As I looked around me, at the houses going up, at a brand new children's playground just beyond a vacant lot, at the banana tree standing and the bulrushes growing in Common Ground's garden, I couldn't help but think of the myth of the Phoenix, the fabulous bird that, as it approached its death, incinerated itself in its nest, only to arise again three days later. Out of the mud and flood waters of Hurricane Katrina, out of the terror and anguish of trapped victims drowning by the hundreds in the deluge, out of the abandonment, hostility and indifference of local, state and federal governments to the fortunes of the victims trying to return home, has arisen an equally fabulous being, the resurrected Spirit of the Lower Ninth Ward, dauntless and indomitable. The Beatles were perhaps mystically on to something when they kept singing Number Nine, Number Nine, Number Nine.
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In Part Five we will explore the Ward again and how Brad Pitt got involved, with more about the Make It Right Foundation itself, the architecture, the designs, the Pink Project and perhaps even mention Harry Connick, Jr., Branford Marsalis and the Musicians' Village in the Upper Ninth Ward. Stay tuned.
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