Irma Williams / Field Notes

Irma Williams/Field Notes:



On Friday March 6th Nish, Natalie, Emma and I drove to Algiers LA. I took the General Degaulle exit south and thought that we'd take a picture of the community that was replaced by the Fisher Housing Project. There were condo's and townhouses in various colors replaced by 3 and 4 story crowded red brick buildings, housing 8 to 10 families per unit. We preceded to Mardi Gras Lane and took a picture of this alligator no doubt crafted by Blaine Kern's crew. We also took a picture of Mardi World where many of the Mardi Gras floats are housed. We then drove down Opelousas street entering into Algiers Point. Opelousas Street seem to be the dividing street; I guess you can say what might be the upper echelon and just the plain middle class. I noticed that certain areas in the Point (Algiers) the homes were larger, nicely painted, beautiful manicured lawns, no one hanging out but just beautiful well kept properties. So I new it was the white section of Algiers Point. The other side of Opelousas the homes were not as large not nicely painted, although there were some very decent looking neighborhoods but nothing like the previous. I had the pleasure of being invited to a Christmas party by one of the doctors that live in Algiers Point. I would suppose the home that she lives in is about $400,000.00 or more. I saw no black families as I was driving in Dr.'s Sue neighborhood. One of the nurses (Desiree) who also lives in Algiers Point I spoke with said the the homes are probably passed from generation to generation I guess sort of like the homes on St. Charles Avenue. We then drove to the Algiers Ferry, took a picture of the Ferry and proceeded to this bar called The Dry Dock located about a half block from the ferry. There were 3 men (white) sitting on the outside of the bar. We got out of the car introduced ourselves and told them we were Tulane students and we are doing a project on Algiers. These men were very friendly, they asked us to sit down and they introduced themselves to us. ( Bruce, Ed, and Jim) I asked them did they live in a mixed neighborhood. Jim immediately said that Bruce does. Bruce said that pre Katrina his street was all white. Post Katrina blacks started moving in and most of the whites moved out he stayed and he said that he was glad that he did...he said he loves his neighbors, they were the nicest people. He lives on Beck and Walnut Street in Algiers. So we talked about Katrina and I guess spent about 20 minutes with them. From there we went to O'Perry Walker High School to see if we could get some statistics. We spoke to Brandon Ormont briefly. He could not meet with us at the time, he was meeting with some more Tulane students and he thought we were them. We then preceeded to the 4th District police station which is right off of Gen Meyer Street. We kind of had a hard time finding it. We introduced ourselves to this woman who was behind the desk but she seemed to be snobbish and did not want to be bothered. The phone ranged and while she was talking I just wave and said we'll come back some other time. As we were going to our car there we two policemen leaving in their car but we were able to stop them. We asked them who could we speak with to get some stats on the department and the area in which they patrol. They replied that we would need to talk to the quality of life sergeant Richard Sisnack who at the time was not in. It was about 4:20 p. m. , Emma and Natalia needed to be back on campus by 5. We wrapped things up for that day. On Tuesday March 17th, after class Nish and I took another ride over to Algiers, we tried to find Newton and Bouny street, but those streets do not intersect. So we decided to go back to the 4th district police station, this time a very handsome man was sitting behind the desk. We indentified our selves, he seemed to be more cooperative and basically told us the same thing the two plicemen told us before when we went. But, he did take our phone numbers and said he would tell Sgt Sisnack to call us back. We went to Delgado's library and looked up the web site on the 4th district, it showed the crime stats but nothing on the ratio of blacks to whites crime and arrests. We then drove to Edna Karr High School on Huntlee Street, which used to be about 75% white it is now 85% black. It is a charter school. We spoke to the principle Ms. Charles . She gave us the stats ...Blacks 840, Asians 49, Hispanics 15, Whites 23 and American Indian 1. I know that blacks and whites ride the ferry. They go to the court house. The Holy Name of Mary Church middle school a small percentage of blacks attend there.



Nish Shepheard's Field Notes


My group and I went out to Algiers, LA on March the 6th. The first place we hit after getting off the bridge was the Fisher Housing Development on Whitney. The old, brown, graffiti covered buildings have been torn down and the colorful new buildings were built right across the street from where the old buildings once stood.

We worked our way toward Algiers Point. On our way there we found Mardi Gras World and took a couple of pictures of the big crocodile. We finally got to Algiers Point, where I found out was a predominately white area; clean streets, beautiful homes. We arrived at the ferry, where, despite the surrounding neighborhood, crime takes place. We stopped at the Dry Dock Cafe, where we chatted with three white men. One of them explained that the neighborhood he
lived in was predominatly white until Katrina had hit. Blacks moved in, and all the neighbors packed up and left;he stayed. He had no reason to leave because he loved his black neighbors. The men provided comic relief for our trip and made us feel very welcome.

We continued toward Newton. As we drove, we noticed trash strewn around, graffiti, abandoned buildings,etc. We drover further south and passed up the neighborhood where I grew up. The businesses that my family frequented as since closed down, and they have yet to be replaced with a new business or torn down. It was an eyesore. We finished up with O. Perry Walker and called it a day.


The next visit, we drove down Newton/General Meyer. We drove down south toward Kabel Drive and I noticed the neighborhoods in that area were nicer and better kept than the neighborhood in the opposite direction. I came to the conclusion of spatial segregation: south of Algiers, mosltly white, North, mostly black. The second school we visited, Edna Karr, was a magnet school that accepted certain students before Katrina. when I was living in Algiers, it was, I believe, 85- 90% white and the rest a small percentage of minorities. I was shocked to find out that after the storm, the school population did a complete flip! It is due to Karr becoming a public school after the storm, meaning anybody can attend.