Davie Shoring pulls the first half of the house at 921 General Pershing onto Magazine Street to its destination in Mid City. (Zach Brien, UptownMessenger.com)
A home on General Pershing Street previously slated for demolition to make way for the expansion of St. George’s Episcopal School is instead being moved to Mid-City, where it will be rehabilitated and sold to a teacher.
Early Friday morning, the first half of the home located at 921 General Pershing was lifted and shipped off to Mid City at the corner of St. Anne and North White street.
Joyce Griener lived in that home for 52 years before selling it to St. George’s Episcopal School, which is located just across General Pershing street, in 2014.
St. Georges had used it as an early education facility. On the lot, they plan to build a new extended early education facility for two and three year olds as well as a pre-K program by fall of 2016. The home was gutted and prepared for moving by members of Youth Rebuilding New Orleans. They will also help in the home’s preparation on its new location.
The organization plans on selling the home in Mid City to a New Orleans area teacher for about 20 percent below its market value, according to Sam Stephens, the programming director at Youth Rebuilding New Orleans.
The second half of the home will be moved to the new Mid City location at a later date.
The day’s efforts to move the house were blocked by a dumpster on Magazine street that made it too narrow to pass.
Ms. Joyce Griener, the previous owner of the home for 52 years, watches as her old home is lifted and taken away. (Zach Brien, UptownMessenger.com)
Davie Shoring carefully pulls the home off of its lot, down General Pershing towards Magazine Street. (Zach Brien, UptownMessenger.com)
Youth Rebuilding New Orleans workers (left to right) Sam Stephens, Traelle Noble, Danielle Holmes, Devhante Woods, and Prince Woods, watch as the the home is lifted. They worked to prepare the home for moving. (Zach Brien, UptownMessenger.com)
Brittney Furca, left, Lauren Cage, right, volunteers from LSU’s Nursing School, and Devhante Woods, center, help clean up rubble after the house left the lot. (Zach Brien, UptownMessenger.com)
Traelle Nobel, left, and Tre Bullard, right, dump debris from the home into a dumpster once the movers left. (Zach Brien UptownMessenger.com)
The second half of the home will be moved to the Mid City property at a later date. (Zach Brien, UptownMessenger.com)
The first half of the home returned to General Pershing. The first effort to move it was thwarted by a dumpster on Magazine street that made it too narrow to pass. (Zach Brien, UptownMessenger.com)
The dumpster was the least of their problems. This was a disaster plan from the beginning. The distance across the house was 22′, and nowhere on Magazine St is 22′ available in the middle of the day. The house was subsequently reversed and returned back to its original location. Whoever thought that a house, which is 6″ wider than the distance between the striped on street parking on both sides, could just up and move down Magazine St without properly notifying all residences and businesses to not park on the street with posted notifications was completely oblivious.
Next time plan properly instead of disrupting business operations, bus scheduling and normal traffic with this boneheaded attempted move.
This was a disaster this morning. It was so poorly planned that the house, or portion of, made it all of one block before being challenged not only by the dumpster but cars on both sides of the street whose owners were unable to be found. The permit granted by the City of New Orleans did not require notification be placed on Magazine St informing those who regularly park on Magazine St that was occurring today. Whose brilliant idea, supposedly coming from Davie Shoring (this, according to the workers attempting the move as well as the NOPD officer whose job it was to provide the escort), to choose one of the busiest, if not the busiest street now in uptown New Orleans to parade this house en route to a final destination miles away in mid city is laughable, except, of course, to the businesses who were inaccessible and basically shut down for over an hour. Buses were re routed, and the workers, some of whom claimed to be from out of town and unfamiliar with what their route would be taking them, claimed ignorance.
To Davie Shoring, or whoever made this decision, take the time to research your route next time and plan it so that it can be done on a Sunday, or between 2am and 5am, when traffic is obviously less. And might I suggest, which the officer on duty agreed with, Magazine St is absolutely NOT the best street to move a house over, whose width of 22′ is 6″ wider than the lines delineating parking on Magazine St. The dumpster was irrelevant. Maybe research using Tchoupitoulas or Claiborne, both which are wide enough to not inconvenience any residents or businesses along the way. Common sense and a little drive down Magazine St with a tape measure before beginning this poorly thought out move will make your lives and the locals’ lives better. Unbelievable.
I noticed new NO PARKING signs on Tchoupitoulas today for “house to be moved” from 6:00 AM -10:00 AM Tuesday to 6:00 AM -10:00 AM Wednesday. I guess that means one section will be passing Tuesday morning and another on Wednesday, but who the Hell knows. And this was originally such a feel good story, before the execution of the move tripped up all over itself.
He who fails to plan plans to fail.