Xavier University.

In this age of architecture and morality, one building stands alone in the green grounds that abut Howard Avenue in Gert Town, New Orleans, Louisiana. If it wasn't called Gert Town, this part of New Orleans would be called Palookaville. Howard Avenue isn't pretty in this part of the city. Every part of Gert Town has a charm all its own.

Howard Avenue was most recently home to the Times-Picayune along this part, where Howard Avenue peters out, spent after a good run from the river, into the Xavier University of Louisiana (XULA) campus. Howard Avenue is rutted and pockmarked, rarely visited--why would you? In Gert Town, Howard Avenue follows the Pontchartrain Expressway (Interstate 10) from the former Times-Picayune Headquarters to its end between the Short Street Parking Lot and the library. The interstate looms in the background, the cars and the trucks providing the soundtrack as they whizz and rumble by.

Howard Avenue ends at a little circle of concrete in a cul-de-sac that, like Lake Pontchartrain, is not cut off from its surroundings. Another crooked, little road branches off at eleven o'clock and makes its way to Dixon Street. No one cares about this neglected corner of campus. There was going to be a monument. Instead, there is nothing. When I close my eyes, I see a statue of you.