land use & development

Redevelopment of the famed Dew Drop Inn is officially underway

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Officials gathered in Central City on Thursday (July 7) to officially break ground on the restoration of the famed Dew Drop Inn, the city’s leading Black music venue for three mid-century decades. The groundbreaking was complemented by performances from the Beautiful Creole Apache Tribe and Cyril Neville. Speaking at the ceremony, Mayor LaToya Cantrell said the city is working to redevelop the section of Central City where the Dew Drop Inn Hotel & Lounge at 2836 LaSalle St. can serve as an anchor. “The city of New Orleans is making sure we’re leveraging our dollars in this immediate area,” she said.

historic preservation

New owner of historic home has been trying for years to demolish it. With the council’s reluctant OK, now he can.

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The City Council voted Thursday to allow the demolition of a century-old house in the Uptown historic district, while mandating that the owner retain or restore the façade. It was  the fifth demolition request for 1230 Webster St. since 2019, after it was put on the market and eventually sold to an Alabama couple. Some requests were withdrawn, others denied. The Historic District Landmarks Commission has repeatedly opposed the demolition.

Saturday is Cleanup Day across Uptown, and volunteers are needed

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Saturday (May 21) is Cleanup Day across Uptown neighborhoods in Council District B.

The District B Cleanup Day, organized by Councilmember Lesli Harris’ office, will be held from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and depends on volunteer efforts by neighborhood residents. According to the District B office, Cleanup Day as part of an ongoing effort to improve the quality of life and public safety for District B residents and businesses. “I truly believe a clean city is a safer city, so this is an important effort for all of us to take on,” Harris said, inviting residents to join her in volunteering this Saturday. Thirteen neighborhoods across the Uptown will serve as hosts, each with a designated meeting point (listed below) and a walking route where volunteers will collect trash. Harris’ office will provide gloves, trash bags and masks to each of the locations, and volunteers are encouraged to bring their own materials, including rakes.

opinion

Viewpoint: We need to stop demolishing our historic homes (sponsored)

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By Susan Johnson, guest columnist

From the street, the house at 1025 Henry Clay Ave. resembles an old-fashioned, eclectic California cabin on a generous lot, with an open, full-length wooden porch, chamfered roof, and double front doors with parti-colored inlaid paneling. In its centenary year, it inspires interest, admiration and affection. 

Yet the house will soon be torn down, if the new owner has his way. The old cypress tree in the backyard will be cut down, too. 

More than this, it looks like the Historic District Landmarks Commission and District A Councilman Joe Giarrusso III are going to let him do it. 

On Feb. 2, the HDLC commissioners approved the demolition of 1025 Henry Clay on the recommendation of HDLC staff, with a vote of 10 to 1.

land use & development

Blighted firehouse on Louisiana is up for redevelopment

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The New Orleans Redevelopment Authority is taking steps to renovate the dilapidated firehouse at 2314 Louisiana Ave. The agency is seeking community input on how to redevelop the 7,000-square-foot city-owned building. On Wednesday evening (March 10), NORA hosted a community meeting via Zoom. The historic firehouse is blighted, and NORA’s goal put it back into commerce. Seth Knudsen, NORA’s real estate development director, said the vacant firehouse is zoned as a historic urban mixed-use district, or HU-MU, which permits residential use as well as a variety of commercial uses from child care to medical and dental clinics to grocery stores and more. 

“When we consider the range of things that’s permitted, this is among the most diverse zoning districts in the city and really contemplates a pretty wide range of possible future uses for the structure,” Knudsen said.

land use & development

Carrollton Courthouse developer fined for razing schoolhouse building

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The demolition of a former classroom building next to the Carrollton Courthouse cost the developers the highest possible fine levied by the Historic District Landmark Commission, a fine the commissioners bemoaned as not high enough. The wood-frame building, deemed historic by the HDLC, was torn down in May to make room for the an addition to the Greek Revival landmark building, which is being converted to an assisted living and memory-care residence. The 1,400-square-foot school building dates to the 19th century, the HDLC has determined. The Carrollton Courthouse only briefly operated as a courthouse for the town of Carrollton when it was the seat of Jefferson Parish, according to a history of the building by the HDLC. It was converted to a school, then McDonogh 23, after the area was annexed to New Orleans in 1874.

blight and demolition

Endangered places: 1860s cottage in the heart of Central City

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The real estate market in Central City is hot right now. At the high end, a house on South Rampart Street recently sold for $600,000 and two others, on Josephine Street and South Liberty Street, have sold in the $400,000 range. At the other end of the price and move-in ready spectrum, a house on South Robertson Street, which looks like it is only a façade covered in cat’s claw at this point, sold for $30,000. These homes and prices also reflect the evolving housing stock of the neighborhood. A quick drive around reveals modest family homes next to abandoned houses in a state of an advanced decay next to gleaming renovations.

Endangered Places: French Benevolent Society Tomb in Lafayette Cemetery No. 2

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This is the second in a series following up on the Uptown sites named on the Louisiana Landmarks Society’s 2020 list of New Orleans’ Nine Most Endangered Sites. The cemetery off of Washington Avenue in Central City is, to be expected, quiet on a Monday morning. Tombs in various states of care are engraved with names reflecting the teeming diversity of New Orleans when the cemetery was established in 1850: Oberschmidt, Armato, Battiste, Tujague, Noble. Other tombs, the large multi-level ones, are often benevolent associations: Deutscheler Hendwerker Verein (German Craftsmen Association, 1868), Societé de Bienfaisance de Boucher (French Butchers Society, 1867), Young Men Olympia Benevolent Association, 1883, and Société Française de Bienfaisance et d’Assistance Mutuelle (French Benevolent Society, 1850). While not as cinematically famous as Lafayette Cemetery No.

City begins pulling out and hauling off pay phone kiosks

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Central City resident Michael Burnside has been walking New Orleans neighborhoods counting abandoned pay phone kiosks. He developed a list of 77 addresses that he turned over to City Hall. And this week the city began removing those kiosks, in batches of 10, starting in Central City. Anyone harboring nostalgia for 20th century communications devices can purchase the retired apparatus at public auctions. The first 10 removed from the Central City neighborhood will be available during the April public auction.

Louisiana Landmarks Society

Endangered Places: HANO names developer for original B.W. Cooper buildings

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In a city known for its architecture, culture and history — and the use of these treasured elements in tourism promotion — it can be a surprise when they are neglected by the city that originated or inspired them. While the Louisiana Landmarks Society can’t solve all of the problems, for the past 71 years, the group has shone a light on at-risk historic buildings and other structures, such as tombs, in danger of falling down and being demolished by neglect and on neighborhoods that are at risk of being permanently altered by destructive new developments. In 2005, the organization annually began a program naming “New Orleans Nine Most Endangered Sites” to bring awareness to the issues these programs or historic structures face. 

There are success stories, such as the St. Roch Market, Orpheum Theater, St. Francis de Sales Church, the World Trade Center and Myrtles Banks Elementary.