State of Louisiana's Contractors Continue to Destroy Homes in UMC Footprint - Despite Rhetoric About Moving Houses

Inexplicably, the historic and movable home at 215-17 S. Prieur Street in the LSU Footprint was demolished today.

Here is the description from architectural historian Sally Reeves in the LSU Footprint Booklet:

"Here is a 4-bay double shotgun with recessed galleries on each rear side, built originally with privies about halfway into the yard, and a basse cour or second garden area behind them.  The "Carpenter Gothic" style scalloped verge board decorating the overhang could be original.  The otherwise simple styling, heavy cornices, and regular post and lintel openings combine with a front hip roof to date the house to before 1880.  It also shows on E.A. Robinson's Atlas of New Orleans, compiled in the 1870s.  this house is one of the oldest in the LSU Footprint and must be preserved."

The continued demolitions in the LSU Footprint after this weekend's news story - in which the state and the city appeared to agree to house moving - undercut any legitimacy to the state's rhetoric.  The actions this week have rendered the hope of house moving entirely hollow, as I see it.

Across the street, neighborhood kids played basketball as a large group of workers sat on the curb and looked on as the equipment worked through the rubble.