New Orleans: Lower 9th Ward

While Louisiana has parishes instead of counties, New Orleans has wards instead of districts. The numbering of the wards starts in the west and grows towards the east, ending in the Ninth Ward, which came to include wide swaths of land south of Lake Pontchartrain and north of the Mississippi. Because of its initial distance from the center of town (in the late 1700s) and the fact it's below sea level, land--and later housing--in the Ninth was affordable.

A canal running north to south logically connects the lake to the river, but an east-west canal also exists, offering access from other harbors on the large lake. This canal effectively bisects the Ninth Ward into the Upper 9th and the Lower 9th. The Lower 9th gained some notoriety during the 2005 Hurricane Katrina when it was flooded, and the poor underbelly of an American metropolis was exposed to the greater world.

From our recent experience I can say that six years later there are still houses that are in shambles, with "X"s spray painted on their front doors or walls, with roof shingles blown off and windows blown out. This first picture shows that a little bit, but not quite as condemned looking as many others that felt odd not wanting to be captured on film. (Corrie took all the following pictures.)



The Make it Right Foundation has committed itself to rebuilding houses in the Lower 9th using sustainable principles. Having had some success in raising money, some sixty million dollars, and having built some structures in a concentrated area, caused Corrie to want to check it out.

An obvious theme of all theses structures is the extended stilts. Another is a modern to post-modern design philosophy in the outer look of the places.



I like the neat shading device used on this one. We parked in front of this house while Corrie went for a walk and sho the rest of the pictures.



Here is another neat new house.



Here one can see the density of the new construction surrounded by the desolation left in the wake of Katrina. (Understand that since we weren't there before the hurricane, we can't attest to the true original density, but we imagine it was similar to other nearby sections of the Ward.)