>> listen, i am optimistic that a couple of you will buy some of my books and fly back to miami with them. [laughter] [applause] thank you. [inaudible conversations] >> now is a discussion on the history of new orleans and its neighborhoods. this is from the recent tennessee new orleans literacy festival. >> good afternoon everybody. welcome to the 33rd annual tennessee williams literary festival into this panel, won't you be my new orleans neighborhood. please turn off your cell phones, you know how annoying that can be. i want to think or sponsor, pelican publishing for sponsoring this event.

the box office info desk, merchandise and book fairs can be found right outside this room and now that i've gotten my knee replaced it is where i will be going to purchase on walking new orleans neighborhood. with that i will let stephanie to get away. >> thank you everybody for being here today. it is fun to see so many people interested in the literature and the experience of the new orleans neighborhood. if you are here for the last panel discussion you would note the optimism seems to reside at the local level in neighborhood. so i feel like this was a perfect segue into what we are going to be talking about this afternoon. [applause] . . .

>> if you see my house, it probably is more gray garden. [laughter] >> beautiful. we are neighbors. >> at any rate, i am curious about the neighborhood experiences people had in new orleans. and these panelists. so i will start with scott ellis down there.

"the faubourg marigny of new orleans".very much part of the new orleans experience. >> thank you stephanie. to start out, but is a neighborhood why is it worth recording? i think it's worth recording if you're really integrated into it. if your friends lived there. if you know something about it more than the streetscape. and some of the houses are transparent to you. i do the people that used to live there.and with the person that added that feature. it may be long gone but i knew that. i was the person that painted those steps. when i first moved into new orleans in the 80s. i knew a lot more people. the real estate was not nearly as expensive. and there was a feeling that -

- was a giant living room. it was like an extension of my own apartment. my apartment was okay. there were blocks and blocks. there was no texting then. you had to go to someone's house and see if they were home. and we had to knock on the door port or call them and say can i come over. can i come over, what's going on? do you have anything to eat? and so, making my rounds, that's how i got the feeling of the neighborhood. this has become something trite.

i really did get that feeling of coming home. to a place i had never really lived before. it's true in my experience. >> when i interview people about their homes for the advocate. [inaudible question] >> in my experience of people interviewing people, once they came they felt so at home here, they had to make it their permanent home. i think your sentiment is right on target. what about you katie? >> i think it's interesting you're saying or living in the home that you've always lived in. i'm a little home that my grandmother bought uptown in 1976. and i visited her from thibodeau where i lived and

that's what became what i thought of new orleans. and then my grandmother remained in that house until she passed on and my mother moved in. and she remained until she couldn't any longer. so it's the house i think of. i went to tulane but i went to my grandmothers for something to eat. do my laundry. i sat in the dining room table to write my essays for school. in those days you could handwrite your work and turn it in. and now, brian and i sat in the same room. i thought, it feels almost like homing pigeons.

and i felt like my grandmother was with me. >> i felt my grandfather was with me the whole time. >> and how lucky we are. that's my experience of living in new orleans. i went to new york for about 20 years and then i came back. and wanted to be right in that same neighborhood. so here i am. >> it's similar. i grew up on the lakefront. right near you guys. in an area that was fairly very new. doing the research for the book, i noted my grandfather was pretty instrumental for pioneering the neighborhood. and my grandmother too. they were a team to be reckoned with.

while on the other side in lake vista in the spanish fort area. where the original beach was. and they would try. think about it, it's in the 20s. and they would drive all the way from nashville to the farthest point of lakefront. for this new burgeoning business together. she was a cashier. and they noticed as they were going all the - - works. also the bridge connecting - - what is it called? anyway, connecting that area to the existing. long story short, he was a very

smart man. so was she. came up with the idea to pitch to the city to come up with an amusement park at the foot of lesion fields. bring in sand to the gold coast and create a man-made beach with an amusement park. the city went crazy for the idea and that's how it was born. muhlenberg, that was it.>> what's interesting to me is that she is in uptown raised woman. your grandmother. i was perfectly fine to go someplace totally new. create something new. there were both attracted to new architecture. they traveled the world looking at new suburbs, new cities. i find that interesting because a lot of women want to be next to their sisters. they were trailblazers. >> there was nothing there.

cal - - cow pastures. >> you grew up on the lakefront. >> i went to school uptown and it was a long track. all of my friends really, the lakefront? really? 20 to visa to get there? [laughter] and then you say we could go to punch a train beach. it was a litmus test to see how my real friends were. >> what was it like growing up other than the inconvenience? >> it was wonderful. the lake vista area, the way it was laid out. it was so beautiful there are lines that connect to the back of the houses or the front of

the houses. through a series of parkways. as a kid, it was fantastic. always a treat to climb or big meadow to play in. we loved it. i cannot think of a better way of growing up because i didn't know any different. >> and moving around to the different food unit which mothers were cooking at what time and what they were cooking. >> who had the best red beans and rice in the neighborhood but it was very much a neighborhood. >> i think a lot of people value lake vista today. people want to have kids to just get on the bike and not worry about them writing in the street, really do. >> we just had to call when the summer go down and tell them where we were and that was about it. some of my friends didn't have to do that. >> we were only two kids. the ones who have more like,

whatever. >> some areas, i was talking to scott before we got started today. he said the - - for the area he lives now, he really didn't get called until the 1970s or so. >> it was revived. there in the early 70s. it had really been called the seventh and eighth boards of the third district. because people's identity really came from the district and the ward. that was much more important in those days.>> that was one thing i noticed in my neighborhood. i'd say something like, the 13 ward. then they would know where i was from. but later on it was like, up the hill. >> i called it attained uptown or the garden district. between general taylor and

constantinople. >> neighborhoods do change names. someone said to me today that they live on - - it was rich. where's rich? he's our monitoring her. he will make sure we don't run over talking. but he lives that constance and general taylor. he said, people call that west riverside but i don't know if that's really the name of it. i said that's - - he said, i don't think anybody knows that. i think now people are much more conscious. i don't know why that is. of the name of their neighborhood. >> and getting it correct. >> in new york too. we used to call it the dance belt in the theater district.

now it's called clinton. >> do y'all have thoughts about why that would be? why it is. i noticed, i did a lot of work when i worked at the presentation resource center and the holy cross section. it seems like the holy cross has jettisoned their identity as being holy cross possibly because the school isn't there anymore. >> i think it changes as the needs change or the desired identity of the neighborhood changes. one might sound more posh or current. i'm thinking of magazine street. we own a business up here, closer to state street uptown. and so, up in that area, there's been a push to try to call it west mag.

a little #. a way to, because they're very different identities along the sixth mile. >> we are seeing kind of a laboratory of that. at this very moment. when the market was redone after so many years. continuing contingent of people saying that's - - know, it's a rock. that went on for a while. the real estate people really want to call it new marigny. so there's attention going on with that right now. it's all snobbery.>>. [laughter] >>.

>> people say things like, i never know uptown. >> back in the day there's this lingering dish and- - difference between creole and anglo. i remember our wonderful friend mark cooper. a real pioneer. [indiscernible]

>> of course them as we grew up in and the educations we have to. >> the french could not stand americans and that's understandable. but canal street was the border. but they purposely wrist pronounced the french words and it stuck. [inaudible conversations]

>> we will come back to that because i have another question i asked scott earlier. people say - - where does that come from? i don't think it's proper. >> i hear a lot of people saying i'm going to the walmart. in a time machine may be. i think the article really came out after the real renovation and the gentrification of the - - because it had that cachet.

to give it more of a cachet because the real estate people want to talk up an area and give it this she. sheen. but they want to buffet up as much as possible. >> if i can bridge onto something stephanie was saying a few beats ago. about people and neighborhoods. i know that when i lived in the quarter of the mid-eighties. there was this presumption lik , okay, you were either an old italian family that lived there forever and ever. you're a bum or you are screamingly gay. >> i was in the latter category.

so people would say, i guess there's no mystery. it was the most always a quasi- outcast thing. but the marigny's had - - that distinction did not get made as it did with the french quarter. the - - is affordable, i cannot yard. there are people that lived there forever. they can help me do stuff. they could help me learn the neighborhood as opposed to the cachet of the corridor. or the baggage of living in the quarter. >> that's certainly true. i think also - - we all are

aware of the short-term rental battle going on in our city. many people here from out of town? a lot of people are from out of town. you may not know about the short-term battles but basically airbnb places, vacation rental by owner. home away or something like that. all businesses that make it possible for people to rent out or houses. some of our neighborhoods. renting out any part of your house temporarily was illegal. the rules were put in place. and the rules were a little lax for people's taste. it's inevitable that a neighborhood will be changed if

a corporation comes in and buys up three doubles. or the channel and some other place and makes the moment short-term rentals. that something people did do under the rules we set in place. in new orleans and other places around the nation right now, there's a lot of issues involved with this. basically running a hotel. if you don't own it, you don't live there or on the premises and so forth. the idea is to have the owners have a homestead exemption you can't get a license to have an airbnb.

>> when it becomes a business and you don't live there the retail values raise and it's difficult for a family to move in. i think that's going on all over the country. i think in my neighborhood our property taxes have gone so far that i had to take emergency action. in new orleans, can have your property taxes frozen at a certain level if you make a certain amount of money so i

was able to do that. unfortunately, they were frozen really high. >> can you unfreeze them? >> i don't know. but the point is when i went to city hall i said, if property values happen to go down, will my taxes go down? she said oh yes honey, you just have to let us know. >> that's going to be a fun trip down to cityhall . [inaudible conversations] >> my friends in vilas state did tell me when the restrictions were placed on the short-term rentals in the quarter fairly recently. that the prices to become - - start to come down a little bit. they're kind of stratospheric for my taste. but they did come down a little bit. i do know when airbnb got popular in new orleans in the 80s and 90s, there was a similar backlash.

in almost every case, the owners did live on - - and they were putting money back into the property and were really neighborhood anchors. and they really had a good relationship with people in the streetscape. and then, of course, the web enabled short-term rentals. everybody says airbnb. they came in and suddenly all those relationships and understandings are out the window. i think it's a terrible thing. >> so, i guess i will just rent out my house. i wouldn't be doing that anyway. the point is i think it does really help, if you really are a neighbor in your neighborhood. if you have an airbnb, have

people come to town and visit every now and then the property taxes are hard to meet if i'm a single income in my home. if not the termites than the weather, the humidity. i probably would never start a business. something creative because i do understand the idea that we have so many large properties in new orleans. new orleans has gotten more expensive since hurricane katrina. i think the taxes are higher. seems like it's gotten very expensive to live in new orleans. where it used to be the best deal in the world. low property taxes.

no one playing there - - paying their fair share. >>. [indiscernible] >> now, now, the schools are improving. >> i think this trend toward upscaling and apparently there's no level of luxury that's enough for the general population. new orleans was the last city in america where there was no shame in being poor. it was like okay, your poor living in a ratty apartment. or sharing a shotgun. there was no shame. your part of the vitality and

streetscape and part of the landscape. that's okay.but now, with the property value being what they are, that's another reason why we are having this colonization outside investment. of people who may be living in dubai or moscow or tokyo or whatever. coming in and buying stuff but they don't have any skin in the game. that's very troubling. >> that's happening in

>> there is not the little budget on the strict and the restaurants i would like the most. what are you really looking for. so investors are looking for something very bland. or probably shop. [laughter] so yeah, even if you could afford it is just not the same. but in new orleans i think our neighborhood still maintain a very strong individual character. in my neighborhood even if it's in the heart of the town there is still a little grocery store that are south that aren't that great. >> you must be going to dallas. [laughter] >> i go there all the time. >> they are horribly wonderful. >> you might not agree, but i

like the fried chicken very well whenever they have it. but anyway, i think that is the thing that endures. >> the architecture in the city, this is why i was very vocal and adamant and when these tax credits affect the film industry mainly because for these creative thinking not to new orleans and think about this, with three or four five-mile radius you have got every possible file of architecture, you could throw mud on the street and you're pretty much early 19th century, you have got a waterfront, you've got mid century modern at the lake, the suburb right there, a wealth of victorian in turn of the century of bland in small railroads, everywhere, it is the perfect place for filming to come down and work.

it is the location scouts dream. so i'm so glad the tax credits are coming back. >> tells about. >> gradually there is still a cap but there's a lot more filming going on and what people don't realize it also helps the neighborhoods wherever they are filming, wherever they are going cool they can only monitor the checks that are written by the producer by the company that is doing that. the restaurants, the day today, all of these people -- >> a lot of people buy houses in. >> i was on mtv, don't ask. [laughter] she fell in love with new orleans, but a quadruple and renovated it and live there and was running it out, she loved being here, without the series is going to run much longer than

two seasons, but it didn't. >> that's great. >> under i think in the last week, it's something to get over. but the neighborhood that has benefited from that and that they can benefit from having short-term rentals that are under control. [inaudible question] >> yes,. >> everything has to be balanced in life. >> in my little block, the same neighbors have been a since the 70s, it's great, everybody knows a spot to put the car and if some stranger or visitor, like my brother might come into town and i to get up and say no that is her spot, mentor. please i live here, you cannot take and spot or a man does,

that is her spot. and we watch out for each other. i think neighborhoods of the essence of the core still exist has been battered by high property value, only if you plan to sell. is it really a good thing. if you plan to sell, where are you going to go? exactly. on the other hand i think the core of the essence of each neighborhood remains and i feel really good about that. [inaudible question]

>> what the flavor is for each neighborhood, the differences, the architecturally and by the makeup of who lives there. >> there is a wonderful book you can buy, i'm not sure you can but here it's called new orleans street the neighborhoods guide architecture. when it worked, it was called state worker. and i was a streetwalker walking the streets of new orleans. [laughter] but the purpose was to characterize and profile the architecture of each neighborhood and i think you demonstrate how architecturally different they are. in different mixes. you have basically neighborhoods that were built in the 1800s of one flavor, is your sin, and then sometime people who owned a beautiful double gallery house

in the law regarding district or in a great big part of land in there itself the land eventually in the ranch house would go next-door. so you can see actually visibly what is the progression of things in the neighborhood. >> after the french quarter, but in our researcher we were researching how the wealthier almost as a country to buy a big piece of land in a guarded district and build these very big, i think it's kind of need driven, and when you look at central avenue ec dimensions and when is you go towards back the river you see the little shotguns in the doubles where the people that work. which are now so charming and those are so pricey. but i love to do that, i love to walk from st. charles and see the little cottages,.

>> the city and the area is just some great, even in the termini in the areas i've never been discovered since i've been back home in new orleans and it is fascinating. and when the neighborhood, that has a whole different spot and now we have the other groups to tour in the century modern house. in an area called the black pro uptown. that is by the lakefront. i feel like these identities and the neighborhoods remain strong and unlike some of the bigger houses of town where they have a funky addition, renovation and crazy things done to the footprint, out of the lakefront, you are invited to a friend's

house and nothing has been touched. so footprint is exactly the thing, the bathrooms, in the uptown, they are crazy. and on the crazies 50s and 60s,. >> they were never made into double bathrooms. >> didn't really change unless after katrina or people still wanted to live at the lakefront but they want their steamboat on the lakefront. which is fine, but i loved seeing the beautiful midcentury -- >> that was a generation that thought pink and green tile looked really good. >> i still feel really happy as a preservationist when i run into house with a pink tile bathroom. because i feel like that you can find them in really old houses and it tells you about the air in which they really did put in the bathroom. >> there.

very visual. >> i don't know whether financially or just respect for the architectural or the history, a lot of the times he would not think of turning down you would renovate, add an addition but you would not take down this beautiful historic structure. some people would but usually, now fortunately, i say fortunately i don't know if anybody lives here that wants to tear down the house and uptown, but there was, he established a review committee to preserve the housing stock of the neighborhood. it was an obscure committee and people wanted to tear something down they had to come in. there is another version and certainly neighborhoods that not too long ago uptown became local

historic districts under partial control. which means of any structure in this neighborhood has to go before it releases staff of the hdl historic remarks commission report can be torn down and that was a great relief. >> i think there is a balance, there are some things you look at and you think that really needs to come down. and like my neighbor, right across the street from me, they have a beautiful house on the corner in the two little dilapidated racks,. >> i think we ended up on the different side of the panel. >> i know in new orleans we have a fear of anything new or changing but sometimes it can be done well. and there is such a thing, i'm sure i said this before that when the french quarter burned there were many times it burned down but originally it was all french architecture and it was rebuilt in the spanish

architecture. and we make it unique and i'm trancas avenue when they were gonna build the guggenheim and sure they were all like no. now it's an iconic structure. there can be something built new as long as it blends and works in blends and supports, i do believe we live in the now. there's nothing like a gorgeous architecture, he needs to be preserved in a balance. and i do think our little shotgun singles are at risk, because they're all being camelback and turned into two-story houses in developing things like that. >> play that one. you know the one. >> or yes that one. >> i hope they're not here. >> one of the themes that i kept revisiting in my books was if

you want to have a cohesive neighborhood has to be walkable. suburban neighborhoods, i live in one right now is in fact walkable, we may actually get a sidewalk. >> which would be really astounding 50 years after the subdivision was put in. but the point is, these intercity neighborhoods, the merrily, the book array, the bywater are walkable because of the fact that in the beginning and of course they were laid out, the streets are very narrow and not made for cars. but preserving that walk ability, is very important and not having barriers and of course were trying to be ada compliant as we can not to put any barriers in people's way but to keep things walkable and of course in the city with a renewed emphasis on bicycles that is very important too. but to have a walkable neighborhood because you cannot

learn in neighborhood if all you do is drive and park in the garage, getting house and repeat the process. >> that was one of the motivations for doing the streetwalker column. there is also one, street scene, we don't get to do it too often. but the same idea, a law was developed where people were on foot. and that is what makes it so stunning to walk the sidewalks to get a sense of proportion in the gardens and the smells, fragrances it was so wonderful, all the flowers getting ready to bloom. all those good things. in the french quarter, some of the orders were not quite so enticing or romantic. [laughter] >> yes if you all felt like there is any neighborhoods you

would live in that you have not already lived in or do not currently live in human thought about word would be? >> i would have to say the st. john area. it is gorgeous. >> it's beautiful. >> there's so many hidden treasures back there. all around there. >> as we watch her, i said one of my ideas, i want to live on a vote at the lakefront but i would love to be on a vote out there. >> for me, that is a very tough question. i would probably say the lower garden district because i have friends that live there in the 80s and there are some hidden gems there too. >> lower gardens, is an interesting neighborhood, as i understand it was very -- i

think it named certain ways divided up a certain way. when the garden district was made into the garden district, then what to do with a part of it that was downriver, so tuning the area, apparently right after the war there were two, i don't remember the name of them but there was something about housing, terrible housing shortage, the garden district was protected from providing of the houses into billions of apartments with the law regarding district wasn't so that was one of the things that sort of changed the passage of the neighborhood and a ramp that used to be on hand street believe it or not there was a bridge that went straight down. it went along coliseum square park. and that was also something. >> there is another great neighborhood that i discovered. there he i never been until this

year, his old algia, it is enchanting, i thought i was in mayberry, it was wonderful,. >> that little library is a little community. and don't forget west wego. [laughter] the most perfectly name town. [laughter] >> an old gretna is also very beautiful. they're having a tour next week and i recommend the people. who aren't familiar. it is very historic it goes way back, because back to the mid- 1800s and has fabulous houses are what you are likely to find if you're speeding by on the expressway. you have to get off the expressway and make your way to the river and then you find a charming area. so i guess it's about time to open things up for questions.

we will open things up for questions now. if you can wait until rich brings you the microphone that would be wonderful and that way everybody can hear your questions. >> a bit year after katrina my wife and i went to new york city and she had a pain and we heard abraham give a lecture, and he mentioned that he was getting into shakespeare. and he always wanted, i forget what shakespeare played but is set in the new orleans area. so i went up to him and i said why is that, he said well because i go there two or three times a year end my son lives are and he lives off of esplanade and he said his house did not flood in the very thing you talked about, and i remember and i wish it had all been about that, but they also had a café

out and indigo in the plantation, it was a beautifully place to have dinner and their beginning to build the place backup but i agree with you, the st. john esplanade ridge is a fantastic area. >> i would love to see 12th ninth done and when he turns the bottom of a roman candy guy. [laughter] >> he thought about this. [inaudible] >> that would've been very fun. >> i have been intrigued of thinking about your earlier comment, that thinking of naming upper magazine street. >> west mag. >> yes west.

the problem i see, if you would get anything from part of the town and you say which way is east in which way is west. [laughter] >> it's an uptown and et cetera. i have to say that we were raised of town and we raised our children there. we have been living in the french quarter for the last 25 years and we have people visiting us and we say, tomorrow morning we will get up early to go to coffee and we will watch the sunrise out of the west bank. [laughter] >> this gentleman over here. >> two quick questions, one you had mentioned black pearl area

earlier, tell us the background of the name is such an evocative name and second quick question, just the other day i went to a performance piece that is running tonight in a bit of a home on fountain blue and broadway. it's a beautiful neighborhood. what is a neighborhood called? >> it's one house off of my mother's growing up. >> what about black pro? >> i think black pro was an old name for the neighborhood but it is been rejected and refers to race as i believe. it's where black people lived in the neighborhood. it stretches all the way to the river to cleburne avenue and broadway over. this is a little triangle, i think somebody wanted to call it the college in triangle, but i prefer by pro.

it rejects a up in a church where she sang is there. [inaudible question] >> i'm sure there are many stories but in the 70s during the original administration, curtis and davids conducted a neighborhood study in they went around to all of these neighborhoods and said what do you call your neighborhood, this is pre-prc, when that neighborhood, they referred to it as the locals as the n-word town. until someone very creative in the office, producing davis came up with a much more pc name. hence the name black pro. >> i have a question for brian. i know how much you love new york and new orleans, what is

the tide between architecture there in architecture here. >> we appreciate her architecture much more, it is just tardy. it was when it started, they tore down the original helen hayes and roscoe theaters and there was a whole flock to build the beautiful marriott hotel. in the marriott marquis theater which i do the sugar, it's just a ten cavern. you see these gorgeous brownstones being tore down in the theater district alone there used to be roads of restaurants and pubs that we would go to in the post theater and they are gone. they are all high-rises. and deb schreiber called this new news, newar new york new or.

i don't know whether to big apple, big easy, there is a genuine deep seated love of the town with a little bit of sarcasm to because we can put it down but don't you dare talk bad. [laughter] 9/11 in new york and katrina here, it was the same kind of bonding, posttraumatic experience of the people. and i just found that very interesting. i cannot put my finger on it but there was a definite draw. >> when you live in new york after a certain amount of years you do know your neighborhood. you know the drycleaner, you know the guy at the place a

really loving other people on the subway at the same time that her walking home at the same time, it is become a neighborhood even as jarring as it is. [inaudible question] >> that is another reason just not to like him. [laughter] >> do you have more questions? >> when you talk about neighborhoods and what makes a good neighborhood, i always think of the area along cleburne avenue where the oaks were there and what happened in the interstate human. so neighborhoods can be destroyed. >> and they definitely can enter people out of town the referring

to in the late 60s early 70s there was a cleburne avenue downriver, whatever direction, a north claiborne avenue was lined with oak trees, beautiful oak trees, and it was a point of time where they decided to connect claiborne avenue with i tend and in elevated expressways went in and turn on all the oaktree's and that was with some under these. and i had a childhood memory of those oaktree's because we used to go shop, there is a dance shop. >> yes. >> yes and i thought maybe it was a dream that i had. >> and i saw the pictures of what cleburne avenue look like, there is actually a new post- katrina that had a head of

steam,. >> wasn't there a push to put a whole big highway along the side of the french quarters? in front of the french quarters? >> actually the one along along cleburne cayman in both for purposes of the same time not only did the claver when get billed, but it divided germany and it extends all the way from the rampart street and it does extend and they divided it in half. i'm very surprised about how one single street for a good point of a neighborhood in a dangerous part of any bird.

in his point is you are talking about is called alger's river your real which is on the other side of appaloosa, on the other side there were fabulous sizes very delighted, lots and lots of buildings, right on the other side and that is where the little villages went back to disney world or someplace, it is interesting how a single barrier, street can make a difference. >> there was also an african-american business community along claiborne that really came back in the area even though it's an elevated expressway it forms a psychological barrier and that is something that my research has indicated that you have psychological barriers because

for many years people in the merry said don't cross. now of course that has changed thankfully. >> same thing in new york, columbus avenue was under construction for years. and it killed practically all the businesses that were there. >> and i think about the same time that they put in the high rates elevated express over claiborne and it was about 24 square blocks. and there is going to be a civic center. but that was all trim may enroll cottages. [inaudible question] [inaudible question]

>> write a book. >> that is all-time resident of trim ma tramway which is an inst irreparable harm to the neighborhood where you can trade on 24 square blocks of it. that's why a number of people were very unhappy about removing the hospital. in tearing down half of the city, the oldest part of the big-city neighborhood was closest to downtown and putting in a big hospital. >> i grew up town, went to boston for eight years and came back and all my friends had

moved. i don't even remember by you that much going up and going to college, i don't even remember that much, but when i came back it was like i cannot leave it now. i was there for katrina, lost my house, but now i am in the triangle and the part way and that has changed. it is like the border and we have had an empty lot next to us since the house burned down in the 60s or 70s. it is right on the loop and now they are building a $1.3 million house or in a has nothing to do with architecture on the value at all. and it is crowded right up on the edges of both sides and a blocks everybody in the back, the court cannot see it at all. it is a modern house, square house living on the bottom, bedrooms on the top, and a third story which blocks everybody, and the sun coming down around.

it is changed a lot since i've been in the neighborhood since 2003 but i think will happen with all the people came in the middle part where the houses were a little cheaper and people bought all the houses and we got bmp people in the middle and the locals around the edge. [inaudible question] how did all these things happen, i am not from new orleans and i was not here for all the history but do we have anything in place now that we did not have before, had to be prevent it built across a beautiful wonderful part, how do we prevent this? >> unfortunately it does happen. and we have to learn from our past and past mistakes so that we do not repeat them.

>> i am a big believer in the historic district landmark commission. i know a lot of people feel restricted by the number of requirements that they make about keeping you with windows rather than changing them out. but i think in an area like st. john which are not exactly sure exactly in the area, but it is only a partial control district, it does not need to demolished, it does not have any say so and what kind of renovation somebody does. somebody can take all the windows in the house if they wanted to and just put boards, no windows in the house if they wanted to do that. i feel like having a more control by people who are educated what makes buildings work in an area which controls

proportions and so forth. if the zoning allows it does not necessarily mean it is good for the walk with the neighbors. >> that has to be monitored to people under. yet to be educated and knowledgeable not to somebody's buddy getting stuck on a board because i like blue and i want all that. i won't name the committee that show i said it. thank god for them because they say. when we do the renovation on the critique, we were discussing the color and basically the discussion ended up being there is no rules, we just say we like it or if we don't like it. there was no real concrete. >> that's very true. >> and i think that is dangerous because that is also not fair, not right, if you're going to accept these commissions you should have some rules and regulations that not by my personal opinion that capricious. i do believe, vinyl windows

yuck. it is a very precarious situation and it should be monitored properly because just because you're on the board does not mean you have good taste. [laughter] >> temerity has been controlled for district for long time. but there are still some things that have something. there are some real travesties that have been allowed to be created that are totally out of character and yet they had their certificate of appropriateness how they got it, i don't know. i was just going to add something real quick. >> first of all i was lucky enough to live in the french quarter in the early '80s. and everybody sat on their stoops, we still had the pool scalia, but back then it had its own doctor and you had a hardware store, yet a german

bakery to die for, and it was still really a neighborhood and everybody was on their stoops everyday and you got to know all your neighbors. the other thing, the walking tour book is amazing and we loved having it. you've created that was amazing. we loved hearing your books as a stoat the gift shop. it is available at the bookstore. [applause] >> and my mom more about my mother. >> that is such a great book i love that. >> i have one more question for brian, since i was a neighbor in his neighborhood, do you recall organizing a fourth of july

parade and you enlisted our children and i think your mother probably spread the word because we actually had cars lining up. >> the paper covered it in weue and it was any reason to have a parade and i decided while we don't have a fourth of july parade so i did and it was a little neighborhood with bicycles, wagons, anybody who had a convertible could see in it. [laughter] and then for christmas i asked my dad to make a float that we could pull. i don't know how they came down the chimney but it was her own little neighborhood. we did it for three years. >> so fun. >> don't tell anybody i went to

camp. i just wanted to mention that in doing some genealogical research in old newspapers and stuff here, i discovered that my great-grandfather was a squatter out on the lake. and he was the eldest resident before they kicked everybody out and built the amusement park. there is pictures. [laughter] they were not allowed to buy the property because he belonged to the levy. >> that's the misconception about the beaches, we never owned the property that would lease from the state. >> one other comment, when i lived in paris i was thinking about that movie,. >> there is a french connection

here. >> thank you to everybody for coming and talking about their neighborhoods and asking questions. [applause] thank you all. [applause] >> the final program of the day from the tennessee williams literary festival is a discussion on the craft of writing a memoir. >> good afternoon, welcome to the 33rd annual tennessee williams literary festival into this panel and memory, everything seems to happen to music, the craft of memoir. please turn off your cell phones, you know how annoying that can be. the box oe