Pedestrian View

While visiting with Rachel and Abram of the Neighborhood Story Project in New Orleans Saturday (April 5), Sherry and I found out that there would be a Second Line Parade noon the next day starting at some obscure street intersection that meant nothing to us touristas. I had a slight notion what this meant because my daughter’s school Jazz Band had played a Second Line piece at a concert last year.

It was an all brass (tuba playing bass) with percussion (snare and bass drum) mobile procession. It was loose, fun, everyone got a solo, and I got to play long comping on a banjo (I’m a third rate banjo player, but I’ve learned to fake playing most stringed instruments). We were a bunch of white kids (grant me this one exaggeration) trying on our “soul.”

Turns out that Second Line parades happen nearly every Sunday in New Orleans. They’re local events sponsored by Social and Pleasure Clubs from around the city where a brass band and costumed dancers lead neighborhood people winding through their own streets. No one watches a Second Line parade because everyone’s in it. As it winds its way, it grows as people come out of their houses and join the parade. Since Katrina, these parades have taken on an even more symbolic role of hope, unity, and community than they already had.

Our particular Second Line Parade was sponsored by the Bayou Steppers, (advertised on their banner as the first integrated social and pleasure club in NO). The picture here I stole from NOLA Entertainment, but we were at this very parade. It started at the very humble intersection of 2nd and Dryades where people were milling around while the band got organized. Sherry and I had a quick lunch of some great Cajun shrimp soup with a boiled egg in it sold from the back of a rusty pickup. Then the band started up and we headed out.

It was an amazingly beautiful day, which my pathetic photos don’t do justice to, but suffice it to say that the music was amazing and I’d have missed my flight home to be there if I’d have needed to.

It was a great party – sunny and 80 degrees while at home Duluth was in a sleet storm. It wasn’t all happy, though. At one point, the whole parade stopped while the brass band played a dirge (Just a Closer Walk) to honor someone who had recently died (we never found out who, but it’s a frequent Second Line phenomenon). Also, we wound through a neighborhood that was probably only about 1/3 occupied. Below is an upper level apartment that appeared occupied, but still in shambles.

The parade wound toward downtown and pretty near our hotel, so we eventually abandoned it to catch our flight home.

Interestingly enough, when I was asking hotel staff about Second Line parades, one woman directed me to Harrah’s Casino, where a Second Line band parades around 24/7 while people pump cash into slot machines. The average tourist doesn’t get out of the Quarter/Hotel/Casino district of New Orleans, so she was just responding to what’s normally expected, I guess. I’m glad we didn’t take her advice.

First, an apology. My photography here is pathetic. My kids (on a school trip) had the digital camera, and in an effort to travel light, neither Sherry nor I brought our good 35mm with us to New Orleans, so I ended up buying a disposable camera. Ugh! I’ve never been so sorry I was cheap. I’ve done some terrible digital “enhansing,” but is green sky really better? I’m going to cheat and include a few pertinent pirated internet photos.

But first, a map. Later I’ll refer to the the Lower Ninth Ward (east of shipping canal, right edge of map about half way down), lake Pontchartrain (top), and the drainage canals (running north into Pontchartrain). Study this. Quiz later.

The serious cartographers can find a great series of flood level maps here.

Now I think we’re ready. Here’s the current state of some low income neighborhoods.

This is the rubble of St. Bernard, a low income housing project demolished within the last month (photo taken from the wrong side of a moving bus). All over New Orleans, such projects are being demolished despite protests. Lafitte is another large one we saw that was block after block of rubble. Federally funded, such projects were once updated via a 1 for 1 system. In other words, you tear one down, you build a new one. This kept people in viable housing.

However, recent changes in Federal law have superceded the 1 for 1 system. Federal money is now going toward “mixed income” neighborhoods, where low and middle income family are integrated. The theory is that such neighborhoods will experience fewer of the social problems that have traditionally plagued low income “projects,” such as St. Bernard and Lafitte, or our own Harbor View in Duluth.

The bottom line is that low income housing is being demolished and not replaced. The people who once lived in such places are scattered in a diaspora. Where are they living? No one is sure.

These are pictures from the Lower Ninth Ward, the low income neighborhood that was hit first and hardest by the storm. It’s too complicated to really get into, but the first news out of New Orleans was that it had dodged a bullet; the Lower Ninth Ward had flooded, but the rest of the city was in good shape. Whew! This turned out not to be the case as the rest of the city slowly filled up. Regardless, the Lower Ninth was definitely hit the hardest. About 1 in 3 homes are currently occupied. No one really cares now, just like no one cared when it was first flooded.

Here’s some middle income housing.

These homes are up near Lake Pontchartrain not far from the drainage canals whose levees burst after the storm surge filled the lake. These neighborhoods had a post-war feel to them that’s hard to explain. About half of them seemed to be in a rebuilding phase; the other half were still in shambles. Currently, people living in these neighborhoods battle snakes and rats, in addition to everything else one might imagine.

So what about the afore mentioned drainage canals?

It’s common knowledge now that most of New Orleans (outside the French Quarter, hotel district, and St. Charles Ave.) is below sea level; well here’s visual proof, should you need any. This is the 17th Street Canal just before it meets Lake Pontchartrain, and the water level is clearly higher than the surrounding neighborhood. Every moment of every day, thousands of gallons of water are being pumped out of New Orleans and into these canals, which then drain into Pontchartrain. Most of the stretch of seawall and levee seen here was washed out after Katrina was gone and the skies had cleared. The storm surge had worked its way through the swamps into Pontchartrain, and then up these canals. It didn’t overtop them. It just pushed through them because of faulty construction.

Below is a picture of the solution.

This looks north, the opposite direction from the previous picture. The digitally enhanced sky looks ominous, doesn’t it. Lake Pontchartrain is behind that dam-like structure straight ahead, which is brand new (post-Katrina). The idea is that the next time there’s a hurricane, these dams will close, keeping the lake water from entering the canals. The apparatus on the left is a pumping system which will pump water out of the canal and into the lake. Simple.

That Army Corp of Engineers! What they won’t do for several hundred thousand people who insist onliving below sea level.

I promised a quiz, so here it is. True or false: New Orleans will flood again.

Answer in next post.

Last week I went to the CCCC convention in New Orleans. It was a great conference, but the best part of it happened afterwards when Sherry and I got out of the Quarter and adjacent hotel district and into the real city.

Since my sabbatical focus is Service Learning and Civic Engagement, I went to a conference session about something called the Neighborhood Story Project, where I met Rachel and Abram. NSP is a pre/post-Katrina grass roots, neighborhood based community publishing project whose goal is help New Orleans neighborhoods to tell and publish their stories. On Saturday, Sherry and I were able to join up with their Post-Katrina tour, and see a lot of the rest of the city.

The French Quarter is interesting, but underneath all New Orleans kitsch, it’s your basic tourist trap. It escaped Katrina largely unscathed, and most tourists don’t get beyond it.

Greater New Orleans, however, is a post-war landscape. I’m going to publish pictures later (was used old fashioned film which is not developed yet – such a luddite), but I wanted to throw this up here to let you know that there’s going to be more in the coming weeks.

Because we made a few local connections, we were also able to worship at First African Baptist Church in the 6th district, whose sanctuary had four feet of water after Katrina, and then join a Second Line Parade that started not far away at the intersection of 2nd and Dryades, also in the 6th district. Both of these events would probably rank in my top ten of amazing experiences.

Think of this as sort of a trailer. I can tell y’all are excited.