An enlightened New Orleans, Werner ---------------------------------- Monday, September 19, 2005 The Times-Picayune
OUR OPINIONS: Rebuild with character The new New Orleans deserves neighborhoods that look like the ones Hurricane Katrina flooded. Without the federal government, the city could not rebuild. But that help should include a promise to rebuild this architecturally unique place in a way that's authentic. Once the rebuilding is done, New Orleans must look like New Orleans. At no point in its nearly 300-year history has New Orleans been mistakable for other cities. One could never have parachuted into New Orleans and confused it with Little Rock, Ark., Des Moines, Iowa, or Cape Girardeau, Mo. No, if you were in New Orleans, you knew it. If you couldn't tell where you were from the sounds of jazz, the taste of the étouffée or the sight of Carnival parades, then you could look at the carefully crafted houses and know for sure. There are bound to be some people who will say New Orleanians are asking for too much and that we ought to be satisfied with whatever we get, as long as it's safe and functional. They will be wrong. Although it's true we are concerned about how the future New Orleans will look, we are even more concerned about how it will feel. It will not feel like home unless it feels strangely foreign to everybody else. There are organizations in the city, the Preservation Resource Center chief among them, that exist to protect the architectural integrity of New Orleans' neighborhoods. The preservationists who work for those organizations have consistently raised their voices to prevent homes in Holy Cross from being made to look like homes in Gentilly, and to prevent homes in the Irish Channel from looking like those in Broadmoor. That should give outsiders a clue to the kind of city New Orleans was and is. Two houses on opposite sides of town can look drastically different but equally well-crafted. There's an internal diversity in the housing stock. As we go forward, it's important that such diversity remains intact. That's why the city's preservationists need to be consulted as New Orleans rebuilds. Officials at the PRC have demonstrated time and again that making houses that are architecturally interesting doesn't mean only the rich can afford them. Preservationists have built and renovated homes in low- to moderate-income neighborhoods for the people who live there. Their efforts should now be duplicated on a large scale for the benefit of the people who called those destroyed neighborhoods home. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Get fast access to your favorite Yahoo! Groups. Make Yahoo! your home page http://us.click.yahoo.com/dpRU5A/wUILAA/yQLSAA/Y2tolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AsburyPark/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
