The Make It Right ProjectT: Yes
M: OK. Are you doing something in the Upper Ninth Ward still?
T: We're sort of concentrating our efforts down here. I mean this was the area that was most affected, so this where we're doing our rebuilding, but we are doing some work occasionally up in the Upper Ninth Ward.
M: What about the clinic?
T: Lower Ninth Ward or Upper Ninth Ward?
M: Both.
T: They're both their own separate entities now. The have their own private license fees. They operate independently from us.
M: So, if Common Ground were a corporation, these would be different subsidiaries?
T: They're not subsidiaries either.
M: So they're not a part of Common Ground at all now. Alright, that's about it right now, thanks.
T: OK, I need to run down the street now.
M: Fine. Terrific! Thank you.
At that, Tom was down the stairs and headed south down Deslonde and I was left standing there, somewhat dazed, because, although I had heard of Brad Pitt's project, I had no idea they had such ambitious plans to build what are really environmentally advanced houses in the Lower Ninth at affordable prices for local citizens. As I clambered down the stairs I looked out at the several houses nearing completion across the street and up the road, the first wave of a continuous series of homes to be built over, perhaps, a decade.
Up on the far corner of Deslonde and N. Roman were a couple of big and expensive signs explaining the construction project and why it is happening. The actual name of the organization that Brad co-founded is the Make It Right Foundation, New Orleans or MIR, and their website is http://www.makeitrightnola.org/. Here is one sign:
The Make It Right Project Brad Pitt launched to help rebuild the Lower Ninth
As I looked around me, at the houses going up, at a brand new children's playground just beyond a vacant lot, at the banana tree standing and the bulrushes growing in Common Ground's garden, I couldn't help but think of the myth of the Phoenix, the fabulous bird that, as it approached its death, incinerated itself in its nest, only to arise again three days later. Out of the mud and flood waters of Hurricane Katrina, out of the terror and anguish of trapped victims drowning by the hundreds in the deluge, out of the abandonment, hostility and indifference of local, state and federal governments to the fortunes of the victims trying to return home, has arisen an equally fabulous being, the resurrected Spirit of the Lower Ninth Ward, dauntless and indomitable. The Beatles were perhaps mystically on to something when they kept singing Number Nine, Number Nine, Number Nine.
