NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Central City is widely considered the most dangerous neighborhood in New Orleans — which, by extension, gives it a reputation as the most dangerous neighborhood in America.

With few resources and no official mandate, how does an individual or organization change the image of such a place?

The folks at Mondo Bizarro, the street-wise producers of local theater and festivals, are trying to breathe new life, confidence and pride into the area using one of New Orleans’ most pervasive and powerful devices: storytelling.

“Nothing is going to change an area unless we start changing the stories that are told about that area,” says Mondo Bizarro co-founder Bruce France. “If Central City continues to be a place where people say, ‘That’s the place where you can go buy drugs,’ or, ‘That’s the place where teenagers get shot,’ there’s not going be any sort of neighborhood revival going on there, nor any sort of economic revival.”

Central City is huge. On a map, it is the massive midsection of the city — hard to miss, really — yet reasons and opportunities for locals or tourists to go there are scant and, indeed, most folks do make a point of missing it.

Yet the area is home to myriad architectural gems and curiosities, historic landmarks, and a massive, often invisible population.

Longtime Central City residents know a lot of stories that are not about gang warfare, police brutality and bad schools. Like everyone in New Orleans — and most people everywhere — they are ordinary people living extraordinary lives, and the fresh, passionate and nostalgic experiences they have to share offer a profoundly different view of the area that so many locals associate mostly with images of yellow police tape.

Mondo Bizarro has produced — and continues to produce — a series of recorded oral histories by people who live and work in Central City. It’s called “I Witness: Central City,” and it’s a collection of recordings by everyday people who selected a location — a street corner, a vacant lot, a church, a playground — that holds a special memory for them and told what happened to them there.

The result is a fascinating tour of the neighborhood and one that frames Central City in nostalgic, charming and often amusing tones.

“This is a city of ghosts, and there are so many stories in so many places that no one will ever hear, will ever know, until and unless they are unearthed and presented to the public, ” said Nick Slie, co-artistic director of Mondo Bizarro.

“This is going to be an amazing project, so why not focus it on a neighborhood that really needs to define itself on its own and not be defined by the paper or the nightly news, ” Slie said. “We didn’t want to go into a neighborhood in New Orleans that was already getting a lot of play. And we discovered that this is an amazingly historic neighborhood.

There are 20 stories on file so far, accessed by dialing 504-265-1116 and pressing the two-digit number of the specific location. The locations are marked by small yellow signs in the model of the famous water meter covers. Callers can leave comments or tell their own stories about the area.

The stories are told by the young and old, white and black, rich and poor. Slie and France continue to record stories, hoping to build a vast catalog that they hope will … well, it’s hard to say what will come of it or what it’s for.

“When you do a performance, there are very few ways to measure its impact,” France says. “So, do we know if we have changed anyone’s life? No, we don’t know.

“We’ve learned this: You’ve got the stories inside you, and if you value that, there’s a greater chance that you will value your neighborhood and value your story.”

“At the end of the day, look: We’re an organization of five people,” Slie said. “The grant money ran out a long time ago. We’re now doing this from the bottom of our hearts, because you don’t have to offer anyone a reason that you care about a city, that you care about your home.”

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Information from: The Times-Picayune, http://www.nola.com