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.

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.