I attended in NYC last week a Gala Mardi Gras party put on by the
Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans. As a PTN member and with
PTN working w/ the World Monuments Fund I have been in the middle of
planning and executing of PTN activities in both New Orleans and Bay St.
Louis, MS.

Brian Robinson (SCAD) w/ APT has been leading assessment teams as
well... and I encourage everyone to volunteer.

At the Gala event I spoke w/ a NY Times reporter and he asked why NY'ers
would care about New Orleans. I tried to relate to him Pyrate's story
about the Met Life Bldg. & flashing mirrors w/ the steel crew at the WTC
and how at high elevation tall buildings are neighbors despite the
distance between them... and that New Orleans in a similar sense is our
neighbor, just as with Chicago, or Washington or San Francisco. When a
neighbor goes down we want to help. Aso, I related how people came to
help NY after 9/11, in particular folks that came from Oklahoma City and
Poland. There is a sense of a need to pay back for the Karma of good
words following after a devastating disaster.

While down in the Gulf for a PTN volunteer work week last month I asked
several people regarding the suicide rate. The response that I got from
Luis Linden, who was the National Trust rep at the time in MS (up to the
1st of the year), was that nobody really knows because there is no data
on where everyone went to. Another response that I got was a comment of
concern that properties will burn. Everyone that I met in the Gulf
region was obviously stunned, but they also showed a very strong can-do
and upbeat positive attitude. I did not meet one single individual that
manifested signs of depression. Though I was told of a situation where
someone owned a $500,000 home and only had $250,000 of flood insurance
on it. Though the poor were hit hard and immediatly I believe that the
situation will catch up with those who are deemed to be 'better off"
quickly enough. Behind the smiles I suspect that there is a very deep
feeling of terminal desperation.

Yesterday listening to CNN on the radio I heard about 'professionals'
returning to NOLA and finding themselves in stressed circumstances and
committing suicide. In partidular a 2nd generation pediatrician who was
at a loss because though he had a practice that encompassed 4
generations of families -- there were no children present any longer for
him to serve.

I am curious about the demographic of the suicide frequency in
particular in respect of teams of preservationists who will be
interfacing with the local and neighborhood populations and the sum
psychological effect that these teams need to be prepared for. For one,
what does it mean to fix up old buildings in an environment where folks
are so incredibly desperate as to kill themselves?

I will also note that there are some incredibly strong neighborhood and
church organizations that are holding themselves together quite well and
are ready to fight for a come back... and a come back in some cases does
mean to retain cultural heritage and the manifestation of culture in the
built environment... as well as the infrastructure of electric, water,
toilets, beer stores and a dry place to sleep.

I feel that as preservationistas what we need to bring with us is hope
in life. I do not think many of us are used to walking into houses and
finding dead people.

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