Eighteen schools participated in the consortium,
which completed 20 projects, including the first
building constructed in the Lower Ninth Ward after
the hurricanes. A degree of stability has returned
to New Orleans, even if the recovery is a very
long way from being complete; in the meantime,
interest on the part of the schools has waned. With
Circle 24
“It’s pretty phenomenal in
contrast to the complete
failure of government at
any scale to get anything
done,” Etheridge says.
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a steady decline in members, CityBuild is transitioning into a new role this fall, partnering with the
nonprofit Imagining America to extend Katrina’s
lessons to new frontiers. “We’ve got this institutional knowledge now, and we don’t want to lose
that,” Etheridge says. “We learned a lot about how
to work together. We’ve had three different schools
working on larger projects, groups sharing parts of
their curriculum, schools that have engaged at a
distance. It’s pretty phenomenal in contrast to the
complete failure of government at any scale to get
anything done.”
Last spring, students of Derek Hoeferlin, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis and an
original CityBuild member, delivered the consortium’s latest project: a prefab chicken coop in the
Lower Garden District. Before the storm, Noel Jones
had run the community garden as a recreation area
for children. Though many families have not returned,
his church is booming, and he wanted to emphasize that it’s still there. “I wanted a chicken coop
that was at least twice the size of the one that we
had,” Jones says. “And I wanted something that, if
we needed to move—because everything is still up
in the air—we could take apart.”
At first, the chickens didn’t like their modern
dwelling, so Jones knocked down the old one and
locked them into their new roost. They’ve adapted
but are demonstrating no major signs of evolution.
“They still chickens,” he says. “They’re still doing
their thing. But I think they’re a lot more comfortable because they have a lot more space. So I think
they are happier birds.” —Stephen Zacks
