9th Ward of New Orleans

[1] Among the famous natives and residents of the 9th Ward are music legend Fats Domino, Magic, NBA player Eldridge Recasner, NFL Player Marshall Faulk, authors Kalamu ya Salaam and Poppy Z. Brite, actor John Larroquette, trumpeter Kermit Ruffins, and the prominent Batiste musical family.

Nearby was the Agriculture Street Landfill, an old city dump that was covered over and made into a neighborhood of low-income housing, then became a Superfund toxic cleanup site.

Such camps were common along the lakefront in the 19th and early 20th century, but the collection at Little Woods was the longest-lasting concentration, many surviving until Hurricane Georges in 1998.

Most of the area between Gentilly Ridge and Lake Pontchartrain was a swamp, not drained and developed until the mid and late 20th century.

Lakefront Airport, outside the main protection levees, was heavily damaged by the surge from Lake Pontchartrain.

The Upper Ninth was flooded by the levee and floodwall failures near the Desire neighborhood, across the Industrial Canal from the junction with the MRGO.

Flooding in this part of the ward joined with that of the bulk of the city's east bank to the west, with water flowing in from the London Avenue Canal breaches.

The old high ground of the section of Bywater on the Mississippi River side of St. Claude Avenue was the only substantial neighborhood to escape significant flooding.

During several days of the hurricane aftermath, live television news coverage from reporters and anchors who had little familiarity with New Orleans frequently included misinformation, such as referring to the Lower 9th Ward simply as "the 9th Ward" and misidentifying helicopter shots of the Industrial Canal breach as the 17th Street Canal breach (which was actually at the nearly opposite end of the city.)

The national attention the area received due to the hurricane and the events following the disaster provided Carnival revelers with an additional destination during their celebration.

In the quasi-celebratory spirit of a jazz funeral, many residents made their first trip back to take part in a massive block party in their former neighborhood.

Since Katrina, the 9th Ward has witnessed an uneven resurgence, with the Vietnamese community in New Orleans East establishing themselves as a dining destination and commercial hub, even as Vietnamese and other fishermen further down the Parish are suffering from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill of April 20, 2010, and despite 2010 layoffs at NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility with the retirement of the space shuttle fleet.

[3] However, the Michoud Assembly Facility continues to be a source of employment as it is the site of fabrication of the core stage of the Space Launch System.

In August 2007 students from Carver and Marshall Middle School began studying at temporary trailers on the site of Holy Cross.