Displacement

This week is my last at Tulane University Libraries' Southeastern Architectural Archive. I have taken a position as head of the Richard L. D. and Marjorie J. Morse Department of Special Collections at Kansas State University.

In sorting through personal and professional files, I've come across a few things I had set aside to investigate later. Photographs of costumed ladies posed against painted backdrops, a flood-devastated western town, bright linens hanging outside a rustic lakeside cabin (above). I acquired all these images by digging through boxes at the Originals Mall of Antiques in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. None of them bore any textual identification, familial or geographic designations.

The Western Town

A series of three photographs documented some natural disaster, possibly a bad storm and/or flood. I had speculated the pictures were from the late 19-teens, but using a Peak Lupe 8x Model 2018, I could make out the following building markers:

Hotel Vail (below,  left)

Santa Fe / The Hub (below, center)

The Hotel Vail is still standing and is on the National Register, so identifying the locale as Pueblo, Colorado was fairly easy.

Not knowing anything about Pueblo's history, I used America's Historic Newspapers database and Denver Public Library's Digital Collections to confirm that the event was the June 3, 1921 flood. The unidentified photographer focused his/her lens on the the vicinity of the high water mark along Union Avenue. At its peak, the flood covered over 300 square miles.

The Photo Postcard Studio

A series of four real-photo postcards presented women dressed in costumes set against painted backdrops or decorative curtains. They seemed to be from the 1940s, and given the subject matter, most likely from the Great Plains. The photographer used EKC paper with undivided backs, but none of the versos bear anything more distinctive.

There is a Cultivator

And a Reaper

And Two Harvesters

And a Geisha

Yes, a geisha. With a cherry blossom kimono and a peacock-feathered fan.

In the last decade, there has been a growing interest in rural studio photography:

The John Michael Kohler Art Center's current exhibit Bringing to Light: The Massengill Family Photo Collection (through 17 January) features portraits produced in an Arkansas mobile studio. Many of the images are hand-colored close-up photographs; some can be viewed via Maxine Payne's 2004 Making Pictures: Three for a Dime.

Luc Sante's Folk Photography: The American Real-Photo Postcard (2009) addresses the proliferation of small-town photo postcards during the early twentieth century. Sante's interest in the format stemmed from a random encounter with a New York peddler over thirty years ago.

1965 NOLA Subway Proposal

In April 1965, New Orleans architect Italo William Ricciuti (1906-1987) raised eyebrows with a speech delivered to the American Association of University Women's Crescent City Branch, in which he outlined his solution to the city's increasing traffic problems. . . a subway system.

A skeptical Times-Picayune reporter asked whether the soft soil subgrade conditions and the potential for storm-related flooding would be prohibitive.  Ricciuti responded by  stressing the need for urban design and planning in New Orleans, and by citing other cities then building subway systems, including Rotterdam, Oslo, Milan and Montreal.  He conveyed that engineering assessments of the Crescent City's soil were favorable, and that it would be easier to build a subterranean transportation system here due to the lack of rocks. He viewed pumping systems as the means of obviating future flooding.

Read more:  "Subway Seen as Traffic Aid."  The Times-Picayune 22 April 1965.

Image above:  Italo William Ricciuti, architect. Ricciuti, Stoffle and Associates. Firm Brochure. Undated. Biographical Files, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Feet James

As attention turns once again to the Red River of the North, Winnipeg Free Press reporter Barley Kives has explained the Peggers' peculiar unit of measure:

If you're following the flood in Winnipeg this spring, you may be wondering why the city makes such a big deal about some guy named James.

Thanks to a quirk of history, the city's shorthand for the height of the Red River happens to be the "number of feet James." Unfortunately for circuses everywhere, this is not a question about a man with too many appendages.

James actually refers to the James Avenue Pumping Station, a facility on the west bank of the Red River in the Exchange District. For nearly a century, this site has been used to monitor river levels.

Originally, this data determined the operation of the St. Andrews Lock and Dam at Lockport. Measurements were live human beings and the station was staffed 24 hours a day. Now, the James Avenue station operates automatically. It's basically just a culvert with an electronic water-pressure gauge that transmits river-level data every 15 minutes. The city uses feet instead of metres to express this information, mainly for the sake of consistency. The "number of feet James" is also easier to digest than the number of feet above sea level, a far bigger number.

On Friday afternoon, the Red River in Winnipeg stood at 9.7 feet James. That's still well below flood stage, as you can see from the following milestones on the scale. . .

Zero feet James

This is the famous "normal winter ice level" in Winnipeg -- 727.6 feet (or 221.7 metres) above sea level. This level is an average of mid-winter measurements at James Avenue dating back to 1912. The actual river ice level varies from year to year.

6.5 feet James

The average summer river level in Winnipeg, again based on measurements taken over the past century. St. Andrews Lock and Dam maintains this level during years when the Red River would otherwise drop even lower.

18 feet James

While river levels above 15 feet are recorded as floods on the city's website, the city is in de facto flood mode at 18 feet James. River levels of 18 feet or higher require significant flood-mitigation efforts, such as sealing up drainage gates or sandbagging low-lying homes.

20.2 feet James

The peak of the 2005 summer flood. The Red River crested on July 3 and 4 due to unusual rains over the Canada Day weekend.

20.4 feet James

The peak of the 2006 spring flood, when the Red crested on April 7. At the time, this was the largest flood in the Red River Valley since the Flood of the Century in 1997.

22.6 feet James

The peak of the 2009 spring flood, which confounded flood forecasters who initially predicted a milder spring deluge. Ice jams downstream created two smaller crests before the Red finally peaked on April 15.

24.5 feet James

The peak of the Flood of the Century. The Red River crested on May 3, to the relief of Winnipeggers who watched the same deluge destroy downtown Grand Forks, N.D. and inundate Ste. Agathe.

30.3 feet James

The peak of the 1950 flood, the most destructive disaster in Winnipeg's history. The Red crested on May 19 and did not recede below the flood stage until mid-June of that year. The flood forced 100,000 people to evacuate and caused $600 million in damage, in Winnipeg alone.

34.7 feet James

Estimated peak of the 1852 spring flood in what was then the Red River settlement.

Reported 2 April 2011 at: http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/james-my-waders-119110909.html

EcoInformatics International -- based in Ottawa -- has done a fine job compiling historic & contemporary GIS data for Glacial Lake Agassiz. Click here for access.

Rising Waters

20 June 2010. An unidentified photographer recently took these images of the Devils Lake, North Dakota area. During the 1930s & 1940s (when my grandmother was a child), Devils Lake was a barren salt flat. Since 1993, the water level has risen some 25 feet, more than doubling the lake's parameters, as can discerned from a succession of Landsat images. Geologists have projected that this pattern will continue for a century, and federal, state, and local leaders are attempting to develop a series of solutions for the affected communities (1). The smoke one sees in the center image is a property being burnt by its owners; the submerged trees reflect placement of other rural properties prior to inundation. The Spirit Lake Casino, owned by the Sisseton Wahpeton Sioux bands and shown in the bottom photograph, once boasted a shoreline location; now it has become an island.

(1)F. Larry Leistritz et al. "Regional Impacts of Water Management Alternatives: The Case of Devils Lake, North Dakota, USA." The Journal of Environmental Management 66 (2002): 465-473.

Images: Top: Old U.S. Highway 281; Center: Eagle Bend; Bottom: Spirit Lake Casino.

Living with Water

Reported by Mark Schleifstein in today's Times Picayune:

"A group of American and Dutch architects and urban planners will meet in New Orleans this week for a third session aimed at finding ways to better incorporate water into the city's effort to rebuild more safely after Katrina.

Dutch Dialogues 3 is meeting in tandem with the annual conference of the American Planning Association, and will announce its results at a public forum Sunday at 10 a.m. at the Hilton New Orleans Riverside hotel.

The participants will focus on a segment of the city stretching from the Lafitte Corridor abutting the French Quarter -- an abandoned railroad right-of-way that was once the site of a canal that connected the Quarter to Bayou St. John -- to the lakefront, including City Park and a section of Gentilly.

"New Orleans has a history of having had water in it and then moving away from the water," said David Waggonner III, a principal of Waggonner & Ball Architects of New Orleans.

But in the 20th and 21st centuries, New Orleanians shut itself from the water, hemming in the Mississippi River with levees and draining the backswamp with massive pumps and drainage canals that hid the water from view.

The planners hope to spur redesigns of sections of the city where waterways, urban wetlands and green, open areas can be used to store additional rainfall or where developed areas are redesigned to better hold rainwater through use of new absorbent street and sidewalk building materials or adoption of cisterns and other water-storage containers.

Planners from the Netherlands will share their knowledge of similar efforts adopted in that country, with a recognition that differences in New Orleans' geology and climate will require significant adjustments.

Former wetlands on which Gentilly and other suburban neighborhoods were built used to keep the city's geology buoyant, Waggonner said. Today, vast areas of the city have sunk to as much as 6 feet below sea level, the unintended result of those areas being drained by canals that suck up the water that had kept the soil elevated.

The trick, he said, is to find ways of reintroducing water into soils in ways to reduce subsidence, and in finding ways of transforming the canals into spaces attractive to the public.

Alternatives could include the adoption of plans already backed by state and city officials to turn the London and Orleans avenue canals into a gravity-fed drainage system by building permanent pump stations at the lakefront that would replace existing interior pump stations.

The Army Corps of Engineers already has decided to build a combination gate and pump station on the London Avenue Canal that would operate only in the event of a hurricane, and would pump in tandem with the existing interior pumps. However, its design for that and two other stations on the 17th Street and Orleans Avenue canals allow the stations to be adjusted if the gravity-fed system is adopted in the future.

New islands along Lake Pontchartrain could assist in reducing the risk of storm surge and protect levees, planners say.

The designers also will study ways to redesign the flow of water in City Park to allow storage of more water during storms, while also providing more access to water habitats for the public, similar to the use of canals in Amsterdam and other Dutch cities, Waggonner said.

In perhaps the most radical concept, the planners will look at ways to develop new islands along Lake Pontchartrain that can assist in reducing the risk of storm surge and protect levees, while adding public parks and green space to the city.

Sponsors of the dialogue include the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Washington, D.C., the Netherlands Water Partnership, Waggonner & Ball Architects and the American Planning Association."

More information is available on the Web at http://dutchdialogues.com.

Channeling Dakota

22 March 2010. The Associated Press is reporting a proposed $1.3 B 36-mile channel system through the Red River Valley. Read more about the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project here.

Image above: Jeff Roberson, AP photographer. Doug Rensvold Driving Through Floodwater in Gardner, North Dakota. 22 March 2010.

This past weekend, UCLA Geographer Nick Bauch and I went out to the Morganza (Pointe Coupee Parish), Louisiana Control Structure (image above). The Morganza Spillway (1957-1986) serves to prevent the Atchafalaya River from capturing the Mississippi.

The structure is located just to the North of the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary and just to the South of the Old River Control Complex. Project maps, test piles, and other preliminary data sets are outlined in George Stevenson's Final Report, Morganza Floodway Bridge, at Lottie, Louisiana, with test pile data on other crossings of the Morganza Floodway (Baton Rouge, LA, 1943), housed in Tulane University's Louisiana Research Collection. View U.S. Army Corps photographs and maps here.

Images above: Nick Bauch, photographer.The Morganza Spillway (Control Structure). 21 March 2010.

Homeward Bound/-17º F

As the windchill factor has dipped to -17º F in my hometown today, I am reminded that I am heading home. My grandma turns 89 years old this month, and we are planning a long drive across the Midwest to the northern plains, roughly thirteen hours from Oshkosh, Wisconsin to Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Grand Forks sits at the juncture of two rivers, one flowing north (Red River), one flowing south (Red Lake River). In the spring of 1997, the Red River was slowly melting as it coursed northwards. It remained frozen north of Grand Forks. The city and surrounding areas were inundated with water, and the communities of Grand Forks, North Dakota and East Grand Forks, Minnesota, were evacuated by the National Guard. Since the Red River Valley was once the bottom of a vast glacial lake, the flood spread over a hundred miles.... Oslo, Minnesota, became an island. Reluctantly, my grandma drove in the early morning hours to her hometown of Edmore, roughly ninety miles west. [The windchill is -29º F there today].

After Grand Forks evacuated, an electrical fire spread through the historic downtown. Firefighters could not get their trucks through the high waters (image above).

Twelve years after the flood and fire, the city has never looked better. New dikes, new biking/walking paths, expanded public greenspaces, a thriving arts community downtown. My Art Deco junior high school, originally slated for demolition after the flood, was adapted for reuse as a senior citizens' apartment building. My grandma took me through the building as the crews were working on Mr. Sinclair's former mathematics classroom, changing it into a small apartment with enormous south-facing windows. The Federal Emergency Management Agency [FEMA] proclaimed this project a successful use of 'preservation as part of the recovery effort, to assure the residents of a community that their memories and values will continue to thrive as the community rebuilds.'

See: C.A. Bigenwald and Randall White, "Heritage Preservation and Disaster Management: United States and Canada," Options Politiques (April 2003): pp. 36-40. Available at: www.irpp.org/po/archive/apr03/bigenwald.pdf

Obituary: J.G. Ballard

British science fiction writer J.G. Ballard (1930-2009), known for his dystopian novels and short stories, passed away on April 19th.   Although he once described himself as "a man of complete and serene ordinariness," his works have been considered some of the most imaginative and prescient of the twentieth century.  Read John Clute's Indy obit here.

Ballard's stories frequently explore landscape and cities of the near future:  The Wind from Nowhere (1961); The Drowned World (1962); The Drought (1964); Concrete Island (1974); and The High Rise (1975).  These titles and many more may be found in Tulane's University's Howard-Tilton Memorial Library.

Image above:  Cover, J.G. Ballard's The Drowned World, Penguin pbk edition, 1965.  To see more Penguin SF covers, click here.

Red River Rising

Richard Tsong-taatarii, photographer. Volunteers help place sandbags outside the home of Jeremy Kuipers in Moorhead, MN.   AP Photo from The Minneapolis Star-Tribune.  24 March 2009.