Suspended in a haze of smoke

Fires burning off in the east cast a sickly shadow over the site of the proposed UMC today. Charity Hospital, still vacant, was barely visible off in the distance through the smoke.  As a friend agreed this morning, the acrid lungfuls are appropo for New Orleans - there's always a tinge of the apocalypse in the air.

The churned remnants of S. Johnson Street sat in the heat.

Dust from equipment on the site added to the thick air.

At the old Grand Palace Hotel, workers had the wooden cover off the entry to the former parking structure.

The sooty air lingered in the French Quarter.

It hung like a pall over the tombs of St. Louis #2 Cemetery, visible below the elevated expressway that may yet disappear.  The roofs of the Iberville Projects are visible as well - many of the buildings will soon be demolished under a redevelopment proposal put forward by HANO and Pres Kabacoff's HRI, likely under a federally funded "Choice Neighborhoods Grant."

"I'm just so tired."

Ms. T was moving out from her side of a camelback on Cleveland Avenue late last week, aided by one other person.  It was slow going in the white hot afternoon sun.  She is being forced to move into a temporary lodgings because the house she will ultimately move to is not yet complete.  She noted that the state is not paying her to move twice - even though that's what she is being forced to do.

The hasty timeline of the state, of course, is ironic and ridiculous given the lack of adequate funding and the continued uncertainty over design of the proposed UMC hospital complex.

Ms. T also informed me that someone had tried to start her house on fire last Sunday - and showed me the boards and fencing put up by the fire department.

The lower part of the UMC footprint has been plagued by fires in the past five years.  In 2007 and 2008, several suspicious fires in the area destroyed and damaged numerous buildings.