The End of the Frenchman Inn

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Special Detail

An NOPD Officer watched over the partially deconstructed Frenchman Inn this Sunday morning, inside the footprint.

Today

233 S. Galvez (green on jacks) and 229 S. Galvez (white with brackets on wheels) await the move out of the VA Hospital Footprint next week.

Crews also started removing the front and sides of the old Frenchman Inn at Palmyra and S. Miro. 

The home at 2426 Palmyra was also shorn of its roof in preparation for moving, as was one house on S. Rochblave.

The Mysterious Man in the Red Bandana

Today, on my visit to the VA footprint, I encountered this person fiddling with what looked like some sort of recording device (or explosive device, really) outside the door of the old Frenchman Inn, just across from the site of the demolition pictured in the preceding post.

He then took up a seat across the way in the beveled entrance of the old Alex's, a creole cottage/corner store.

I went up to introduce myself, and he seemed suspicious.  Even after I explained (twice) what I do and what my take was on the demolitions, he refused to tell me what his interest was in the whole affair and why he was there.

Very strange.

ADDED: 6.23.10 - After speaking with a member of the site crew today, the item was actually, to the crew's credit, a vibration monitor.  In no way did I intend to insinuate that the crew was trying to "blow up" the buildings in the footprint.  I simply observed objectively when the man in the bandana - who was not wearing the standard brightly colored work vest - refused to tell me what he was up to.