The new architecture

A STURDY BIKE IS a good way to get around the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans. The roads are still pretty rough, the distances between places tend to be too long to walk and too short to drive, and on a bike you can easily stop and chat with the residents who have returned. I moved to New Orleans about a year after Hurricane Katrina, and I’ve ridden my bike out here every month or two to see how the rebuilding has been faring. Also, I’ve heard that Brad Pitt likes to bike around when he’s in town. Folks tell me he’s a pretty regular guy. “Brad was here yesterday,” a woman sitting on the front steps of her new and very modern house told me one day last fall. “He was talking to everyone, just checking things out.”