Tag: Louisiana

Commission proposed to rename Gov. Nicholls Street, other city roads following protests

(Photo: Infrogmation | CC)
New Orleans City Councilmembers on Thursday are slated to consider an ordinance that would create a commission to rename certain streets, a proposal that comes amid recent calls from grassroots organizations to remove so-called symbols of white supremacy throughout the city.

The proposed ordinance followed demands by Take ‘Em Down NOLA during a Thursday press conference at City Hall and protest against racism and police brutality held at Duncan Plaza.

The ordinance would create a commission of nine appointed members who will have an advisory role in renaming certain streets, including Governor Nicholls Street, which runs just over a mile and a half from Treme through the French Quarter.

The street was named after Francis T. Nicholls, a Confederate Army general who served two nonconsecutive terms as Louisiana’s 28th governor following the Civil War and Reconstruction.

Other streets targeted for renaming including Claiborne and Tulane avenues, Galvez and Poydras streets and General Taylor Street.

Additionally, Take ‘Em Down NOLA identified several other French Quarter locations it says bear white supremacist names, including statues of Bienville, Edward Douglass White statue, Andrew Jackson, the KIPP McDonogh School for the Creative Arts and a plaque at Washington Artillery Park denoting that its cannon “served the Confederacy in two theaters” of the Civil War.

The council’s virtual meeting can be viewed via live stream here starting at 10 a.m. and public comment can be submitted here.

Take Em Down NOLA demands New Orleans remove Andrew Jackson statue

(Photo: Jeff Turner | CC)
A local grassroots organization whose efforts contributed to the removal of several Confederate statues in New Orleans demanded the city also take down Andrew Jackson during a protest in Duncan Plaza on Thursday.

During a speech on the steps of City Hall, members of Take Em Down NOLA issued several demands, including the immediate release of a timeline for the removal of the Andrew Jackson statue in the French Quarter.

Other demands included abolishing police and having a community-led process of removing symbols considered to be white supremacist, including the names of schools, parks and street names.

Thursday morning’s rally was just one of several in the last week sparked by the death of George Floyd, who died on May 25 following a video-recorded encounter of a Minneapolis Police officer kneeling on his neck for nearly nine minutes.

A person was shot shortly after 11:30 a.m. on the back side of the plaza as the rally occurred, although the shooting was unrelated, according to New Orleans Police.

For the last two weeks, protesters in dozens of states have taken to the streets demanding an end to racism, police brutality, inequality and economic injustice.

“We’re also talking about the ways in which symbolic white supremacist racism reflects itself inside of the system—the economic system and the social system that governs New Orleans,” one member said. “This is not a new conversation. This conversation has been in existence for at least a century since these monuments came up.

“We won’t get no satisfaction until we take down Andrew Jackson,” he said.

A video of the speech can be viewed here.

During the speech, a speaker labeled Jackson a “warmonger.”

Andrew Jackson was the seventh President of the United States and a slaveholder who opposed abolitionism.

Before becoming president, Jackson was a general and a politician who served in both houses of Congress. He led the United States to victory in the Battle of New Orleans in 1815, which took place more than two weeks following the formal end to the War of 1812.

Following the battle, Jackson commanded U.S. troops in a series of skirmishes against the Seminole tribe in Northern Florida. After he became president, his administration forced the removal of 60,000 Native Americans from the southeastern U.S. to territory west of the Mississippi River in the Trail of Tears.

Jackson died in 1845 and a statue of him riding atop a horse was erected in 1856 in the square called Place d’Armes, which was renamed Jackson Square.

Take Em Down Nola was instrumental in the 2017 removal of four Confederate statues in New Orleans, including Lee, Jefferson Davis, P.G.T. Beauregard and the Battle of Liberty Place Monument.

The movement to remove the statues began following the 2015 massacre at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

Instead, the group wants “revolutionary black and brown leaders” to replace the statues.

Thousands gather in Jackson Square to protest police brutality following George Floyd killing


Vieux Carre Commisison somehow overlooks decade-old unpermitted demolition of ‘significant’ Gov. Nicholls Street building

(Photo: 729 Gov. Nicholls St. | Kevin Minsky)
A building located on a Governor Nicholls Street property that received approval for a partial demolition was instead completely leveled a decade ago, although the Vieux Carre Commission didn’t notice it was gone until March, according to documents.

The missing structure was revealed in a Jan. 22 VCC hearing for a proposed renovation at 729 Governor Nicholls St. and later confirmed in March after the commission regained access to digital records, which showed the building in the rear of the property received emergency approval to remove its upper right-hand portion in 2009 due to “imminent danger of collapse,” according to a property report released at the June 10 Architecture Committee meeting.

But the entire building, which sat in the rear side of the L-shaped property, was likely demolished without approval in late 2009 or early 2010, the report said. An October 2019 cyber attack on New Orleans’s computer systems initially prevented the VCC from making the discovery, however the violation went overlooked for 10 years.

The VCC is a regulatory body tasked to preserve the visual character of the French Quarter, which is also a designated national landmark, and uses a color-ranking system to assign historical or architectural importance.

The Governor Nicholls Street building was yellow-rated, which “contributes to the character of the district,” and requires a level 2 or “significant” work permit.

A description of the building wasn’t provided, although demolition is rarely considered appropriate, according to the VCC.

Online records from the Historic New Orleans Collection indicate the property was first surveyed in 1722 and eventually contained a 4-room house, servant’s quarters and other structures.

“Although the unpermitted demolition of a contributing building is never acceptable, staff notes that the current owners only purchased the property in 2019 and were not involved at the time of the demolition,” VCC staff wrote in the property report.

Staff inquired if the current property owners were interested in reconstructing the building, but they wanted to keep the space open, the report said.

Commissioner Stephen Bergeron inquired whether the VCC could fine the previous owner for the unauthorized demolition, but that wasn’t clear.

Additionally, the current owner could also take legal action against the former owner, according to the report.

However, staff director Bryan Block said the VCC could require the current owner to rebuild the structure, but added the only reasons why staff approved of keeping the building demolished is because the current owner was unaware of the violation and staff wasn’t alerted because the structure wasn’t visible from the street.

New Orleans enters ‘Phase 2’ reopening June 13; bars allowed to operate with limited capacity

(Photo: The intersection of Toulouse and Bourbon streets on March 9, 2020. | Infrogmation/CC)
New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell announced on Tuesday that the city will enter “Phase 2” of reopening from COVID-19 lockdown restrictions on June 13, allowing bars without food permits and outdoor pools to operate at 25% capacity with distancing requirements.

Phase 2 in New Orleans officially starts at 6 a.m. on June 13. The city is the last part of the state to move out of Phase 1 reopening. The rest of the state entered the second phase of reopening on June 5. The city entered Phase 1 reopening on May 16.

The next phase also increases the capacity to 50% for bars with food permits, barbers and hair salons and tattoo parlors, among other businesses.

Operations that continue to remain closed include festivals, indoor live entertainment venues and arcades.

The pandemic shutdown has particularly impacted the city’s hospitality industry workforce, which make up more than a quarter of jobs in the French Quarter, according to U.S. Census statistics, however the neighborhood is poised to spring back to life after allowing bars to reopen and increasing capacity in restaurants.

Cantrell issued a March 16 proclamation that closed the vast majority of businesses in the French Quarter — including bars, nightclubs and requiring restaurants to close in-dining spaces and switch to deliveries or to-go orders — in order to halt the spread of coronavirus.

The mayor planned a phased reopening of the city based on several factors. Phase 2 reopening factors include sustained and available testing, sufficient health care testing, effective contact tracing and no dramatic spikes in coronavirus cases.

The Louisiana Department of Health on Wednesday reported 7,247 cumulative cases of coronavirus and 513 deaths in Orleans Parish. The disease was first detected on March 9, according to New Orleans public health officials.

For complete information on Phase 2 reopening in New Orleans, visit ready.nola.gov.