Imminent

In the photo above, the house at the far left, 325 S. Tonti, and the house at the far right, 319 S. Tonti, are both in the pipeline for demolition in the near future - as early as April 8 for at least one of them.

While 325 S. Tonti is interesting architecturally and likely easily restorable, 319 S. Tonti appears to be presently occupied (or recently occupied), making it all the more disheartening that a perfectly usable property with character is going to be destroyed.  Further, both properties are relatively small and more easily movable than some in the footprint.

The hole out front in the street appeared on Thursday this past week.

One of the reasons I decided to move to New Orleans was the place's incomparable presence as a city.  A major component of that uniqueness is the crazy, interesting, diverse architectural environment.  It's hard for me to understand why the VA site has ever been in play - it pushes a peninsula of parking lot-clad development out far beyond the CBD into what is very clearly a neighborhood area with historic homes, an area that was designated a National Register Historic District, an area that didn't recover from Katrina as well as some areas in part because the City Council placed a moratorium on the activities necessary to revitalization.