Gentilly, New Orleans

With more investigation on the site, I understand more. Below is District Gentilly with Donnelly Park inside.

Gentilly, also called District 6, is a large community with many small neighborhoods, most of which were built in the mid twentieth century. It is said that the area is often considered as a microcosm of New Orleans.

This district was heavily damaged during Hurricane Katrina. Afterwards, some firms made reconstructing plans for the area. Here is the plan for Gentilly by DPZ. It might be helpful.

GentillyPlan

In addition, Donnelly Park will be used as the community playground and the community calls Burbank Gardens. It is larger than the service radius of Donnelly Park I thought before; thus more elements need to be considered.

Donnelly Park

Yesterday afternoon, we had a visit to the Donnelly Park, New Orleans. Without the favor of from the chilling weather, we took a stroll around the site and had a joyful conversation with local residents.

The park was seriouly destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. All the magnolia trees, once standing around the site, were killed by the salty flood water; ‘tennis court’ turned to be the wild concrete ground; and the baseball court, in the southwest corner, could be identified only by the rusty net support. Nevertheless, three surviving live oaks and community facilities, such as swings, monkey bars and the bench, still stood there and reminded people of a vivid playground locating there before.

When talking with P (Forgive me. I do not know how to spell), I strongly felt her reminiscences of the community before Katrina. She is one of the people who are still willing to come back after the hurricane. Living there for nearly 30 years, she witnessed the development of Donnelly Park. The oaks, the swings and the monkey bars are meaningful to those original residents. Meanwhile, she is also looking forward to the vivid community coming back. Good news is that young families tend to fix the old house and settle their home in the community for the reason that the price is inexpensive after Katrina. That will bring some fresh air to the community.

Here are some pictures of Donnelly Park. Thanks Bolin for providing these photos.

Zwang11

About zwang11’s blog

The purpose of this blog is to document my research work throughout this spring semester. The content can be the current state of the project, interesting information, elements of the studio projects, etc. Writing and reading is a relaxed event. I hope I’ll enjoy writing my blog in English.

zwang11 is my WordPress account. It comes from my PAWS account; so it is easy for me to remember.

About this semester

There are two projects in all, one of which is Donnelly Park in Gentilly, New Orleans. The other one is unknown yet. In addition, the objective of this semester is to learn and use digital representation techniques. So the blog will be focused on information of these two fields.

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