Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Summer 2008 - (Page 47)

preservation for neighborhood revival, Birch pondered ways to transform community through the indigenous culture that he found in New Marigny. “The fact that kids with book packs come down the street just drumming,” Birch says. “The fact that you’re sitting up and somebody’s playing a trumpet. That is the richness of this momma.” “The fact that you have Jelly Roll Morton’s house around the corner; You’ve got Tootie [Montana]. You’ve got the ballroom where Buddy Bolden played,” Birch states. “This is a rich resource as far as the [musical] history. Plus [you have] the builders who built these houses.” Birch visualized the Porch Project as a collaborative initiative to carve a positive space. “There is something about negativity — it has an inability to survive in a positive environment,” Birch recalled his mother teaching him. Anthropologist Helen Regis, community activist Ed Buckner, Xavier professor and fellow artist Ron Bechet, and others joined to help him. Michelle Lavigne of Xavier University conducted a children’s arts camp with the theme of beautification. The Porch Project undertook a series of measures to beautify the area. In addition to planting dozens of crepe myrtle trees, the group opened a community garden on N. Robertson and St. Anthony to complement another one on Frenchmen. Porch volunteers organized a walk/run through the A surge in historic preservation and the creation of an entertainment district along neighborhood, produced posters of Frenchman Street has made the Faubourg local civil rights and community Marigny a sought-after neighborhood in figures such as Leah Chase and present-day New Orleans. Jerome Smith, created a theater workshop, and organized a street festival and Mother’s Day parade. Faubourg Marigny and New Marigny share many neighborhoods have no spirit. For me, it is only a few similarities. Homes and businesses project an offbeat sense steps to cross from one Marigny to the other. Given the of whimsy, architectural detail, and a history of endurance. shared histories of these two authentic neighborhoods, it Those that still stand have proved themselves through their is not a long walk at all. LCV centuries-long existence in New Orleans. The recovery after Katrina in New Orleans invoked hard questions on repopulation, gentrification, class and race. But all New Keith Weldon Medley is the author of We as Freemen – Plessy v. Orleanians are linked to the city and each other by Ferguson – The Fight against Legal Segregation (Pelican Publishing neighborhoods, cultural traditions, and history. Without the Company; May, 2003). As a freelance writer, he has compiled more architecture and history, the culture and traditions lack a than 50 writings on Louisiana’s history and culture including two context. Without the culture and tradition, the reports in Smithsonian magazine. His website: www.kwmedley.com Summer 2008/LOUISIANA ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES 47 CHERYL GERBER http://www.kwmedley.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Summer 2008

Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Summer 2008 Contents Friends Editor’s Column Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities George Rodrigue’s Louisiana: Cajuns, Blue Dogs & Beyond Katrina The Historic New Orleans Collection After The Flood Faubourg Marigny: The Creole “Suburb” Preserving New Orleans Jazz, One Generation at a Time: Conversation & Music with Tom Sancton Louisiana Foodways Louisiana Architecture Baton Rouge Photographs, 1863-1910 Jazz Notes The Ogden Museum of Southern Art Louisiana Association of Museums Nature of the “Beast” Louisiana State Museum Bookstand Sound Advice Forum

Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Summer 2008

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