The next morning I got up, got dressed, took a flashlight out to the porch, and lay right down on Alphonses blue boards to read the little wooden plaque he carved and screwed under the eave in 1985, the one you can only see flat on your back, and what it told me stopped the demolition cold.
The city inspector had stapled an orange notice to my door and told me the house was blighted, the porch unsafe, the foundation out of code, that Id sell to the developer next door or the house came down in sixty days.
He did not know what Alphonse carved under that eave.
My husband, who hand-carved the gingerbread on this porch, got our house officially designated a historic landmark in 1985, individually listed and recorded, which means the city cannot simply declare it blighted and demolish it for a developer, and the plaque under the eave carries the landmark number to prove it.
Alphonse was a trumpet player and a carpenter, and he knew what this little shotgun house in the Treme was, a piece of the neighborhoods history, his hand-carved trim and all. He knew that someday somebody would call it blighted just to take the lot. So in 1985 he did the work, gathered the history, and got the house landmarked, individually, on the record, and he carved the designation number into a plaque and screwed it where only someone who really looked would find it.
A designated historic landmark does not come down on a developers say-so and an inspectors staple gun. The blight declaration was bogus, and once I had the landmark number, the preservation office confirmed it in a morning, and they were not happy that an inspector had tried to demolish a protected landmark for the man buying up the block.
I brought in an honest engineer too, who looked at Alphonses foundation and said it was sounder than houses half its age. The blight claim was a lie from the start.
When the inspector came back, I did not argue. I handed him the landmark designation and the engineers report and I said, I understand, I told you. Now understand this. My husband landmarked this house in 1985. Its protected. The foundation is fine. You cannot demolish a historic landmark to please the gentleman next door, and the preservation office would like a word with whoever sent you.
The orange notice came down. The developer, who had counted on a scared widow and a bought inspector, found the one house on the block he could not have, and the story of it made the rounds until nobody would sell to him either.
Coming down one way or another, the inspector said. It did not come down. I keep the porch painted blue, the way Alphonse liked it, and the gingerbread he carved still catches the light. On Sundays I sit out there, and sometimes one of the young players from around the corner comes by and plays a little, and I let them, because Alphonse would have, on the porch he made sure no one could ever tear down.