The View from S. Rocheblave

At Palmyra.

Look while you can

Cleveland Avenue from S. Galvez Street, LSU Footprint

Curbs of Granite

A pile of granite curbing - likely installed along the 2500 block of Cleveland Avenue in the late 19th Century - sits in a pile on the dirt road version of S. Rocheblave recently.

Granite curbing lasts decades longer than typical concrete curbing, and it's a detail nuance in the New Orleans landscape that helps to set the city apart.  Here's an example from the neutral ground on S. Galvez Street between the VA Footprint and the LSU Footprint:

Few Streets Remain in VA Hospital Footprint

Today, I found a patch of Cleveland Avenue torn up just below S. Tonti Street.  Cleveland is also no longer a street just outside the Footprint from S. Rocheblave to S. Dorgenois - it's torn up several feet below grade (affecting people who don't even live in the Footprint in a major way).

A patch of Palmyra Street, too, was gone - the block above Outer Banks. 

Thus, two of the remaining thoroughfares through the site were drastically limited today.  Technically, there is no longer a legal way to get through the streets of the VA Footprint - if you still count one-way requirements.  To drive through the Footprint, for those of you familiar with the site, one would have to drive the wrong way up Palmyra Street from S. Galvez, turn on S. Tonti and head up the one-way on Cleveland to S. Rocheblave, which is not really a street at this point, and turn left to head across the dirt over to Banks.

That's just fair warning to anyone attempting to drive or walk through. 

Still, it does not seem that law enforcement has been overly stringently in requiring adherence to the old one-way requirements, which is fortunate for the residents and the business that remain.  I would be cautious nonetheless.

UPDATE: Staff at Outer Banks bar say the police have okayed using what's left of Palmyra Street as a two-way street.

Weaving Back In

Yesterday, I caught the Dumaine Street Gang as it second lined through the Treme. One friend snapped this great shot as the throng of people passed a moved VA Footprint house on St. Philip Street (in yellow) that once stood on Banks Street.

At various points along the route, I stood and marveled at just how important the historic architectural streetscape was to the second line phenomenon.  Take away the distinctive houses and buildings that make the cultural tradition undeniably New Orleans, and it would be a wholly different thing.  In that vein, it's encouraging to see the houses saved from demolition in the VA Footprint weaving themselves slowly back into the street fabric.

Last week, inside the Footprint, someone stole my laptop and back-up camera from my car while I was in at Outer Banks bar to check in on the Committee to Reopen Charity meeting (I didn't think I had left my laptop bag in my car, but alas).  I lost many, many photos.  But when I saw the wild, joyous life of the second line pass the moved house on St. Philip yesterday, things equalled out a bit.  It was easier to accept the loss.  All of the effort, all of the difficulty over the past nine months or so paid off when I saw a bit of the tangible outcome of the push to extract positives from the unwise hospital sites. 

Everyone involved in the house moving undertaking - whether it was Builders of Hope or Mary Howell, who really sparked it all back in March - managed to help give New Orleans new life without forsaking what's best about the city, what makes it unique and worth celebrating.

Death of a Neighborhood: Compare and Contrast the VA Hospital Footprint

Palmyra Street, before.

Palmyra Street, today.

S. Tonti Street, before.

S. Tonti, today.

Lower on Banks, before.

Lower on Banks, today.

Lake-side boundary of VA Footprint at S. Rocheblave, before.

Lakeside boundary of VA Footprint at S. Rocheblave, today.

Upper on Banks, before.

Upper Banks, today.

S. Galvez, before.

S. Galvez, today.

S. Tonti row, before.

S. Tonti row, today (the street itself is gone).

Upper Cleveland Avenue, before.

Upper Cleveland Avenue, today.

S. Miro, before.

S. Miro, the other day at dusk.

Figuratively Speaking

If you "read between the lines" of caution tape, you'll see that a curb has been installed along Canal Street where S. Tonti Street once connected.

At S. Miro and Canal, you see another new "end of the road."

Both shots raise another aspect of the VA Hospital project: it destroys the existing street grid, creating an obstacle in the form of a super-block deep in the Mid-City neighborhood.

At the moment, though, the whole area's just a "sight for sore eyes."

A New/Old Neighborhood

A little less than one mile from the VA Footprint, another new streetscape is cropping up, one comprised of houses that once occupied Lower Mid-City.  The houses are all in various states of rehabilitation on the new sites (all of them await the replacement of their roofs, which had to be taken off to get under streetcar, electric, and other wires).  But the variegated architectural fabric that's taking shape between the old General Cleaners and Dyers Laundry Building and the re-emerging Lafitte redevelopment looks like it could be an existing historic New Orleans streetscape.

All told, six houses now populate the block on N. Rocheblave, just off the proposed Lafitte Greenway.  They are, from far left to near right below according to former address:

325 S. Galvez; 232-34 S. Miro; 233 S. Galvez; 237 S. Galvez; 2411 Palmyra Street; and 324 S. Rocheblave.

Evening in the VA Footprint

Angles