A sparrow perches atop a pile of rubble - street signs, live oak roots and branches, coffee cups, an old ladder - in the nearly cleared VA Hospital Footprint in Lower Mid-City, New Orleans. The 30-acre site, located entirely in a National Register Historic District, was home to hundreds of structures, including approximately 120 structures eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. While approximately 75 structures were moved off the site and a few buildings are being incorporated, scores of buildings, many of them occupied until 2010, were demolished. The hospital complex design calls for a mid-rise structure only a handful of stories high.
