What: The Preservation Resource Center launches its latest publication, 'New Orleans: Life in an Epic City,' edited and introduced by Mary Fitzpatrick

When and where: Friday at 5:30 p.m. at Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans, 923 Tchoupitoulas St.

New Orleans Preserved
A new book from the Preservation Resource Center is a visual reminder of why New Orleans neighborhoods are worth fighting for
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
By Susan Larson
Book editor
Whatever your cherished New Orleans experience -- a Mardi Gras parade, a dance with a friend, a crawfish boil, a morning run along St. Charles Avenue, a moment of worship -- chances are you'll find it in a new book, "New Orleans: Life in an Epic City, September 11, 2001 -- Hurricane Katrina, August 29, 2005," edited and introduced by Mary Fitzpatrick, published by the Preservation Resource Center ($20 for members, $25 for nonmembers).

Fitzpatrick, who also edits the PRC publication Preservation in Print, hoped to capture the essence of the city in word and image. The book had its origin in two pre-K projects: "Living with History," a photo exhibit and a series of brochures published by the PRC celebrating the city's historic neighborhoods; and a collection begun after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, in which the PRC asked New Orleanians to send in memories of their cherished moments of life in the city. Originally scheduled for publication in November, the book took on an added urgency and poignancy post-Katrina.

"New Orleans: Life in an Epic City" includes 140 photographs by many of the city's best-known photographers -- Neil Alexander, Owen Murphy, Louis Sahuc, Richard Sexton, Mark Sindler, David Spielman, Christopher Porché West, to name only a few -- as well as many by talented amateurs. They are accompanied by perfectly chosen brief quotations that celebrate life here.

"The subject was life in our historic districts," Fitzpatrick said. "In each photograph, I was looking for an architectural or cultural background that would define it as part of New Orleans, but the foreground was how people lived in these neighborhoods, against this background.

"Look at this picture of a man running on St. Charles Avenue. This is just daily life for him, but he's running down one of the most magnificent streets in the world."

Fitzpatrick, who came here in 1992, knows that New Orleans culture is rooted in neighborhoods. "There's a sense of security and a sense of the culture that takes place just on your block," she said. "When I interviewed people in Holy Cross, they would talk about how their great-great-great-great-grandfather had built their house for them, how their brother lived in the house next door, a niece in the house across the street, how on such and such a day there would be crawfish boils in the middle of the block, and how everyone would put their kids in little red wagons on Mardi Gras day."

New Orleans neighborhoods are Fitzpatrick's business -- and her passion. She lived here briefly in the '70s and worked for International House, and relocated here permanently in 1992 when her husband, Vaughan Fitzpatrick, retired from the oil business.

She began taking pictures as a young newlywed in Italy, learning to use a camera and print black-and-white photos. Family travels led to Lebanon; Oxford; San Francisco; Saudi Arabia, where she taught English to Saudi women; the Sudan, where Fitzpatrick earned a graduate degree studying a clan whose members believed they were descendants of an elephant; then to California; London; Moscow; Washington, D.C.; and finally, back to New Orleans.

Fitzpatrick said her travels have given her a keen sense of the need for community, a place to call home. When she settled in New Orleans, she spent months walking her Portuguese waterdog Tac around neighborhoods, taking pictures, exploring the city. There is a photo of Tac in the book, relaxing near a Chartres Street sign. Many of the most interesting photographs in the book are Fitzpatrick's, though she defers to the other contributors.

"Because I moved so much between the time I was married and the time I settled in New Orleans -- living three years on one continent, then another, three years in California -- I always longed for a community," Fitzpatrick said. "New Orleans was probably the only place I could have moved to. I had to live where there was a really defined culture, and beautiful streets, a place where I could walk. I was used to living in urban centers that were pedestrian-friendly. And I wanted to be around family in this place with such character and such people."

Fitzpatrick speaks of the photographs in the book with intimate familiarity. In one, young Annie Rose Steinfeld tries her first Hubig's coconut pie -- "And that really was her first bite!" Fitzpatrick exclaims. In others, dead cockroaches lie belly up over bricks in the chapel at St. Roch; dogs enjoy the homage of the Barkus parade; a reader relaxes in Faulkner House books. People dance -- everywhere -- and dine at Galatoire's, Domilise's, the Camellia Grill, at a neighborhood crawfish boil, lining up at Tee-Eva's on Magazine Street.

Only a few photographs lie outside the book's four-year time frame. One is a black-and-white photograph of a protest to save Coliseum Square in the '70s which features Realtor and community activist Martha Ann Samuel, a sentimental and well-deserved tribute. Three post-Katrina images are included because, as Fitzpatrick said, "I wanted to pay tribute to the people who had the courage to come back here."

The engaging introduction describes Fitzpatrick's Garden District garden as a metaphor for life here, moving gracefully into the stories of other New Orleanians, other gardens, of the way "this lush piece of life radiates in every direction."

The quotations she selected to accompany the photos in this book are equally moving and appropriate. Some are from family members and friends. Her son, Senate staffer Fletcher Dugan Westfeldt Fitzpatrick, writes, "Dad taught me to drive in the cemetery. 'Proceed slowly past the Westfeldts, come to a complete stop at the Dugans, now back up in a straight line to the Fitzpatricks.' "

Bookseller Deb McDonald contributes her observations on the spiritual life: "Being Catholic in New Orleans means there's no real separation between daily life, spiritual life and an excuse for a good party. The city happily travels on a pilgrimage through the liturgical year -- Mardi Gras, Ash Wednesday, Lent, St. Patrick's Day, Palm Sunday, Easter, All Saint's Day. And we meander along the journey. Thanksgiving Mass at Our Lady of Prompt Succor to thank Mary for saving the city at the Battle of New Orleans. Fig cookies on a St. Joseph Altar to thank him for rescuing us from famine. Votives to St. Roch for his help in curing broken hearts and limbs. We live our faith in many ways. Mostly we celebrate it."

And last, but not least, there is this quotation from novelist Nancy Lemann: "In New Orleans you dream. You suffer. Then you celebrate. It's a strange and unusual place, and it makes you strange and unusual if you're from there or live there. It's always a great advantage to be strange and unusual. It's been the ace in my back pocket -- New Orleans. It's a mark of distinction."

Now, more than ever, it is a time of suffering and celebration in New Orleans, when preservation and rebuilding go hand in hand. And this book -- the proceeds of which will go to Preservation Resource Center renovation projects -- reminds us of what we have lost, what still remains and what is worth fighting for.

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Book editor Susan Larson can be reached at (504) 826-3457.

Photograph by Akbar Nimji...From New Orleans: Life in an Epic City