Anyone closely acquainted with me is well aware of how much I love New Orleans. It plays a critical role in Companions of the Garden (the destination of the novel, no less) and is perhaps the only city in the world that offers New York any real rivalry for my affection.
As was the case with New York, my initial encounter with the Big Easy occurred in the aftermath of its national tragedy. I had no competing images and associations to offer against the storm-thrashed blocks of Tremé, yet somehow or other the prevailing trend in the media and public discourse to portray the city as some kind of perpetually bleeding wound never quite caught on with me. On the contrary, my impressions of New Orleans hinged on things like strength, resurgence, vitality . . . the precise opposite of brokenness.
I'm therefore heartened every time the news offers me something to back my view.
A recent article in The New York Times reports on the surprising outcome of the Orleans Parish Sheriff to replace a massive jail complex destroyed by Katrina. Rather than endorse his efforts to build a new and equally massive facility, the city chose to instead reevaluate the parish’s superfluous penal system, one that sent directly to jail and detained on bond nearly every individual arrested of a crime, regardless of the seriousness of the offense, placing a massive burden on the execution of justice.
Hidden thinly between the lines is the implication that this much-needed revision to the nation's incarceration capital would not have been possible had Katrina not destroyed the original prison, forcibly creating a blank-slate environment where alternative modes of action could at last be considered.
To suggest that such an outcome justifies the tragedy is of course ludicrous. Instead, I'd argue that the unlikely fate of Orleans Parish Prison serves to challenge the tragedy's monolithic character.
If a tragedy can be dynamic, then so can the city attached to it.
One reason of many for why I love New Orleans.
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