The Lower 9th (Day 5)

Friday on the other hand was an experience I will not soon forget. Well part of Friday. I again don't really remember what we did Friday morning (I know I really need to be blogging more often as this wouldn't happen, but on the plus side you all [or should I say y'all] there is less boring stuff to read through). Anyway, Friday afternoon we headed out to our first site visit to the Ninth Ward (Historically black neighborhood in New Orleans that was also typically poor [especially the part we were going to] and was hit very hard by the storm [Katrina is referred to as "the storm" here]. The Ninth Ward was where many of the media images of the storm were filmed. We spent the first part of the trip at the Musicians village in the upper ninth ward. This was a Habitat for Humanity site that was set up after the storm and with the help of Harry Connick jr. and Branford Marsalis was conceived as low income housing for local musicians to help them return after the storm. As the crown jewel of the neighborhood, a music and community center was conceived and built. The center was designed to teach music to local students and community members and allow an avenue for the musicians to give back and also record (the village is not only open to musicians, they are just encouraged to apply). We talked with the PR director for Habitat for Humanity in New Orleans and were then invited into the Music center to meet with some of the people who work there. They were really passionate individuals, one with a background in public health and the other a background in audio tech. They teach classes at the center after school for students in the area. The cost is $30 per semester but they have additional funds to cover those who can't afford that. It covers two days a week after school for the students to come a receive 1 hour of piano lessons, 1 hour of individual instrument lessons (with the instrument provided for free and they are allowed to take it home), and 1 hour of homework help and technology education. The program also includes snacks and a hot meal. It was amazing to be there and really hard to describe how impressive it was.

                Even more impressive however was the next individual they invited to the stage. Al "Carnival Time" Johnson is a New Orleans Jazz Legend. He is the composer of "Carnival Time" (who would have guessed from his name?), an amazing musician and an all around good guy. He now lives in the musicians village and helps out teaching classes and putting on performances for the community. He sat down and gave us an impromptu concert playing Fat's Domino's classic "Blueberry Hill" and his own "Carnival Time". An experience I. Will. Not. Forget. It was incredible!!! Just really spectacular. After this concert and then spending some time talking to Al about his life during and post Katrina, we headed out to catch the bus to the Lower Ninth Ward where we were going to meet individuals from Common Ground, a community organized rebuilding organization. However we missed our bus and had to wait half an hour (in the rain!! but it wasn't really that bad).

                We finally got to the bus stop at the Lower ninth, and we crossed the street to head over to where the guy was going to meet us. We soon quickly realized however that you couldn't really use any of the streets in the area as they were ALL under construction. I really don't mean some, it was actually every single east-west road in the neighborhood was under construction (we later found out that this construction was the city finally fixing the water and sewer mains in the Lower Ninth that had been damaged in Katrina..... 7 years after the storm). All the while we are looking around at some truly bizarre looking house designs. The neighborhood we were in was the same neighborhood made famous by the Make It Right Foundation, and their well known spokesperson, Brad Pitt. The idea behind Make It Right was to get famous architects from around the globe to design, pro-bono, houses for impoverished people living in the Lower Ninth and then the foundation would subsidize the building costs to make it affordable. The houses also needed to be very sustainable (i.e. they all had solar panels on the roof). They were ugly, ungainly and weird looking houses that did really not fit into the landscape at all (and apparently ignored residents pleas for porch space, larger windows and ability to add on). Basically the architects had seen the opportunity to design without major constraints that you would usually have in dealing with a customer. Instead they could "push the envelope" in house design and try to make their mark on the architecture world. It just kinda looked stupid.
 We finally got to the Common Ground headquarters and learned a little bit more about what they did. They were a community organization set up after Katrina to help with the gutting and rebuilding process in the Lower Ninth Ward. They had gutted more than 3,000 buildings and had helped rebuild more than 150 (this was really hard for me to believe but there are still thousands of houses that need gutting still and surprisingly few houses have been rebuilt. It seems that since Katrina was 7 years ago many people, including myself, had just assumed that New Orleans had rebuilt and everything was just hunky-dory now. That was actually pretty far from the truth). It was interesting to hear from a community organization and hear some of their critiques about Habitat and the Make It Right Foundation as two of the more famous outside aid organizations. 

Toddler Park at the Musician's Village

Stage at the music center in Musicians Village

Walking around the Lower 9th Ward

A Make It Right Foundation House

Another one. It fails to capture the true ugliness and awkwardness it seemed to exude.

Bridge into the Lower 9th Ward

I was amazed by the number of houses that still look like this after Katrina. On some of them you can still see the spray paint marks left by the Coast Guard and the army when searching the house. Many of them list dates, number of animal bodies found and in some cases if human bodies were found. It was haunting and really sad at the same time. 

Many buildings were still in a state of disrepair (both of these buildings have roof damage). More than that, we passed five schools that were dilapidated and falling apart. SCHOOLS!!!! One of the easier things to fix (as the government owns them and was able to control the disbursement of rebuilding funds).