新奥尔良湖景社区相关建筑及环境情况记录丨美国

On the Road in New Orleans

Lakeview

Photographs from December 28, 2006

Lakeview is a suburban community within the city limits. Located in the low-lying lands at the "back of town", it was one of the last areas of the city to be developed. It contains a wide variety of architectural styles, most commonly suburban ranch homes, but also older bungalows and occasional shotguns.

The neighborhood was deluged with five to seven feet of water -- more in some places -- leaving every home damaged, and some in ruins. Breaks in the 17th Street Canal, a few blocks west of here, innundated Lakeview but left neighborhoods on the other side of the canal mercifully untouched.

The photos here were taken in a swath of streets running north from I-610 to Robert E Lee Boulevard, west of Canal Boulevard.

Lakeview Baptist Church, a Mid-Century Modernist building.

Lakeview Lives! Merry C-mas. A festively repainted house, decorated with a FEMA trailer.

Waterlines showing the devastating extent of the flooding in this area.

A lovely cottage with a roof of reddish Spanish tile, at Louis 14th Avenue; it suffered heavy flooding like the rest of the area. Signs on the telephone pole advertise painting, drywall, and carpentry services.

This was the outlandish sight which drew us into the neighborhood -- an ordinary suburban house... being raised ten feet into the air. A base of concrete stilts will be constructed beneath it. As I understand it, this is the only way to obtain a building permit, if the city assesses the damage to your building as greater than 50%. The cost, as well as the difficulty of raising brick buildings, likely means that many more demolitions are in the future.

Views down the devastated streets of the neighborhood. There has been a great deal of cleanup, and life is slowly returning, but many empty houses remain.

A twin shotgun. Note the height of the first search-and-rescue near the peak of the gable.

Vacant land where ruined houses were demolished.

At the southern end of the neighborhood, a magnificent Arts and Crafts Style building houses the former Lakeview School. It has been closed since the flooding, if not before then. The building stands on Milne at Hamey Street.

Across a view of empty lots that once contained houses, new construction rises at Colbert and French Street.