Farmer's Market

Hollygrove has recently started a farmer’s market in their neighborhood. The URBANbuild project at Tulane built them a sunshade structure and has been helping them to renovate a building. The market is all about local food and they have a bunch of maps that show where the food came from and how far it traveled. Their signature thing is a box of food where they give you a list of vegetable and quantities and you go from table to table picking up the vegetables in a box and at the end you just pay $25 for the box of veggies, and anything extra you pick up you just pay for. It is a really great system, we bought a box of food and are going to have a ‘family dinner’ with it. Unfortunately though, there didn’t seem to be any “real” residents from the neighborhood there. It was mainly mid/upper class people from outside the neighborhood. I know that it is a common issue with farmer’s markets being able to attract low-income residents because of price, location and sources of income. I really do hope it catches on in the Hollygrove neighborhood but I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Monsoons and Meat

We went out last night, we had dinner at a place called Port of Call. Literally there were six things on the menu – a hamburger, a cheeseburger, a mushroom burger, a mushroom cheeseburger, filet mignon, or a NY strip steak. Each one came with a baked potato loaded with a half stick of butter and a bowl of sour cream (I’m not kidding). I had a cheeseburger with a mountain of shredded cheddar cheese. It was pretty amazing. The drink menu however went on for days, but I guess they are famous for a drink called a Monsoon, that comes in a huge plastic cup that you can take with you. I did not partake, because it was still pretty early in the night, and trip for that matter, to be making a fool of myself. After we listened to some awesome jazz bands on Frenchmen Street. I’m really looking forward to some great live music the rest of this trip.

Camellia Grill

We ate at Camellia Grill, which is apparently a New Orleans staple and has been here forever. It was typical diner food and atmosphere. I had a BLT and my first Louisiana orange freeze, which was awesome. It is open late, almost like Portland's pancake house, but better atmosphere. Everyone was super nice and friendly, as usual here.

Hollygrove

We had lunch with the people from AARP and further discussed the partnership between them and us. They have done a lot of the leg work in collecting data on the community, conducting surveys of the residents and mapping the area. The Hollygrove neighborhood is located within the Carrollton area of New Orleans, near Uptown. If you know your current pop culture, Lil’ Wayne grew up in Hollygrove, he raps about it. It was also the first community in Orleans Parish that African-Americans could own homes. Part of the mission of AARP is to position Hollygrove as a transit hub between the Uptown, CBD, French Quarter and the Riverfront. Currently, Hollygrove has bus lines that run around its perimeter and one that runs directly through it. However, there isn’t really a bus schedule, the buses kind of just run whenever and people have to wait at a stop hoping that it will eventually show up. I think part of that is the New Orleans lifestyle and part of it is the existing disorganization of the city after the storm. I couldn’t find a bus map anywhere and the ones online don’t correspond to any maps of the city. I guess I am just spoiled by Portland’s easy public transit.

After lunch we toured the Hollygrove neighborhood researching places to potentially put in a bus shelter. At one point someone in a pick up truck stopped, asked if we were volunteers and if we needed a ride – that’s how friendly people are and how grateful they are to have people caring about what happens to their city. Then we went to a neighborhood rally protesting the closure of one of their neighborhood schools. The city has deemed Hollygrove a Phase 2 neighborhood meaning that they won’t be receiving significant aid until 2013. The city has promised to rebuild them a school in 2013 after this one is demolished this year, but the city hasn’t given the community any sort of plan or information on this which is what they are riled up about plus the fact that everyone from that neighborhood went to that school. The community history here is incredible, I don’t think I’ve experienced anything like it. The families that live have been here forever, their parents lived here, they lived here, their kids and grandchildren live here – all within the same neighborhood. It makes for a really rich cultural fabric.

Marquette House

These are some quick shots of where we are staying, the Marquette House. Pretty traditional New Orleans with the second level balcony, wrought iron detailing and shutters. It is near St. Charles Avenue, which is a main Mardi Gras parade route, and Jackson Street.

We went on our first tour of New Orleans today. Starting at Tulane we watched a timeline of how Katrina hit the city, the link is to the right. It is a pretty comprehensive look at how the storm landed. Then we went and toured the neighborhoods, ending up in the Lower Ninth Ward. This area, as most people know, was the hardest hit of the entire city. The rows of houses that were there are no more and there is this eerie feeling that nature is just reclaiming the space after four years. It has a very pastoral feeling standing in the middle of it. Many of the houses and businesses still look like someone just up and abandon it – nothing has changed since the storm. The desolation is still incredible. There are still markings on a lot of the buildings too from when the national guard came through looking for people, I guess a lot of people are keeping them as ‘badges’ of survival. I think that I probably would, too. It serves as a constant reminder of why things look the way they do and that there is a constant push to better. I can’t even really accurately explain how much recovery is left to do, and the city seems to be doing nothing. I guess coming from Portland where the city government and politics is involved in every little decision from sidewalk cracks to multi million dollar buildings and you have to have a permit to sweep your driveway. Whereas here, we’re building permanent bus shelters and no one says a word but that also means that the only thing the city seems to be doing is bulldozing empty structures.

We ended our tour at the Make It Right houses (no I haven’t ran into Brad yet). Several of the houses have been moved into, although the neighborhood is still predominantly empty. Some of the houses are ok, I think the real beauty is less the design and more of the fact that someone has taken notice and is taking it upon themselves to try to help the residents. If you don’t know what the Make It Right program is here is the link, http://www.makeitrightnola.org/

New Orleans Summer

I have never been good at keeping a journal so this is my attempt to document the seven weeks I am spending in new Orleans as part of a design corps summer studio program. We are going to be building a bus shelter to serve the Hollygrove neighborhood. There are eleven of us in the studio – 4 guys and 7 girls. We’ve all come from different parts of the world from southern California to New Jersey to Scotland. Most of us are architecture and design, but there are two interior designers, one international relations major and a geographer, so I am excited to see how everyone is able to contribute. The studio is ran by Bryan Bell who has written extensively about public interest architecture or community building. I am really excited to be here as this is a part of architecture and design that I feel very drawn to. Architecture, as many people known already, only serves a small sliver of our society. Our project here in New Orleans isn’t meant to fix the problems that abound here, nor will it really make a dent in the overall picture because there is still so much to be done. The point is to take time out of our lives to help someone else with the skills that we have. I don’t have money to give, but I do have skills to contribute. To the neighborhoods and citizens here all they want is someone to acknowledge that they need help.

It is kind of incredible to be surrounded by people who are as motivated and passionate as I am about this cause. It has really made for a great atmosphere. We are using studio space at Tulane University so I am excited to be able to explore there campus and learn more about their program. The hostel that we are staying at has a gorgeous garden and we had a BBQ last night and bonded listening to 90’s R&B. Everyone in New Orleans has been super friendly, although it might be because everyone is drinking all the time. I went on a walk around the neighborhood the first day with one of the other girls and we saw one guy out walking his dog with a stem glass of red wine, one guy out watering his plants with a pink grapefruit cocktail and a lady, in full jogging gear, running with a beer. There is a lot of porch sitting and rocking everyone says hi, smiles and asks how you are doing. There must be something about our group though because we’ve already been asked twice if we were volunteers and when we said yes, we were thanked profusely. I survived my first southern thunder storm and now I understand why people from the south talk about it so much, it was quite magnificent. It doesn’t phase anyone who is from here though they just go about their day.