Demolitions Ongoing in the VA Footprint

This house, 2423 Palmyra, was demolished today.

So was this camelback on Tulane Avenue.

So was the house at 305 S. Galvez that once stood behind the truck.

City Council Committee Meeting on Friday

PUBLIC NOTICE
CITY COUNCIL
SPECIAL HOUSING & HUMAN NEEDS
COMMITTEE MEETING
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2010 @ 10:00 AM

The City Council Housing and Human Needs Committee will hold a “Special” meeting on Friday, October 8, 2010 at 10:00 a.m. in the City Council Chamber on the first floor of City Hall. The items offered for committee meetings are subject to approval by the committee chairperson. Committee meetings held in the Council Chamber are generally accessible to persons with disabilities. People in need of certain accommodations such as a sign language interpreter may be provided service with 24 hours prior notice by calling (504) 658-1095/Voice or (504) 658-4020/TTY.

The agenda item(s) are as follows:

I. Presentation by the Administration regarding the status of the Veterans Administration Medical Center project’s property demolitions, acquisitions, and relocations, as required by Council Motion 10-193:
Ø Number of closings, the scope of agreements reached, disputes, and the funds expended to date.
Presenter: Brenda Breaux, Chief Deputy City Attorney

ALERT: Site preparation begins in the LSU Footprint

Crews from Jacobs and Durr have moved into at least three properties as of noon today.

They include:

2118 Cleveland Avenue

216 S. Prieur Street

811? Cleveland Avenue

This move comes as a surprise to me.  Based on what the UMC Corporation Board has been saying, it appeared that site preparation would not begin in the LSU Footprint until November/December of this year.

And LSU/the State of Louisiana clearly does not have the financing necessary for the undertaking, so it's patently reckless to begin demolishing and conducting architectural salvage on historic properties in the neighborhood.

As this post at SaveCharity outlines, it's time to call your local officials to call for a moratorium on demolitions in the LSU Footprint.  Crucially, there are no plans to move the houses out of the LSU Footprint at this time.

Call LSU System President Lombardi: 225-578-2111
Call the State Division of Administration: (800) 354-9548

Gambit Highlights the S.W. Green Mansion

Blake Pontchartrain responds.

"This is a groundbreaking project." - A Look at Builders of Hope

While it's unfortunate that the neighborhood inside the VA Footprint continues to be dismantled to make way for a hospital, the outcome is not as bad as it could have been.

A group of citizens and local officials certainly had a hand in the effort to move dozens of historic homes out of the site (which is in a National Register Historic District) as opposed to demolishing more of them outright and sending them to the landfill.  But there's one organization that's really proven to be the essential factor in the entire undertaking - Builders of Hope.

A national non-profit operating out of Raleigh, North Carolina, "BoH" stepped into the breach at the invitation of Providence, a New Orleans-based housing non-profit that's also playing a key role as the owner of many of the destination lots for the houses that are moved.

I remember the first time I met Lew Schulman, BoH's COO, at the Providence HQ back in the spring - I sensed immediately that he would have the stature and the drive to interact with major contractors and local officials to make something happen.  A few months later, he stood at the podium beside Mayor Landrieu and looked on as the second batch of homes rolled down Palmyra.

More recently, I took some time to chat with Casius Pealer, the Gulf Coast Regional Director for BoH about the non-profit's role in New Orleans and the house moving project in general.  As we stood in the neutral ground on S. Galvez, crews began to move a home off the site.

Meanwhile, in the LSU Footprint

This Italianate 1879 school building designed by William Freret - and known as McDonough 11- stands at 2009 Palmyra in the middle of the site proposed for the UMC.  The University Medical Center is on the drawing board because LSU refuses to rebuild its hospital inside the historic Charity Hospital building.

The building presently houses Priestley Charter School, which focuses on preparing students for Architecture and Construction (yes, add a bit more sad irony to the heap).

There are no plans to move the building - and I don't know that it could be done even if the funds and willpower were available.

The shot below gives a nice sense of the complexity of the building's architectural texture:

Asbestos, Hybrids, and Barbershops

Today, crews ventured into this hybrid house at 2423-25 Palmyra, which sports an "admixture of massings,"possibly from different time periods, according to the VA Footprint Booklet.

On S. Galvez, asbestos abatement crews worked alongside the demolition crew on the unfortunate structure at 227 S. Galvez - it had been expanded at some point with extremely unsympathetic materials.

The distinctive and interesting upper roof of the old Sam Jupiter, Jr. Barbershop and Beauty Salon is visible now from Banks Street.

Like a handful of buildings in the VA Footprint, it was not listed as a "contributing" historic structure for some reason in the Programmatic Agreement that governs site preparation.  A number of clearly contributing properties were also left off the list in the LSU Footprint - something reinforced by the fact that a recent survey of properties for a local historic district in Mid-City found at least one of the omitted properties to be "contributing."  Fortunately, Builders of Hope is working to move any houses on the site that it can.

Meanwhile, in the foreground, a different beauty salon and barbershop, HeadQuarters, continues to operate on Banks Street in a beautifully restored historic building under the live oaks.

Coverage of the VA Footprint House Moving Effort

Jennifer Farwell, President of the Mid-City Neighborhood Organization (and freelance writer), provides some great reportage on the complex house moving process in the VA Footprint at the National Trust's PreservationNation website.

Crime in the Footprint

Criminals, it's become apparent, are targeting the rapidly de-populating VA Footprint.  And that comes even as the NOPD has stepped up patrols of the area.

Last evening, I encountered a man next to his van, its windows broken.  A police office filled out a report in a squad car just behind.  The man, a member of a band, had multiple keyboards and speakers stolen after deciding he was in no position to drive home from Deutsches Haus on Saturday night.

Crews also moved to secure this artist's home at 2310 - after it was burglarized for the third time, according to a neighbor.  The house is one of four being considered for moving intra-site by the VA for use in the final complex.

Slower Than Usual

Things were relatively quiet earlier today in the VA Footprint.  Crews prepared this small cottage at 2212 Cleveland for a move.  Builders of Hope is moving even some of the "non-contributing" houses off the site because they can still be used for housing at other locations.  And some of them exhibit a number of historic characteristics even if they are not technically "contributing" historic structures.

An extra house that did not ultimately move on Friday, the former 2217-19 Banks, was parked backwards in the old 325 S. Galvez lot awaiting the next convoy:

Equipment also cleared up the remainder of the home (and tavern/restaurant?) at 129-133 S. Galvez that dominated one of the corners across from Deutsches Haus.  Here's a shot from late last week of the demolition in its earlier stages:

An effort gets underway to save the S.W. Green Mansion

A friend forwarded the following notice from a local online news bulletin:

The Louisiana Museum of African American History Presents:

Save SW Green House-Tuesday, October 12
Attend the Public Forum
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
St. James African Methodist Episcopal Church Fellowship Hall


219 N. Derbigny Street
6:30 p.m. -
Seating 7:00 p.m.

Panelists:

• Kathe Hambrick-Jackson Director, River Road African American Museum K
• Kenneth Bryant, Architect, Artist, Author of Color
• Keith W. Medley, Author-Researcher
• Jari Honora, Researcher-Writer

For more information, call (504) 432-9901

ADDED: I should note that this appears to be a grassroots effort; an effort to save the house was already underway with the various developing parties.

Once More to Outer Banks

I caught some of today's Saints game at Outer Banks, the bar at the heart of the VA Footprint.  It's the tall building in the center of the photo above.  A bottle of PBR goes for $1.25.

Outer Banks has always been a bit of a bare bones establishment, but a lively crew of about a dozen regulars was hooting and hollering as the Saints defeated the Panthers.  The two loudest patrons were at different ends of the bar.  A call-and-response style cheer went up after big plays, led by the leaders on the ends - "FIRST DOWN....SAINTS!"

The establishment's preference for the home team does not go unnoticed inside the bar...nor does the fake rooster that hangs upside down from the ceiling.  Or the chart that shows the phases of the moon.

The bar manager says she hopes to hang on until the end of the month.  After that, and an interlude of some period of time, she hopes to re-open elsewhere outside the Footprint.

Will LSU ever have the money?

This article raises even more questions about financing the UMC project in Lower Mid-City.

The final four paragraphs are quite relevant:

Greene pressed Jones, who oversees the state construction budget for the Jindal administration, for a list of the projects that will be funded through state borrowing. He said he wanted to know which projects will fail to move forward because of Nucor.


“We haven’t made final decisions yet,” Jones said, adding that Greene should know something by Thursday.


Projects are sorted into a priority system in the state spending plan. The system ranks projects, with some receiving funding immediately and others having to wait. Lawmakers previously bumped Nucor down in priority to ensure that other projects were safely within the $320 million limit available for financing through state borrowing.


Now other projects would have to be bumped to make sure the state does not exceed the $320 million ceiling.

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.

Inside the Footprint Last Evening #9

S. Miro Street, riverside, between Palmyra and Banks.

Inside the Footprint Last Evening #8

"You are in the neighborhood of the planned VA Project."  The Regional Planning Commission/Nola Medzone handout, blown onto the sidewalk, provides contact information.

On the sidewalk itself, the green numbers and letters indicate that the lot to the left has been acquired for the VA Hospital project.  The VA itself is not doing the acquisition - the City of New Orleans is responsible for site preparation, but it has handed some of those duties to LSU and the state.  Properties will later be turned over to the VA.

Inside the Footprint Last Evening #7

Tom Dutel drives a moving truck slowly around the corner and away from his business at N. Rocheblave and Banks.  In the background, Outer Banks bar, the tall building, has been expropriated and recently received an eviction notice.  It's nevertheless continued as a lively place to catch a Saints game.

Inside the Footprint Last Evening #6

The late light illuminates a work of graffiti artwork in the LSU Footprint by the internationally renowned artist Banksy.  Earlier this week, I contacted the New Orleans Museum of Art to see if they would be interested in attempting to salvage the piece because the vacant building at Cleveland and S. Derbigny, like over 50 historic buildings in the LSU Footprint, is slated to be demolished. 

Here's more on Banksy's 2008 visit to New Orleans "to do battle with the Gray Ghost."

Inside the Footprint Last Evening #5

Children play on a pile of sandy fill along Cleveland Avenue where three houses once stood.  All three homes have been moved off site, along with the house that once occupied the foreground of the shot.  The side of the S.W. Green Mansion at 219 S. Miro appears at right - various parties are still in discussion in an effort to save the house.

Expropriated by LSU for the VA, the former Pan-Am or City Hill Annex building dominates the skyline.  It will be incorporated into the final VA Hospital design.  Crews have begun working on the upper floors and roof as of late:

Inside the Footprint Last Evening #4

The shotgun double at 228-30 S. Miro stands alone now.  On its side of the block, four structures have been demolished and three have been moved.  One small house remains farther down the block.

As I noted earlier, someone still seemingly lives at 228 S. Miro.  Garbage cans and air conditioners tend to denote those who remain.

Inside the Footprint Last Evening #3

The former occupants of 213 S. Tonti Street left this message for the mailman.

And yes, the mailman does continue to trudge through what's left of the VA Footprint:

Sometimes, though, there's nobody left to pick up the mail, no "Valued Louisiana Resident" at home any longer:

Inside the Footprint Last Evening #2

Revelers begin to trickle into the last ever Oktoberfest at Deutsches Haus, a neighborhood German cultural institution that has been on S. Galvez Street since the 1920s.  In the background, the peaked roof of the school building that houses Priestly Charter School (built 1879 by the architect Freret) rises out of the LSU Footprint.  Behind that, the geometric Art Deco massing of the still-vacant Charity Hospital building looms on the skyline.

Both Deutsches Haus and the "McDonough 11" school building will be demolished under the current LSU site preparation plan.  No use has been determined for the over 800,000 square feet available in Charity Hospital at this time.

ADDED: Learn more about the history of Deutsches Haus here.

Inside the Footprint Last Evening #1

Last evening, as I walked around the VA Hospital Footprint, I chatted with these nice folks who are still living on their respective sides of a double shotgun on Cleveland Avenue.  They have plans now to move out within the next two weeks.

Three houses down the row have been moved off the site, and I was informed that many mices migrated as the moves occurred...into the house pictured, to the great discomfort of the occupants.  Additionally, the vibrations from the adjacent construction work next door, I was told, was like being "on a rollercoaster."  

Catching Up this Weekend

I've been flying around to a host of meetings, press conferences, and the like in the past few days.  That's kept me from posting photos at my usual clip.

This weekend, I plan to catch up here at Inside the Footprint.  I want to record the numerous demolitions that went down in the past week - as I've noted, they continue even as the house moving effort continues because not all homes are movable within the constraints faced by the teams involved.

I also have an interview to post, which should be informative.

In the meantime, it sounds like the UMC Corporation Board, which will run the hospital proposed for the LSU Footprint, plans to proceed with site preparation (read demolition) even if the financing is not in place for its project.  That's irresponsible.  I'll do my best to keep tabs on how that's proceeding as things move forward.

A Question with the Salvage Process

Recently, I encountered a local for-profit company stripping architectural elements off of a house at 226 S. Miro in the VA Footprint.

While the head of the crew that was removing quoins and doors, etc. and loading them onto a trailer was very nice, I was a bit concerned.  Under the Architectural Salvage Plan that governs salvage of the homes that are to be demolished or moved, a non-profit receiver, Habitat for Humanity, is supposed to pick up all of the historic architectural elements.  This arrangement falls under the umbrella "Programmatic Agreement" or PA that governs the entire site preparation process.

I've confirmed that Habitat did in fact receive some of the earlier architectural elements at the group's Restore down in the Marigny - stop in if you'd like to purchase a reminder or two from the Footprint.  Several distinctive pieces from the ornate house at 319 S. Tonti Street, since demolished, are on hand.

I just want to make sure that other parties aren't cutting in...in violation of the Programmatic Agreement.  I've contacted the proper parties to inform them, but please contact me if you happen to be in the Footprint and you see someone who doesn't appear to be from Jacobs, Durr, Builders of Hope, Tim Clark, or Orleans Shoring taking things off houses.