Remember what I said about Bienville being just the tip of the iceberg? There are 1700+ properties on the “imminent threat” list. I just discovered my next door neighbor’s house is one of them! I called him (he’s in Texas) and he was shocked and alarmed. He has not been notified that his house is slated for demolition.
In an effort to visualize the scope of these demolitions, I’ve been fiddling around with BatchGeocode.com and Google Earth.
(I’ve posted the data to Google Earth Community for the true geeks.)
Of course I’ve been paying particular attention to the demolition in Mid-City. There are a lot of them, not just along Bienville. (I’ve posted Google Earth data for just Mid-City too.) According to a friend of mine, “The last major demolition of historic houses at this scale for urban renewal was the demolition of Treme for Louis Armstrong Park.”
I got an interesting phone call yesterday from a woman who read my blog and wanted to share some information anonymously. I asked her to put it in writing, so she sent me the following via e-mail, which I thought was quite extraordinary.