New Orleans four years after Katrina

Last year, just before the third anniversary of Katrina, President Bush visited Jackson Barracks, where a 200 million dollar renovation was well under way in the Lower 9th Ward, and reaffirmed his promises: “Together, we are working to make sure that New Orleans comes back - even stronger, safer, and more vibrant than it was before the storm.” He acknowledged more work needed to be done with the tone of a cheerleader, not a world leader. Bush's first view of the devastation after the storm was from the windows of Air Force One. I wonder which neighborhoods he toured before giving his rah-rah speech. Did he see what I was seeing?
A year later as Katrina’s 4th anniversary approaches, a headline in the local paper, the Times Picayuane, reads, “Obama keeps close tabs on New Orleans recovery -- from a distance.” I wonder what these "close tabs" are. Can one know the situation without seeing it for oneself? Block after block of abandoned destroyed homes, a city with the nation's highest murder rate, and many other substantial problems with no plan in place to solve them.
This anniversary, Mayor Nagin's focus won't be remembering the dead. He has said it is time to move on from mourning. Nagin plans to highlight some of the progress made under his administration while his staff scrambles to protect themselves against lawsuits and Federal investigations. The Feds are looking into numerous acts of wrongdoing going up the ladder to Nagin himself.
The 4th anniversary of Katrina is a good time to ask why New Orleans recovery is so far from complete. Ivan Van Heerden, a former professor at LA State University, stated, “If we had the will and one month’s money we spend in Iraq, we could do all the levees and restore the coast.” Many neighborhoods have not recovered much at all, others are threatened by levees that still do not offer protection against a Category 4 storm. While 130,000 troops and countless private contractors remain on stand-by in Iraq in case Iraq proves unable to handle its own security, and while we expand the battlefield in Afghanistan, much of New Orleans resembles a war-torn Third World country.

I have been following the progress of Brad Pitt’s “Make it Right” housing project in the lower 9th Ward since 2007. Currently there are fifteen completed homes and another 150 to be built. I met one of the residents, Lloyd Griffin and interviewed him. Here is a link to a video interview of him http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ia19Wodq_sc
To see more images of a photo series on New Orleans right before the 4 years anniversary of Katrina check out this link http://www.flickr.com/photos/juliedermansky/sets/72157621951982065/

To New Orleans on Katrina’s Anniversary, may the healing process speed up.

My work at the Field Museum in Chicago

The curators of "Nature Unleashed" kindly provided me with images of an installation of my work, that is part of their show currently on display at the Field Museum.

Nature Unleashed will be at the Field Museum in Chicago  until January 24 before traveling to six other museums over the coarse of the next two years. Four of my post-Katrina photos are included in the exhibition along with objects I rescued from homes set for demolition. The photos on display are of the objects insitu before I rescued them.

Early Morning on the Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina

New Orleans is on edge, as am I- waiting to see if Gustav will hit or not.
When I wake I will attend the Mayor’s ceremony Commemorating Katrina’s third anniversary.

Gustav’s path will be a little clearer when I rise, but where the storm will hit will still remain an uncertainty. The last days I have been riding along with the National Guard in New Orleans East, driving through areas of urban blight.

Earlier in the day I shot pictures of the new homes being built for Brad Pitt’s “Make it Right Project”. The promise that one would be ready to have someone move in by Katrina’s anniversary has not been kept, though a few of the homes are close to completion. All celebrations for that project including the opening of a playground have been put on hold since all attention is on Gustav and a possible mass evacuation.
Tonight is quiet. Today was picturesque. Hard to imagine a hurricane hitting, yet impossible to ignore the fact that New Orleans is right in the storm’s predicted path. I will be here rain or shine so check back for an update either way.
I created a book on the National Guard patrolling the streets of New Orleans that is now available from blurb. Also available is a book with photos of Post Katrina New Orleans with a poem by Ann McGarrell . It is possible to preview the first 15 pages of the books.

images from top to bottom -clown head in 6th flags in New Orleans East/ home near in lower 9th ward shot on August 28/ wheel chair outside of destroyed nursing home in New Orleans East/ Classroom in New Orleans East school/ Foundation of a home in the lower 9th ward across form "Make It Right Homes"/Kitchen in housing unit still standing in New Orleans East/ Nursing Home in New Orleans East/ Nursing Home hallway/ National Guard Clearing movie theater in New Orleans East/Moose head in Destroyed store left standing in New Orleans East/ One of Brad Pitt's "Make It Right" Homes nearly finished/ Park for "Make it Right" homes- opening delayed due to hurricane Gustav/ Black mold in housing unit / in New Orleans East/ Restaurant in New the lower 9th ward / Nature center path in New Orleans East/ Photos on the wall in nursing home in New Orleans East

 

Bike ride down Desire St.

On Wednesday I rode my bike the length of Desire Street stopping to take pictures along the way. Club Desire, at the corner of Law Street, is in a state of ruin, just as I found it in November 2006. 

There are new signs of life across the street from the club; a crew of volunteers is rebuilding a row of homes. Also new, is a housing development at the end of Desire St, a fenced in community of new homes with fresh perfect lawns, lacking any of New Orleans’ authentic style. The generic bland homes making up the complex could be found in any suburban community elsewhere in America; a bittersweet sign of progress in the Post Katrina rebuilding process.

I got off my bike and chatted with a resident who is happy with the housing development.

Desire Street tells the story of a city on the mend. However, block-by-block one could come up with different interpretations of the same story.

No faded Mardi Gras beads decorating the new housing complex yet, but in a few years I suspect one will find them there as well.

The first picture I shot that day, where Desire Street begins, is of a swan sculpture with a cracked neck adorned with faded Mardi Gras beads. 

Next a graveyard, where when I accompanied the National Guard on their patrols witnessed many drug dealer being picked up. 

Posted here is an image of one of the many ruined houses still standing and a couple of  the destroyed markets with hand-painted sings.

Elysian Fields : New Orleans

At the end of the day I rode my bike the length of Elysian Fields. From the river to the lake. Blanche DuBois moved into her sister's place on Elysian Field only to be taken off to a mental institution by the end of Tennessee William’s a Street Car Named Desire, “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers", she said to the man who let her leave the premises without having to be put in a straight jacket. Much of Elysian Fields was flooded badly. Signs of Katrina’s wrath start as early as North Rampart and get progressively more intense as you approach the lake.On the ride back, I stopped at a red light where Elysian Fields intersects Humanity Street, took a picture and rode on.

Images shot July 6th and 7th almost 3 years after Katrina

Yesterday I rode my bike to the Lower 9th Ward to check out the progress since I left late February. More buildings have been torn down but I didn't notice too much in the way of rebuilding. 

I returned to the site of a school I shot last May at St. Maurice and N. Rocheblave.
The school has been torn down the the library remains intact and the rubble that was once the school is strewn about.  
I will head out that way again today in the afternoon's high sun after a day spent working behind my computer.  

To see more of my post Katrina images from a series I started in Nov. 06, click here - Post Katrina Set on Flickr

Based in New Orleans for the summer of 2008

I have returned to New Orleans to spend the summer, arriving on the 4th of July in time to catch the fireworks over the Mississippi River. I’m staying in an apartment over a bakery in the Faubourg Treme. An area that wasn’t hit too badly by the storm. I will photograph how things have changed since Katrina, and document the 3rd anniversary of the storm on Aug 29th at the end of the summer, while carrying on with my project at Tulane’s Natural History Museum.

On my way here I stopped in Washington DC and was able to go behind the scenes in the Smithsonian.

 

Ann Juneau, a librarian at the Natural History Museum escorted me through the back rooms and introduced me to some of the staff. That museum has the biggest collection in the world. There are row after row of storage cases; it is mind-boggling. James Dean, in the bird department pulled out a couple of Auks forme to shoot.  The bird hall in the public museum area is in the process of being replaced by an ocean hall, so not many birds are left on display. I will return in September on my way back to NYC, and start a series on deep-sea coral specimens.
I also went to the Vietnam memorial to shoot, adding that site to my project on Dark Tourism. It is very moving to watch people who locate the names of those they lost on the wall. People do rubbings of the names of the deceased to take away as mementoes. 

It is one of the most successful memorials I have visited. Nothing kitsch or over sentimental about it. The memorial has a great sense of dignity and evokes a tragic sense of loss through its’ endless sea of names.

David Borden met me there and modeled for me despite the sun shining in his eyes. He runs an advocacy group fighting for social justice by way of trying to change the drug laws – called, Stop the Drug Wars Now.

My next stop was Montgomery, Alabama (driving a long stretch of road to get there– a good 13.5 hour drive from DC) to visit my friend Sue Jensen, who is a superb ceramic artist as well as a professor.

 

Before I headed out of town, we went to the Civil Rights Memorial so I could shoot another one of Maya Lin’s works.

 Unfortunately the fountain 

(an integral part of the memorial) wasn’t on. The guard told us people keep throwing coins in the fountain that lead to it breaking down. Even without the fountain running, the memorial had

 great resonance. 

It is located in Montgomery’s historic downtown, where a lot of old buildings are still standing; the place hasn’t been turned into a generic shopping 

mall quite yet.
The quote used in the memorial is one of the most poetic of Martin Luther King Jr's:. “….. Until justice rolls down like waters and the righteousness like a mighty stream”.

 The absence of the sound of running water served as an ironic reminder that justice is something that sometimes needs maintenance too.

My first full day in New Orleans, I wasn’t too ambitious, but I did stop my car to shoot a spot I shot over a year ago since the light fell on the sign much nicer this time around. The same couch, the same open door- the same closed car wash remain on the corner of Freret and Soniat Street.