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18 APRIL 2007 PRESERVATION IN PRINT Mandi Thompson Ashley Morris Geoffrey Moen Ali Sharif Post Katrina, Historic New Orleans At Compiled by Mary Fitzpatrick Stephen Maggart Lower Garden District Systems Engineer for Lockheed Martin I grew up in Nashville and finished graduate school at Vanderbilt in May 2006. Coming from Nashville, I wanted another place with a distinctive culture. I came to New Orleans because of an opportunity to work on NASA’s new Orion spacecraft at the Michoud Assembly Facility. Our goal is to send astronauts back to the moon and beyond. As a bonus, I had a great group of friends already living here who make it fun to learn the city. I feel the Lower Garden District is a nice blend of the urban amenities of downtown and the attractive architecture of uptown. I can walk to shops and restaurants, and come home to enough space to be comfortable. My place has an amazing oversized staircase, high ceilings, virtually no insulation or water pressure, the odd spider or two, beautiful tile fireplaces and loads of natural light. As with all old homes it has its idiosyncrasies, but the uniqueness makes up for it. ■ Matt Candler Uptown CEO, New Schools for New Orleans I was the chief operating officer for a $41 million school support organization called the <strong>Center</strong> for Charter School Excellence in New York City. Along with other long-time educators located in New Orleans and New York, I decided that what we had done in New York could be replicated in New Orleans. In New York, only two percent of kids go to a charter school. In New Orleans, 55 percent of kids attend charter schools, and we believe that New Orleans is the one place in the United States right now where the concepts of autonomy and accountability have the chance to redefine and radically improve urban public education. What do I like best about being here The opportunity that we have to show the nation how to improve schools by putting kid issues ahead of adult issues. And Snug Harbor. ■ Geoffrey Moen Faubourg Marigny City Planner for the City of New Orleans When Katrina hit I was in Chicago working toward my Master’s degree. I decided to co-organize a volunteer trip for fellow graduate students to gut flooded homes. I fell in love with the city during the trip, and I knew I wanted to be a part of the rebuilding process. I immediately became infatuated with the downtown faubourgs. I felt like I was in a very special place, unlike anywhere else in the United States. I appreciated the Marigny’s proximity to nightlife on Frenchmen Street and the French Quarter, but I didn’t think I would be able to afford anything there. I loved my apartment the first time I saw it – it’s on the second floor of a house, and has a side gallery with a skyline view – and my landlord was willing to bargain a little on the price. New Orleans is one of the most comfortable cities in the United States. Streets are narrow, buildings are small, and most of them are brightly painted and inviting, with porches, stoops, and Caribbean shuttered doors in various combinations. Esplanade Avenue is perhaps the most beautiful street I have ever seen. ■ Esther Wanjira Nganga with husband, Rev. Moses Nganga Muguro, and children, Wisdom and Gloria Lower Garden District Public Health and Social Worker I moved here from Nairobi, Kenya. I was working in eight regions in Kenya educating communities on health issues, especially HIV and AIDS prevention for the youth. I came to New Orleans on a Ford Foundation scholarship to further my education at the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. The neighborhood looked clean and safe and it was good in terms of location and public transportation. I discovered that it is an excellent neighborhood when I watched Trinity Episcopal School staff and students walking confidently and peacefully to and from the school on Jackson Avenue. To me this was a very unique way from what I had seen before. I believe that children are the legacy which I shall leave for the time that I will not live to see. I needed a good school for my children, and I was frustrated until I went to the Trinity office of admission. My life has never been the same again. Trinity School is the greatest place in the U.S. for me. Gentleness and kindness was evident and still is in my interaction with the Trinity community. The school is like a star in the darkness. It is Trinity that gave meaning to my family when I had given up and wanted to take my children back to Africa. ■ Shawn Anglim and Anne Daniell and Mae, 3-1/2 years and James, 4 months Bayou St. John United Methodist Minister Shawn is a United Methodist minister at First United Methodist Church, at the corner of Canal and Jeff Davis. He is also serving in “Mission Zone 1,” which consists of six United Methodist Church congregations, half of which were devastated by the flood. I am an independent academic, currently working as a full-time mom. We came here for Shawn’s position in June, 2006. The Bayou St. John neighborhood is close to the various churches that are part of the Mission Zone Shawn is serving. It is also a beautiful neighborhood, and we love www.prcno.org
PRESERVATION IN PRINT APRIL 2007 19 Noel Henderson-James Olivia Stinson Reverend Raymond Cannata ns Attracts a Variety of New Residents Jazz Fest. We also are committed to the Mid-City neighborhood, where First United Methodist Church is located. The people involved in Mid-City Neighborhood Recovery are extraordinary! The work we are involved with is beautiful. We wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. In New Orleans, I feel like I’m inside of something – a spiritual process that is greater than the sum of its parts. Now, especially, I also feel like we’re involved in a worthwhile project that is greater than ourselves – the project of healing and resurrecting our city. ■ Nancy and Guy Fournier Garden District Innkeepers – Sully Mansion We moved from Richmond, Virginia where Guy was head of business development for a specialized children’s hospital and I was responsible for all the human service agencies for the City of Richmond. We’ve been coming to visit New Orleans for years, but we changed careers and took possession of the Sully Mansion January of 2006. We had planned to do this about four years from now and had been looking at properties. When Katrina happened, we couldn’t imagine that New Orleans might not exist and we thought that if we were ever going to do this we should do it now. We wanted to help bring New Orleans back and host people who would come to the city. Sully Mansion was already a licensed B & B. The house had been neglected, but it’s beautiful and only one of seven Thomas Sully-designed homes left intact in New Orleans. What I like and also don’t like about New Orleans is that it is unlike anywhere else in the universe. New Orleans meets your senses better than any other place. ■ Patrick McRae Faubourg St. Roch U.S. Dept. of Commerce – Foreign Service Officer You either “get” this place or you don’t. Fortunately for me, I think I get it, and I’m richer for it. I was sent here by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce in September 2006. I am responsible for coordinating a global initiative to attract foreign direct investment to the city and the region. New Orleans to me is like a handsome, proud, stylish, lovingly sassy woman -- a woman who has taken a beating. When you look at her from one angle, you see all the attractive features I just mentioned, but when you look at her from another you see the fresh scars, and you can’t help but feel the sadness. This city though, like the fictitious woman, still strives to stand straight, to retain her inherent stylish beauty and rely on an inherent strength to move forward with a certain determined grace found only in this city -- in spite of the pain. www.prcno.org Reverend Raymond Cannata Uptown Presbyterian Pastor, Redeemer Presbyterian Church I was raised in New York City and Northern New Jersey and came here from a position as senior pastor of a Presbyterian church in Somerset County, NJ. My wife and I fell wild in love with the city when we visited one week before Katrina. I was scheduled to come back for a second job interview the day of Katrina. Seeing the storm damage when we came in October ’05 convinced us of our calling. The Christian life is supposed to be about moving toward the pain. We turned down a senior pastorate in San Diego to come here. It was not a sacrifice -- this is the most wonderful city in America. We wanted to be in the center of the Uptown neighborhood, where most of our congregation lives. We bought a shotgun double -- converted to a single – that was built in 1902 by German immigrants. Among the 11 owners was Johnny DeDroit, a jazz pioneer and bandleader. What I like about living here is the diversity, architecture, the urban setting with a strong sense of neighborhood, community and place, and also the music clubs, food, sense of celebration in the culture, the parks, our church and the open, honest, interesting and creative people. In the Bible every picture of heaven involves celebration. Jesus talks about the Kingdom of God as a great feast. In that way New Orleans looks more like heaven than any place else in America! We can’t believe how blessed we are to be here. ■ Ashley and Hana Morris (and Katerina, Annabel Lee, and Rey d'Orleans) Carrollton Computer Science Professor commuting to DePaul University in Chicago This time, [I moved to New Orleans] just because we wanted to live here again. I lived here as a kid in the ‘60s, when my dad had a car lot on Chef Highway. Then I went to college here, and we knew this was the only place we wanted to live. When I found out my wife was pregnant with our third child, I knew we had to move into the Lusher school district. We were supposed to close on the house on September 3, 2005. Well, that didn’t happen. The place didn’t get flooded, but did sit on pilings about four inches above the water. After going around and around with attorneys and insurance and mortgage brokers, we finally were one of the first people to close post-flood, in the first week of November. We had no idea if we’d be able to move back or not. This was killing us, and so our unborn child’s name changed from John Lee Morris to Rey d’Orleans Morris. He was born here on December 28, 2005. continued on page 20
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