Breakfast with the NOLA Fellows and their Supervisors

A Sad Day in New Orleans

It is a sad day in New Orleans - Aditi and Jackie left!

Although I did not get to overlap with them as much as I had hoped, it has been inspiring to see the energy and commitment that they have brought to their work - and to the city - this summer as NOLA Fellows.

This is the first year of the official DUSP NOLA Fellows Program - and it is a great contribution to the continued work residents are doing in this city.

Jackie and Alex Dancing Zydeco

One of our favorite New Orleans activities!

Who's on Broad?

This summer, I have been working on a community story and oral history project for Broad Street, a newly designated Main Street in New Orleans.  The corridor is really diverse and houses several different types of businesses including coffee shops, liquor stores, non-profits, law offices, and bail bond services.  Different people from across New Orleans travel to Broad Street everyday for work, school, or recreation.  Through the community photo project, Broad Community Connections is trying to capture the stories and experiences of these individuals to show the history, diversity, vibrancy, and functions of the thruway.  The concept is simple: leave a disposable camera with Broad Street employees or residents, allowing them to photograph important aspects of their day and life in general.  We then interview the participants to learn more about their images and thoughts about working and living on Broad.  Eventually, the multi-media material will be compiled on to an interactive website and exhibition.  Below are portraits of some of the individuals who work on Broad.

From Top to Bottom: Kine invents drinks at Black Coffee.  Mama Jennifer recommends books to her customers.  Knowledge mentors youth who attend the Freedom School on Broad.

Photos of Trumpet

Trumpet

The BCC Office is located in the Trumpet Advertising building, which was once an ice-packing factory.  The structure stands in the middle of a residential street and has been converted into modern, shared workspace with large desks, breakout rooms, and a kitchen.  People who work here are even allowed to bring their pets to work.  Different organizations including non-profits, radio stations, artists, and writers rent desk space at Trumpet.  Recently, acrobats have been renting the work space over above out heads, rehearsing their routines while the rest of us sit at our laptops. 

More of our favorite things in New Orleans

The peach lemonade at Il Posto. There are real bits of peach in it!
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An Energy Efficiency Plan for all of New Orleans

Its been a few days since we posted.  A lot has happened.  We defeated our Mouse Invaders, Aditi's parents and my brother experienced Zydeco dancing, and we all watched the New Orleans Fireworks display on the Fourth of July.  The display is apparently rated one of the top five in the country.  There were two barges synchronized on the river.  I was impressed.

Another big even of the last week was the deadline for Entergy New Orleans to submit its plan for a city wide energy efficiency program.  Tomorrow is the first public meeting for comment on the plan.  I expect it should be filled with some characters, so I will update tomorrow.  For now, I wanted to comment on the time frame New Orleans is meeting in creating the program.  After debating what Energy Efficiency should like during the years since Katrina, since this winter the program has been developing at lightening speed.  It does appear the stimulus money available through the American Reconstruction and Recovery Act was the impetus the city needed to get the program started.  Its hard to quantify an impact like that, but in New Orleans at least, the ARRA will have long term effects on both the efficiency of the city and local construction training programs.  That is exciting to see.

We had to Evacuate...

because of a MOUSE!

A family of mice attacked our home last night.  We caught one in the closet and we caught one in the living room.  We saw another scurry across our floor mattress beds and another hanging out on our stove.  It was a real nightmare.  Eventually we were able to rid of the stove mouse, but fear of rodents lingers in our little shotgun.

When we ran to Walgreens at 1 AM to buy traps and poison (apologies to animal rights activists) to reclaim our house, the sales person behind the register explained to us that Nutria, a large rat-like breed had infested New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.  We did not even want to think about the possibility of Nutria living in our house!  Lucky for us, this sales lady had a lot of experience in combatting the City's creatures and provided us with some helpful tips.

Phil, our exterminator told us that we have commensal rodents.  Commensal means the sharing of food.  He says that commensal rodents depend on humans and their waste and leftovers in order to exist.  Everyone always says that small animals are more scared of us then we are them, but Phil believes this is just not true!

Something we haven't seen too much of this summer.

We are having a good afternoon soaker right now - something that New Orleans had been missing for almost three weeks.  This summer has been unusually dry in the Big Easy.  Aditi and I are working today from the cafe Rue de la Course on Oak Street.  Oak Street is another Main Street here in New Orleans, similar to the organization that Aditi is working for.  This street recently received a facelift from the city and now has some of the least hazardous sidewalks in the city along with well defined curb and very fancy granite crosswalks.  The street looks great! 

The section of St. Roch Avenue that FSRP works along also recently received street scape improvements funded by Community Development Block Grants from the City of New Orleans.  Most of the streets in New Orleans have not seen this sort of investment from the city in years, but Oak Street and St. Roch avenue are two prime example of what a difference well maintained curbs and sidewalks can make in creating a welcoming neighborhood.

And, as I watch the rain pour down, I cannot help but make a plug for subterranean drainage as well - I am lucky to be parked on a street right now that isn't flooded in 6 inches of water!

Cornerstones Project

The Cornerstones Project celebrates the everyday monument and gathering places of New Orleans' neighborhoods.  Through written narratives, interviews, photographs, and architectural drawings, Cornerstones documents the intersection of places and people that make New Orleans great.  This past week, Jeff and I met with Bethany - the coordinator of this project and nominated Crescent City Steakhouse on Broad Street to be the next Cornerstone.  The restaurant opened 65 years ago, and still has many loyal patrons. 

Aseem comes to visit!

Aditi's brother sample bread pudding and schools Aditi and I in the slang of the new generation.
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The BEST bread pudding in New Orleans.

Aditi at lil Dizzies.
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New Orleans is havin' a heat wave

Aditi and I really can't complain when we see the weather forecast for the New England, but the weather here in New Orleans has been HOT!  We'll use this as an excuse for not posting all of last week.  

Of course, anytime temperatures get this high, the power grid struggles to keep up.  I am pretty sure our neighborhood experienced a bit of brownout last night, when power was cut for around 10 minutes.  (At least, I am being generous to Entergy New Orleans by giving the power cut a demand side reason.) One the most important aspects of investing in Energy Efficiency is helping municipalities to reduce the peak power pull.  If New Orleans made a serious commitment to weatherizing its homes and right-sizing the air conditioner units I would have been spared the 10 minutes of absolute horror that I might have to try to sleep through a night of 87 degrees and high humidity without air conditioning.

An excellent way to weatherize a home in New Orleans is using Thermal Coupling.  This technique reduces the moisture exchange with the ground -  a major problem in humid sections of the country.  This allows homeowners to set their thermostats higher on these hot days because A/C really serves two purposes - cooling and dehumidifying.  By reducing the need to dehumidify, a home can significantly reduce the amount of coolant required to maintain a comfortable interior temperature.

All of this ran through my head when the power cut at 1am.

Aditi's Goal

To get a picture with the entire Saints organization by the end of summer.
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Groceries...

I finally finished the first draft of the market study for redeveloping a grocery store on Broad Street, which produced some promising results.   After completing a conservative market analysis, it was found that the 1-mile area around the site could support 75,000 GSF of grocery store space and the 3-mile area around the site could support 216,000 GSF of grocery store space. Given that the Robert's building is approximately 53,000 GSF, there is definitely enough demand and support to turn the site into a grocery store.

Broad Community Connections envisions transforming the former Robert’s site into a center and model for improving food access in New Orleans through economic development.  Aside from housing a much-needed grocery store, the building would also include a food processing and distribution center for nutritious school lunches, as well as a community kitchen, and a neighborhood rooftop garden, which would both provide assistance to low-income entrepreneurs in the food business and nutrition education and related programming for children and adults in the surrounding areas.

Yesterday, we actually showed the Robert's site to a representative from Revolutionary Foods, an organization that delivers delicious, healthy meals and nutrition education to schools and programs in several cities across the United States.  Given that the Robert’s site is located 15 minutes way from every charter school in New Orleans, the building would be an ideal location for such a facility in this city. 

Now time to enjoy another Wednesday on the Square...

Sen. Mary Landrieu to Visit St. Claude Avenue this Saturday

Sen. Mary Landrieu will tour the St. Claude Corridor this weekend to see first hand the many innovative projects engaged in bringing this area of the city back.  St. Claude, of course, intersects with St. Roch Avenue, and FSRP will be one of the featured groups of her tour.  Yesterday, Jeanne and I ran some errands in preparation for Saturday and hung the sign for the St. Roch Art Walk.

The Art Walk has been a two year long project to beautify the neutral ground on St. Roch Avenue.  Neutral ground is the New Orleans term for the wide median on most of New Orleans main streets.  The term comes from early in the city's history when the French and American's occupied separate parts of the city and really only interacted on the neutral ground of St. Charles Avenue.  Jefre Figueras Manuel designed the final plan for the Art Walk, which is being funded by the City of New Orleans with Community Development Block Grants.  The Art Walk will cover six city blocks, from St. Roch Market, an historic New Orleans landmark, to Independence Square.  If you have a moment, it is really worth going through the images on Jefre's MySpace page.  It will be amazing when finally completed.

St. Claude Avenue was the site of last semester's Main Streets Class at DUSP.  The class created an economic development and area beautification plan. MIT Students have been all over this area for a number of months now.  It is exciting to see the area getting more visibility.  

In addition to FSRP, Transport for NOLA, a group advocating fiercely for a St. Claude Streetcar line, will be represented on Saturday.  Tonight, our own Jeff Schwartz is giving a presentation on the proposed extensions to the New Orleans Streetcar system.   This is more and more becoming a reality.  Very exciting!

Our Roommate: A New Contributor to the Blog

Aditi and my roommate, Nikita, is joining our blog as a contributor.  She is a medical student at Indiana University and this summer she is interning in the Department of Public Health in New Orleans.  Last Friday she was assigned the task of preparing the city's swine flu response.  This sounded like a decent summer long task.  Of course, when she arrived at work on Monday, her summer task had become an immediate priority for the city.

The photo was taken in the bathroom of Rue de la Course Cafe on Magazine St - Aditi and my Wednesday Office.  It's kind of unbelievable that of all the mayors in the US, it had to happen to Nagin.

The best cupcakes EVER!

Jeanne and I have a favorite meeting spot: The Cake Cafe and Bakery in the Marigny. Mmmmm.
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Greening New Orleans?

Moving down here from Massachusetts to work on developing an energy efficiency retrofit program, I am trying to familiarize myself with a whole new energy efficiency landscape.  In Massachusetts, energy efficiency (ee) retrofit programs have been provided by the local gas and electric utilities for almost a decade.  The mechanisms for deploying the additional funding coming from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) are much more clearly defined than here in Louisiana.

Last week, I had the opportunity to meet with John Moore, Environmental Policy Analyst for the City of New Orleans.  He directed me to the GreeNOLA plan, written by our very own Sushi Night hosting Jeff Schwartz.  Jeff co-wrote the plan two summers ago as an MIT DUSP intern in the Office of Recovery and Development.  The plan has since languished on a shelf, but with the new national focus on Energy Efficiency as a key to the economic stimulous, GreeNOLA is back on the table.   

New Orleans, like cities across the country, must submit a plan to spend $2.4 million in Energy Efficiency Community Block Grants from the ARRA.  Up to 20% of this funding can be used for technical assistance for local non-profits to develop Energy Efficiency (EE) retrofit and audit programs.  This is a key stream of funding at a time when local non-profit are struggling to make their budget in a down economy.

To truly green the city, New Orleans has some interesting advantages and disadvantages compared to other cities.  The State of Louisiana does not have a coordinated energy audit program.  The energy audit is the key first step to determining the EE needs of a building. But, because New Orleans regulates its utility separately from the rest of the state, the city has the power to create its own program. Currently there are four programs competing in the city:

HERO - Run by the state of Louisiana.  Provides rebates to homeowners installing EnergyStar rated appliances.

EnergySmart - Potential City of New Orleans program - Passed by the city council last summer. Currently unfunded.

Clear Result - Entergy New Orleans program providing energy specialist training (not a full energy auditor training) at Delgado Community College.

Total Community Action Network - Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP) provider in New Orleans.  Federally funded program targeted to low-income populations.  This program will also be receiving money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, separate from the block grants.

It would be great to see the city use the GreeNOLA plan to coordinate the work of these four programs.  Since so many homes in the city are still undergoing repairs from Katrina, this is a very unique situation where there could be a high penetration rate of a well designed EE program in a very short period of time.  

In a city where the A/C runs from May through October, the money saved from Energy Efficient retrofits in no small chunk of change.

Sushi Night at the Schwartz House

Since arriving in New Orleans on Sunday, Aditi and I have been the guests of the Schwartz family (That's Jax above). Our house is not available until tomorrow, and in the mean time we have been absolutely spoiled by Mrs. Schwartz. We are quite sad to be moving out on our own tomorrow.  But before we left, we participated in Sushi Night at the Schwartz house. 

Aditi and I learned how to roll our own sushi. 

We also went to Wednesdays in the Park at Lafayette Square.  We saw Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue perform and Aditi met the Saints cheerleaders.  Apparently the the Saint's rookies were also introduced, though, as you can see in the post below, Aditi and I were distracted by the food vendors at the time.

 

Wednesdays in the Park

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Aditi and Jeff hard at work

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First Week of Work

It is hot and in New Orleans, but I am excited to be here!  As Jackie mentioned, the Schwartz family is taking good care of us.

The Broad Community Connections (BCC) office is located inside of Trumpet Advertising on Philip Street.  The building is an old ice factory, which has been converted into a beautiful, open-air work space shared by Trumpet Advertising and several New Orleans non-profits.  The space is amazing with extremely high ceilings, beautiful art, interior decorations, large desks, and even pets running free.  While we do spend some time in the office, similar to Jackie, we tend to work in coffee shops as well since we are hopping around the City to meet and network with others.

This morning, Jeff and I had breakfast with Lisa, the president of the BCC Board.  We discussed tasks for the summer such as the market study for bringing a grocery store to Broad Street, as well as the Neighborhood Story Project.  We also brainstormed ways to increase BCC publicity among all the small businesses along Broad Street.  This summer, we also want to bring together the other 6 Main Street organizations in NOLA to build consensus around certain issues such as the lack of State funding available for programming.

I am looking forward to learning more about BCC and exploring this City!

Setting Up Shop

The first two MIT New Orleans Fellows have arrived for the summer.  This is the third summer MIT's Department of Urban Studies and Planning sponsored student work in the Big Easy.  This year there are five of us dispersed to community groups around the city. I'll let the other fellows introduce themselves and their projects as they arrive and get to work.  For now, here is some background on me and Fabourge St. Roch Project (FSRP).

This summer I am working with to develop a business plan for a building technology FSRP hopes to introduce to the St. Roch neighborhood.  Thermal Coupling is a passive thermal design that reduces the need for air conditioning and heat to control the inside temperature of the building.  In New Orleans, where temperature swings are not that great, the big culprit is humidity.  By reducing the level of moisture in the home, Thermal Coupling greatly reduces the energy expended to maintain a comfortable living environment.  Great idea, right?

Well, now the question is how to educate the general public and the building trades about this style of building (particularly now when basically everyone is doing some sort of construction work on their home).  The materials for Thermal Coupling are readily available at any building supply store and the retrofit is a moderately difficult do-it-yourself project.  Check back through out the summer to learn more!

For now, back to work at my "summer office": The Orange Couch Coffee Shop