NOUVEAUBURG DISTRICT
NOUVEAUBURG DISTRICT
History
Not only is Noveauburg the smallest of Hub City's districts, at least by population, it is also the most recent. In 1911, a young French-speaking artist and architect named Frederic Juste arrived on American shores with a satchel containing three changes of clothes and eight thousand Francs, and a head full of ideas. He saw the cliffside shores of Hub City's coastline, the burly immigrant dockworkers, the sprawling buildings, the browbeaten young ladies in sweatshops, and the verdant countryside, and he saw a beauty-- an art-- in them all. Sadly, it seemed that few people saw it that way. The buildings were, by and large, uninspired. The museums held the same ancient tripe people adored in Europe. It reminded him of his home, except that the political climate in France at the time was not, as he considered it, as fresh and open as in America. And therefore, he had a vision. He would add to that beauty with his own, and then, he would work to inspire other artists, as America had inspired him.
That Juste considered anyplace worthy of his genius at all was a bit of an aberration for him. Juste was a contemporary of Claude Monet, Bela Bartok and Pablo Picasso, all of whom were considered rather progressive-thinking for their time. And like some of those contemporaries, Frederic Juste was vociferously opinionated, outspoken, obstinate, and loudly contentious of authority and its lack of vision. His art, mostly lesser works, drew less-than-impressive-- and sometimes openly scandalized-- reviews in his native land, and in a huff, he vowed to leave and never come back. America, he decided, would be more open-minded. What probably surprised most of his peers and contemporaries was that he was not completely wrong.
Soon after building a lavish home for himself some distance away from the city proper, Juste seems to have developed a more diplomatic view of life, and even began to ingratiate himself to a more community-minded worldview. While his art was still strikingly progressive (in fact, some historians say that his later art influenced the work of Salvador Dali, among others), his vision of adding artistry to Hub City dominated the later portion of his life. Although not particularly affluent, he helped to spearhead an Artists' Community named Noveauburg in the developed areas surrounding his home, and donated works and what funding he could spare to the creation of Hope University and St. Mary's of Hub City, both smaller colleges that promoted Fine Arts. He also urged local artists to funnel some of their money back into the community. By the time of his death in 1937, Noveauburg had become a sort of segregated-from-the-main-city community in its own right, boasting nearly a thousand people, including artists and non-artists, and various small businesses. While he never had a voice in civic government, Juste could reasonably say before his death that Noveauburg came about because of his vision for a better arts society.
The last thirty years have seen Noveauburg's expansion continue in leaps in bounds. Although often considered a more 'snooty' and 'artsy' suburb due to the elitist point of view often bandied about by members of the artistic community there, that didn't stop some suburbanites from embracing Noveauburg and making it their home. And even in its relatively short lifespan, many of Noveauburg's community artisans have gone on to create Hub City's more recent and notable works of art, music and architecture.
What Midtown is to business and government and the Historical District is to history, Noveauburg is to the arts. Artists and writers, philosophers and philanthropists, musicians, poets and theatre players all not only congregate, but thrive there. A place where one city street can yield a curious mix of classicalism, deco and nouveau styles, the district has always encouraged the artistic community in its myriad forms. As such, Noveauburg boasts more galleries, art museums, open-stage bars, and shops catering to art and music aficionados than any other section of Hub City.
Noveauburg, more than any district in Hub City, seems to be a place to live for those who are too old to live with mom and dad, too young to take on the rigors of a family, and too creative to restrain themselves to a white-collar job. The average age of Noveauburg's residents, in fact, is a little under twenty-seven, while the average income is only slightly above that of the Historical District. It is often considered by college students to be the more 'trendy' side of town, and-- especially with two community colleges within the district-- it is not particularly surprising that a typical Friday or Saturday night will see immense crowds in the rave clubs and various bars scattered throughout Noveauburg. The district also, perhaps not surprisingly with its open-mindedness toward the arts, seems to show an affinity for New-Age devotees, as well... Salem, in fact, is the host to Hub City's yearly Noveau Fair, which is a celebration that offers metaphysical and New Age merchants hawking their wares in a bazaar setting.
To some, Noveauburg's artsy beauty is a hard sell. Even the parks and commons (and there are quite a few in the district) show signs of what others might consider clashes of culture, of old world and new all at once... Victorian fences and hedgerows might appear alongside block sculptures and impressionistic bronzes, for instance. Hope College's Statler Dormatory, for instance, has two sculptures adorning its main doors: A winged Nike and a man with his head bowed and a single Illuminati eye in the center of his forehead. A college radio station in Noveauburg, WMYR by name, seems to typify the mindset of Noveauburg to a T: its various two-hour-long programs include a Classical Music show in the morning, an NPR feed in mid-afternoon, a progressive rock program in the evening, and a weekly local thrash and punk show. The clash of art styles is not the only reason for some people to prefer to visit and not to live there, however; many apartments and houses are tightly packed and are obviously geared toward renters that don't care to have a lot of yard space, and some areas of Noveauburg are obviously not police-patrolled all that often.
Noveauburg will almost never be a bustling suburb in the way Coastway or the Highlands currently are, full of thriving professional services and nuclear families. But the people who do live there likely wouldn't want it any other way.
Noveauburg District breaks down into the following sections:
JAMESTOWN (40)
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ROSSEAU TOWNSHIP (41)
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JUSTE POINTE (42)
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FAIRVIEW (43)
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SALEM (44)
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OCEANWAY (45)
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SOUTH END (46)
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