Metamorphosis

Remember this one?

Well, here's the new and improved version, which must have emerged in the past month or so, part of the strange mini-trend of rehabilitating buildings Inside the Footprint on the eve of destruction:

It's really a bittersweet phenomenon - the buildings, like this one, look amazing after a bit of paint and demonstrate the potential for the area.  Ironically, though, as we've heard, some owners are only doing the upgrades in order to get a better price from the state in the buyout.

"We're leaving if they take our house."

A story in today's Times-Picayune highlights the sad absurdity that passes for reality in The Footprint:

Louisiana Recovery Authority data shows that Road Home paid owners of 41 properties at least $3.2 million and perhaps more than $3.4 million to rebuild in the neighborhood bounded by Tulane Avenue, South Rocheblave Street, Canal Street and South Claiborne Avenue.

Those properties are among the 432 residential, commercial and vacant parcels the state is in the process of expropriating to make way for the hospitals. The state plans to build the 424-bed successor to Charity Hospital between Galvez Street and Claiborne Avenue. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs plans a 200-bed facility across Galvez. It's unknown at this point how much the buyouts will cost.

Homeowners suffered the devastation of Katrina and were intrepid enough to return and rebuild with state and federal assistance...only to have the city, state, and federal governments turn around a few years later and force them out of their homes, spending more government dollars to acquire the same properties. 

I can understand how someone faced with that prospect would feel betrayed enough to leave the city for good, as Bobbi Rogers, a resident, expressed in the quote at the top of this post.