blight and demolition

Glowing up with the Columns: Rejuvenation is a natural progression for this storied gathering place

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It wouldn’t be overreaching to say the Columns is beloved by generations of New Orleanians, as well as those visiting the city. The large front porch framed by imposing Doric-style columns has been a favorite for cocktails and watching the scene unfold along St. Charles Avenue. Charming and old world, it is a place where first dates, proposals, break-ups and the accompanying drowning of sorrows, sharing of secrets, love-at-first-sight, weddings, debutante soirees and celebratory fetes happen on a daily basis. If walls could talk, the Columns’ walls could fill three volumes, easily.

Mother's Day

City cemeteries, including Lafayette No. 1, open for Mother’s Day

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The city will allow residents to visit city-run cemeteries on Sunday, May 10 — Mother’s Day — to pay respects to loved ones. The day will include a temporary opening of Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, which has been closed for repairs since September 2019. The Garden District cemetery, which dates back to the 1830s, will be monitored by city staff, with supervision available at other cemeteries as well. Social distancing protocols will be enforced, with visitors required to limit their groups to no more than 10 people, and all visitors keeping the required six-foot distance from one another.

blight and demolition

Delachaise residents grapple with blight, Cohen High parking and parade Port-o-lets

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By Sue Strachan, Uptown Messenger

With the Uptown Carnival parades three weeks away, the new ordinances governing parades was one of the central topics at the monthly Delachaise Neighborhood Association meeting, Tuesday (Jan. 21) at Martin Wine Cellar. Other items on the agenda included updates on a new security district, Cohen High School demolition and parking, and blight. Milan resident Helene Barnett gave an update on the demolition and rebuilding of Walter L. Cohen College Prep High School, 3520 Dryades St. The demolition is scheduled for February, but the parking variance was still a major consideration: Cohen originally had 25 parking spots.

blight and demolition

After a 45-hour struggle, wrecking ball topples the Times-Picayune clocktower

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The iconic Times-Picayune tower came tumbling down Sunday night, but not without a fight, NOLA.com reported. It took 45 hours to topple the sturdy clocktower, long a landmark for drivers on the Pontchartrain Expressway and the Broad Street overpass. It’s the last segment of 1960s-era newspaper building to be demolished to make way for a Drive Shack to be built in its place.

blight and demolition

Two Uptown buildings on Landmarks Society’s list of the city’s most endangered

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The Louisiana Landmarks Society, which promotes historic preservation through education, advocacy and operation of the Pitot House, has announced the sites selected for its 2019 New Orleans’ Nine Most Endangered list. Two Uptown buildings were listed on Louisiana Landmarks Society’s list: the McDonogh 7 building on 1111 Milan St. and a three-story Greek Revival building near the Lower Garden District at riverfront 425 Celeste St. The Louisiana Landmarks Society also listed two citywide threats; former movie theaters and Sewerage & Water Board infrastructure were named as endangered. Modeled on the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s listing of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places, the New Orleans’ Nine was inaugurated by Louisiana Landmarks Society in 2005.

arts, books and music

Buddy Bolden house envisioned as center to foster young musicians

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By Emily Carmichael, emilycarmichael19@gmail.com

Musician PJ Morton had not heard of Buddy Bolden until three years ago, when the Greater St. Stephen Full Gospel Baptist Church, where his parents are pastors, planned to turn Bolden’s former Central City home into a parking lot. The architect for the project, a longtime friend of Morton’s, sent him an article about Bolden, the cornetist considered the founding father of jazz. “[He] was like ‘Hey man your mom, they just tried to knock down Buddy Bolden’s house,’” Morton said. “And I’m like, ‘Who’s Buddy Bolden?’”

Now Morton has joined forces with the Preservation Resource Center and Marcelin Engineering to renovate the house as well as the identical house adjacent to it.

blight and demolition

Preservation Resource Center offers sneak peek at Bohn Ford renovation

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The Preservation Resource Center, as part of its Beams & Brews renovation happy-hour series, is providing an insider’s look at the renovation of the Bohn Ford Motor Co. building at 2700 S. Broad St. The circa-1925 Bohn Ford Motor Co. showroom, designed by famed architect Emile Weil, underwent years of abandonment and neglect. Now it being extensively renovated by Rhodes Commercial Development and Gulf Coast Housing Partnership.

arts, books and music

PJ Morton steps in with plan to save Buddy Bolden house in Central City

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The fate of the Central City shotgun where early jazz pioneer Charles “Buddy” Bolden once lived has long concerned preservationists and jazz aficionados. Now some fresh hope for the dilapidated building has appeared in the form of PJ Morton, an acclaimed musician with close ties to the building’s owner. At a blight hearing Tuesday, Morton laid out plans to renovate the building at 2309 First St. He wants to turn the shotgun double and its twin next door into a museum, recording studio and event space, according to a Facebook post by the Preservation Resource Center, which is advising Morton on the project. The city’s Historic District Landmarks Commission has repeatedly cited the building’s owner, the Greater St.

arts, books and music

Iconic ​Dew Drop Inn set for redevelopment, restoring music hall closed in 1970

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By Nicholas Reimann

“Oh baby, Dew Drop Inn. I’ll meet you at the Dew Drop Inn.”

Those are words you might soon hear outside of just the 1970 Little Richard song “Dew Drop Inn,” as a developer takes the first steps in an ambitious project to restore the historic hotel and music hall on LaSalle Street in Central City — once a common stopping point for top African-American musicians performing in the Jim Crow South, including James Brown, Tina Turner and Ray Charles. The latter even lived in the hotel at one point. The project’s developers had their first chance to show their proposal for a revived Dew Drop Inn to the public at a neighborhood participation meeting Saturday, Nov. 17, where they took input as well as outlined the plan for a completely renovated two-story space totaling around 10,000 square feet — including 15 hotel rooms, a restaurant, music venue and museum of New Orleans music.

blight and demolition

Tulane awarded $2.3 million to study impact of blight on violence in New Orleans

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From Tulane University:
Can cleaning vacant lots cause a chain of events that curbs child abuse or stops a teen from falling victim to violence? That’s the provocative question behind a new Tulane University research project to study whether maintaining vacant lots and fixing up blighted properties in high-crime areas reduces incidents of youth and family violence. The National Institutes of Health awarded Tulane a $2.3 million grant to test the theory in New Orleans. Researchers from Tulane’s schools of Public Health and Tropical Medicine and Architecture will work closely with the city of New Orleans and community organizations to clean up 300 blighted properties across the city. They will split the properties into two randomized intervention groups — half featuring overgrown vacant lots that are cleared and maintained and another featuring both remediated buildings and lots.