Preventing Cultural Catastrophe

It is one thing to identify a problem; it’s another thing to do something about it. As the devastation wrought upon New Orleans by Katrina became terribly clear, the question for us at the National Trust quickly became “what can we do to help?” To address that question, the Trust developed a three-pronged approach in the days immediately following the storm, and this approach has guided our response efforts ever since.

Before (above) and after (below). Mildred Bennett takes advantage of “Home Again!” to rebuild her 1894 home in New Orleans. (Photos courtesy of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.)

First, raise awareness. Over the years, the Trust has developed an extensive list of media contacts and resources. The decision was made early on to use these contacts to communicate the message that the historic treasures of New Orleans must not be lost. For one, we realized that we needed to confront the growing perception that New Orleans, in a phrase that became widely used, had “dodged a bullet.” In other words, the French Quarter and the Garden District—the public faces of the city where tourists generally confine themselves—had weathered the storm with relatively little damage. In the Trust’s view, while those neighborhoods are important, working-class historic neighborhoods like Holy Cross, Mid-City, and Treme are the city’s heart and soul. The shotgun houses, Creole cottages, and bungalows of these neighborhoods are home to many of New Orleans’ musicians, cooks, and Mardi Gras Indians—the people who create the rich cultural fabric that makes New Orleans the unique place that millions of us love. In a reflection of our continued commitment to these areas, in May, we placed Historic Neighborhoods of New Orleans on our annual list of the eleven “Most Endangered Historic Places,” the Trust’s most visible publicity vehicle.

Second, the Trust engaged in a lobbying effort on Capitol Hill to ensure that the federal government’s Gulf Coast hurricane relief legislation included funding for historic properties. This process ultimately led to the approval of $40 million in grant funds, to be administered by State Historic Preservation Officers (SHPOs), to assist the owners of historic homes damaged by the hurricane, and $3 million to help SHPOs with historic preservation reviews. Against the backdrop of billions of dollars targeted for hurricane relief, this is a small investment. But for certain targeted purposes—assessing damage to historic properties, providing technical and sometimes financial assistance to owners of damaged historic homes—this funding will go a long way toward saving historic properties on the Gulf Coast.

Third, to coordinate all of the Trust’s work in the city, we opened a field office in New Orleans. The Trust’s New Orleans field office is housed with the Preservation Resource Center (PRC) of New Orleans, which has been an immensely valuable partner in all of our activities in the area. The Trust and the PRC have worked together to launch a number of programs and initiatives, from basic tasks like handing out cleaning supplies and coordinating volunteer clean-up crews, to more advanced work like overseeing the restoration of flood-damaged homes.

One initiative, the Home Again! program, has helped homeowners renovate their homes, and also serves as a demonstration project to guide the work of other residents. New Orleans resident Bari Landry owns a home in the South Lakeview neighborhood, and she was one of the first people to take advantage of the Home Again! program. Landry studied the step-by-step plan developed by the Trust and the PRC:

# Remove the ruined contents

# Dry out the house through natural ventilation

# Disinfect and treat plaster walls and saturated wood

# Conserve the historic materials and prevent further deterioration

“Based on advice from the Trust and the Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans, I had decided that if I walked into my bungalow and it was structurally intact and the floors weren’t buckled, then I was going to save the house,” she said. Today, Landry’s success story is a model for other people in her neighborhood.

In June, the National Trust and Tulane University co-sponsored a conference in New Orleans that focused specifically on the how the city’s cultural life can rebound in the coming months and years. Called “Rebirth: People, Places and Culture,” the conference featured a keynote address by First Lady Laura Bush as well as panel discussions devoted to various aspects of New Orleans’ unique cultural life, from cuisine, to music, to social organizations.

On the day before the conference began, the Trust led attendees on a bus tour of flood-ravaged areas that served as a searing reminder of the immense challenges still facing the city. In some areas, a visitor can go several blocks without seeing a single residence that is still occupied by homeowners. In all neighborhoods on the bus tour, the dark rings left by the floodwaters scar the outsides of houses, and in many, vandals have stolen the cornices, brackets, doors, and other architectural treasures from countless homes. The tour made clear that, almost one year after the storm, the challenges facing people and places in New Orleans remain immense.

But the conference also provided hope, and in many cases, inspiring success stories. More than 650 restaurants have reopened since the storm. The city’s two signature annual events—Mardi Gras and Jazzfest—were successful. And perhaps best of all, every day, more residents decide to return to the city and begin to build their lives anew in the historic neighborhoods that they call home.

Richard Moe opened the conference with comments that eloquently summed up the work that the Trust and its partners are doing in New Orleans. “The ultimate goal of our recovery efforts should be to allow displaced people to return to communities that are healthy, vibrant, familiar places to live and work. We want to bring our families, friends, neighbors and constituents home—to a place that looks and feels like home. That means we must do everything possible to preserve the heritage and character that make New Orleans such a special place.

“Here’s another way of saying it: New Orleans has always been Someplace; our challenge is to ensure that it doesn’t get turned into Anyplace.”

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