story of the rest of New Orleans: a New Orleans that has yet to recover from the most devastating natural disaster in American history.

Somethin' Strange About This Place

2006-10-07T08:27:00.000-07:00

He says to me like he’s known me for years, “Baby, baby, baby, you ain’t lookin’ too well tonight. Hah!” I’m standing outside of a run down little jazz bar called Vaughan’s and completely puzzled as to why this guy would even care how I was feeling. He says to me, “Now I seen you come around here before an’ you always got a big smile on yo’ face, but I ain’t see it tonight, so I know that something got to be wrong. So why don’t you tell me what’s wrong?” “Seriously? You really want to know?” I laugh. I mean, isn’t he just supposed to take my money and let me in? Feeling encouraged by his sincerity, I tell my new friend exactly what is upsetting me. He looks me straight in the eye and just laughs. “Aw baby! You know it ain’t that bad. Nothin’s ever that bad. And remember, tomorrow’s another day! Unless, of course, another Katrina come blowin’ her way through! Hah!” With that he ushers me in.

Since moving to New Orleans, I don’t know how many times I’ve heard that line – “Don’t worry, tomorrow’s another day” - but for some reason, this time, it actually meant something to me. Some of my closest friends can’t read me that well, so how could he? This was the moment that I realized that people here, in this place, are very different from anywhere else I’ve ever been. There is only one New Orleans, and so I wonder: Is it architecture that makes a place unique? Or is it the people that make the place?

I know this much is true: no one is a stranger in New Orleans. Sometimes it might seem like a big city, but most times it has a small town familiarity. I see the same people everywhere. I imagine the conversations they have or what they are thinking. Like the old woman sitting on the front steps of her St. Charles Avenue house, reading a book while her garden hose runs down the driveway spraying water everywhere: if I don’t see her just one day, I wonder. Where could she possibly be? What terrible or wonderful reason could she have for changing the routine of her life? Or the homeless man I see everyday on my way to work who carries a sketchbook with all of the drawings I imagine it contains; Or the woman I see walking her dog – is she asking herself why she’s up so early? And the guys on the back of the garbage truck every Wednesday and Friday , who wave to me, and I wave back with a huge smile as I ride past on my bike. To me, the best is when I look at someone and they look back at me, and from the expression on their face, I know exactly what it is that they're thinking about. I shake my head in agreement and we have a laugh together. I never find out what their real stories are; I don’t know their names. But I don’t need conversations to feel like I know them because I already do in my own way.

New Orleans is filled with strange occurrences, interactions, exchanges of glances. It’s an unusual city with no such thing as a routine day. It leaves vivid images in your mind. One remembers it street by street, house by house, doors, windows, colors. I remember it by the people I see. It’s those people that make this place. New Orleans is my huge extended family. I just haven’t met everyone yet.

Cab Stand

2006-09-29T16:47:00.000-07:00

“They never take nobody,” he said, glancing toward the beige taxi van in front of us. Through the foggy window I could see the driver eating the last bites of a paper-wrapped sandwich.

“He’s on his lunch break or something,” I say. “He’s been eating that sandwich for ten minutes now.”

“No,” says my new companion, “I’m here every day and they never take nobody from the street. Always waitin’ for them folks at the hotel.”

Silence hung like a cloud between us until, judging the moment right, he jumped from out of the large window opening in which the two of us had taken shelter and walked away in the rain. This was my second day in the city of New Orleans, and I had already learned an important lesson: bring an umbrella, always. I had left that afternoon from our apartment in Bywater and biked two miles down Royal Street to the end of the French Quarter where there was a branch of my bank. Though it was clear when I arrived, the afternoon downpour had begun in full force by the time I left.

For a while I sat in the bank, but feeling out of place, I went outside and stood under the best shelter I could find: a first floor window in the Hotel Monteleone. Tourists were congregating under the iron balcony of the building on the other corner while businesspeople with umbrellas trod through the flooded sidewalks. Directly across from me a covered trash receptacle was collecting a three-story waterfall pouring from a broken drain-pipe of the building above. I was just wondering whether or not that pipe was broken before the hurricane when another temporary tenant wandered into my window shelter.

She was a dark-haired, middle aged woman who looked as if she had been hopping from balcony to balcony down Royal Street. “That’s a bad rain,” she said, taking stock of her wet belongings: a purse and a shopping bag.

“Yes but I think it’s already clearing over Canal Street.”

“No it’s gonna rain like this for a while, darlin’.”

She had been eyeing the taxi van across from us since she came to the window; with a farewell glance she ran toward the taxi in the rain. I tried to warn her with no luck. She exchanged words with the driver, who had reluctantly cracked his window and shook his head. I watched her run desperately into the street to chase down a passing taxi car. By the time she got in her clothes and possessions were soaked.

Alone again, I noticed the waterfall slacking and the light shining more clearly over the CBD. I glanced at my bicycle, chained with others to the iron-encircled trees at the far end of the hotel entrance. In five minutes, I told myself, the rain would let up enough for me to leave.

After retrieving my bicycle, one of the hotel doormen called me over. He cordially told me to park my bicycle to the iron horses across the street; that the hotel management likes to keep bikes off their trees. I smiled and told him I’m new to town. His toothy grin widened: “Welcome to New Orleans,” he said as the rain dripped off my helmet.

Leaving for home I passed the window where I had spent the last twenty minutes. Another doorman, with his long white overcoat and umbrella, approached the beige taxi van. “Two guests to the airport?” he asked. The driver rolled up his window and nodded his head.

-Jason Richards

Fleeting Moments

2006-09-23T12:04:00.000-07:00

On my second day in New Orleans, I decided to wander through the French Quarter with my boyfriend Ryan. After walking through a majority of it, the August heat and narrow alleys forced us to search for a shaded haven to rest. After seeing a Starbuck’s just beyond the Quarter, we headed for its shaded patio where I waited while Ryan went inside for coffee.

Sitting a table away was a middle-aged African-American woman, smoking a cigarette and staring out at the parking lot, seemingly deep in thought.
“Nice day,” she said without looking towards me.
I nodded in agreement, too tired to actually respond.
She continued to ask me if I was from here, and I politely said no. I told her I was from Kentucky and just here temporarily.
“I been here thirty years,” she said as she exhaled cigarette smoke. I could tell she wanted more from me than a one word response.
“Wow…that’s a really long time.”
“Mmmhmm,” she agreed. “You all ever have floods in Kentucky?” I quickly realized where the conversation was headed and wasn’t sure if I was prepared.
I explained to her that certain areas of Louisville had experienced moderate flooding a few times in its history because of its location on a river.
“Anything like down here?” she asked concerned.
I quickly responded, “Oh no, nothing like that at all.”

She looked back out towards the parking lot; inhaling her cigarette before continuing, “Some people won’t ever come back and it’s such a shame,” as she nodded her head.
I didn’t know whether to offer solace or no response. After all, I had never had a one-on-one conversation with anyone fresh out of a natural disaster. I simply nodded my head in agreement.
“This here a party town. They party all the time. Too much if you ask me,” she said.
“So I’ve heard,” I replied. Her statement intrigued me, as it seemed to implicate the excessive partying or a lack of care for the city’s well-being as cause for the flooding.
As Ryan emerged from Starbuck’s, coffee in tow, I reluctantly rose to my feet. In the middle of our conversation, my exhaustion had given way to intense interest: Where had she gone during the hurricane? Was her house damaged? So many questions I had left unasked and would never know the answers – even her name.

“Have a nice day, honey,” the lady said warmly as she put out her cigarette.
I grinned at her and said, “thanks, you too.” As we walked off I glanced back at her and realized that I may never know her name, but I would never forget her.

A few weeks later, my roommate Dara and I headed for the French Quarter to meet her co-worker, Bobbi, for some shopping. We met up at her apartment on the outskirts of the Quarter and headed towards the boutiques.

As we walked down the street, Bobbi slowed her pace and peaked in at a yard through an iron gate that had been left ajar. We asked her what she was doing, and she explained that her aunt and uncle lived there and she hadn’t seen them since her arrival in New Orleans.
“I just want to go in and say hello for a minute,” she explained. “They just got back from France a few weeks ago.”
We reluctantly followed Bobbi through the gate, hesitant to detour from our shopping mission.

We made our way through the gate and the gorgeous front yard canopied by tall, lofty trees instantly lifted my mood. The house was obviously an older home, but it had been vigorously renovated and updated with landscaping that was nothing short of amazing.
An old, short bald man greeted us around the side.
Bobbi said excitedly, “Hey Uncle John, it’s Bobbi! How are you?”
The old man looked surprised at first, almost as if he couldn’t believe his eyes. Bobbi introduced Dara and me. With a deep and raspy voice, he introduced himself and treated us as if we had been friends for years. John showed us to the front door and told us to make ourselves comfortable.

A warm and familiar smell overcame me when we stepped inside: a combination of cigarette smoke and aged wood that reminded me of my grandparent’s house. I immediately felt at home.
“Hey Aunt Dell!” Bobbi exclaimed as she greeted her aunt in the living room. Dara and I walked into the room and were met with southern hospitality. Bobbi’s aunt had the kind of Louisiana accent one could get lost in and a warm aura that made you secretly wish she was your grandmother. She was a beautiful older woman – her gray hair neatly pinned back in a bun and her prominent cheek bones glowing.
After Bobbi and Dell became reacquainted, Dara and I played with their dog and explored the first floor of the house. From their conversation we gathered that John and Dell had two homes: one in Paris where they lived during the summer and this gorgeous home for the rest of the year. I knew this was a side of New Orleans not many people get to see.
John emerged from working outside. “John, show the girls around the house…let them see everything you’ve done,” Dell insisted.
“Yeah Uncle John, they would love to see it,” Bobbi added.
“Okay,” John replied as he lit a cigarette and led us to the kitchen. He explained that the house was originally built in the early 1800s – a fact I found intriguing. For some reason historical architecture had always interested me.

“The original part that we’re in right now was a three-room slave quarters,” John explained. I began thinking of what it must have been like to be a slave, living in a three-room house with many others. “The house next door is also mine and was the original owner’s home. I rent it out now.”
My mind raced with images of a small plantation and its slaves who returned home at night to one of the very rooms in which we were standing. “How fascinating,” I thought to myself and as my eyes explored every architectural detail. This house had experienced so much social change and its function had transformed so much throughout the history of New Orleans.
John continued to explain that these houses were two of only a few original homes left in the Quarter since the turn of the 19th century.
Obviously passionate about architecture, John showed us the additions he had made to the house. They really did blend well with the original house; so well in fact, you could hardly tell any difference between the two.
We followed John up the stairs where he showed us all the bedrooms, bath, and a Spanish style balcony that overlooked the beautiful courtyard we had seen upon entering the property.
After the tour was over, John asked, “Do you all know the famous pirate Jean Lafitte?”

Dara and I nodded our heads with anticipation.
John explained that after Lafitte had been exiled from New Orleans at the end of the 18th century, he moved to Galveston, Texas to resume his piracy. It was at this time that his two daughters purchased and lived in this very house.
We were both stunned. Not only had Creole slaves lived in the home, but the children of the famous pirate John Lafitte as well. Part of me wished I had brought my camera along to capture the moment, but part of me knew this was more than a touristy picture: it was an authentic New Orleans experience.

After Bobbi and Dell said their goodbyes, John escorted us out to the front gate. I couldn’t help but wonder if this was the same entrance that Lafitte’s daughters and the plantation residents had used back then?
John lit another cigarette as we said our goodbyes.

I knew I would never see the old lady or John and Dell ever again. Our paths crossed each other only for a fleeting moment in time, not meant to be recorded with a photograph or souvenir. They exist only in my memory, where they will be revisited over and over again.

-Allison Shaw

Welcome to the neighborhood!

2006-09-16T08:36:00.000-07:00

After a short visit during the summer to look for an apartment, Ashlea, Lindsey and I found a place in the Lower Garden District. We knew we could not move in until September 1st and needed a place to stay during the first few days of class. I made arrangements to stay with my dad’s cousin Sara in the Broadmoor neighborhood until we could move in to our apartment. The Sunday before classes started, I left home from Houston with my car full of boxes, and headed for New Orleans.

Sara gave me directions to her house using alternative routes to help me avoid construction that had given her two flat tires in a week. Driving into Broadmoor down Napoleon, I was worried I’d miss my turn due to the many street signs still missing or hard to read. Fortunately the sign I needed was still up, and as I turned onto the street I was greeted by an enormous pothole. Welcome to the neighborhood!

Although it was Sunday, Sara welcomed me to the area with a traditional Monday night New Orleans dinner of red beans and rice. Over dinner we talked and she told me what life was like for her post-Katrina. Sara was lucky in that she was able to come home only a month after Katrina hit. Though her area of Broadmoor got seven feet of water, her second story living space was not badly damaged. At the time, Sara was only one of two residents able to move back to their homes on her block. One year later, there are now only four occupied houses on her block.

As I took my bags to the guest room, she pointed out the window to a few houses with lights on and told me when each of them had come home. While many of the houses in Broadmoor are currently under construction, the neighborhood is only a shell of what it once was. It is unbelievable how many houses have been abandoned by their owners and have not been touched since Katrina.

Every morning I would wake up to the sound of construction crews, saws being used to cut down damaged trees and large trucks moving down narrow residential streets lined with FEMA trailers and piles of moldy debris. The crews often blocked the streets with their heavy machinery which made it necessary to leave a few minutes early in case an unexpected detour was needed. My second morning there I could barely get out of the driveway because a crew was working on one of the houses across the street. By the time I came home from studio at seven, the house had been pulled off its piers and raised several feet in the air. Others feel that raising their house to the suggested level is not enough and have raised their homes up to a foot higher than where Katrina’s flood waters peaked.

Now, a few weeks later we’ve gotten settled in our new apartment and I no longer wake up to the sound of construction crews outside my window. Our apartment is located a block away from Magazine Street, and a few blocks away from downtown. While there is still some construction in the Lower Garden District, it’s a much different scene from the clean-up in Broadmoor and many other areas of New Orleans. The boutiques, restaurants and bars on Magazine Street have a constant buzz of activity which adds to the strange feeling that everything is fine. Sitting on our porch people pass by riding bikes, running, and walking their dogs to the park – casual scenes that don’t exist in many neighborhoods because at the end of the day people are tired from rebuilding their lives.

-Sarah Wilson

"Last Stop"

2006-09-09T08:20:00.000-07:00

The last weekend of June, John Brock and I flew to New Orleans to secure ourselves a place to live. Our prospects, which were diminished by the general housing shortage, were spread across the city and, lacking a car, we intended to reach them all via ferry, foot and city bus. Transportation task #1 would be getting from the airport to where we'd be staying: Dara and Tony's apartment. We emerged from Louis Armstrong airport, pillows crammed under our arms and carrying backpacks into the uncomfortably still early afternoon heat, our new enemy. A helpful airport employee showed us the bus route, and explained that the stop at Carrollton & St. Charles was as close as we could get to where we needed to be. Being frugal students, we were pleased to hear that since Katrina, riding the buses was free. After a half hour of waiting on an empty bus while the driver smoked a cigarette, we headed east towards town on Airport Drive. Slowed by vehicular congestion and frequent traffic lights, the bus was soon packed as we passed the Saints training facility and deserted strip malls. Descending from an overpass, I felt a startling uneasiness as everyone else onboard shuffled about and started to stand up. The driver confirmed my suspicions with a garbled sentence that unmistakably included 'last stop'.

Shit. We were jetissoned from our air-conditioned nest only to land in hostile pedestrian conditions, the corner of Tulane & Carrollton. To our right, Carrollton dipped under several arms of I-10, and we were otherwise surrounded by empty businesses and parking lots. The only active building in sight was a Burger King across the street. Being on Carrollton was good but who knew how far north of St. Charles we were? Not us. We walked over to the parking lot to where people appeared to be waiting for a bus. After a long, quiet fifteen minutes, it came to my attention that we probably needed to be at the stop on the opposite side of the intersection, where a crowd of Mexican and Latin American construction workers were huddled in the shade. Thankfully we never got on the Burger King bus.

Our new ride got us directly to St. Charles and we walked the remaining ten or twenty blocks with shaken confidence. We knew we couldn't get into Dara and Tony's until they got home from work but we successfully stashed our now burdensome pillows and bags on their porch. Overcome with an increasing thirst, we spent the next two hours on a failed search for cold drinks, finding a different environment at every turn. Calhoun Street, on the border of Loyola University, was a street whose houses' guts lay piled on the curb or in the yard and whose telephone poles had amassed plenty of phone numbers for 'STUMP GRINDING' and 'MOLD REMOVAL'. The iron gates of St. Charles Avenue's robust mansions silently mocked our struggle. Even Magazine Street proved only a mirage of stores closed either for the evening or indefinitely. We gave up and headed back, our adventure ending after pit-stops in Audobon Park's hot dirt and the air-conditioned loung of Loyola's student center.

Hours later, I was at the Maple Leaf Bar, nursing a beer while two musicians I admire (George Porter Jr./bass/The Meters and Russell Batiste/drums/funky Meters/Vida Blue) sat next to me eating, drinking and talking about fried chicken with a Zephyr's baseball commentator. I was speechless, silenced by the combination of fatigue and the euphoric shock of hanging-out with such legendary musicians in their "home". Even before the music started, New Orleans had proven itself as a place where both the unavoidable and the unexpected would befuddle, excite and revive my spirit - Patrick Fromm

KNOA Studio

2006-08-12T21:43:00.000-07:00