Preservationists suspect of LSU’s commitment to move McDonogh 11

21st November 2011   ·   0 Comments

By Christopher Tidmore
Contributing Writer

On Thursday, November 17, a 25-person crew began moving the historic McDonogh No. 11 school. The 1879 structure is being transferred to the former location of the Blood Bank near the Criminal Courts Building to make way for the new LSU Medical Center, a successor to Big Charity.

That is, it will be moved to its permanent plot — eventually. “May­be,” pronounced Sandra Stokes of the Foundation for Historical Louisiana, with considerable skepticism as to whether it will ever arrive at its new plot on Tulane Ave.

“The plan,” she explained to The Louisiana Weekly, “is to take the school in two parts, and place it on a temporary site for a year. And only then determine whether it is structurally sound enough to be moved to its final location.”

“Why not just move it there first? Why wait a year? Perhaps it is because after a year, LSU can proclaim the building to be structurally unsound.” And, have the excuse to possibly tear it down, she maintained.

Stokes’ doubts about LSU’s true intentions are born from what her preservation organization has observed as a constant disregard for the continued existence of historic properties in the Mid-City footprint of new hospital. Just two weeks ago, demolition crews hired by the new UMC board started ripping down 19th-century homes—homes that already had been put on blocks, with roofs removed, and made ready for transport on 18 Wheeler trucks to NORA owned lots as infield development in other historic neighborhoods.

Three were demolished before Stokes and her allies could get to Mid-City and stop the wanton destruction of properties where state money had already been spent to secure and move them. LSU called the mistake unfortunate, but expressed little remorse.

“The houses were already prepared to move. LSU said that they had to get to the lines [under the ground where the homes lay]. They were already on blocks ready to move. They could have moved them to the edge of the site.”

Instead, demolition was chosen. It has been a constant theme since LSU began pushing for the construction of the suburban-style 70-acre hospital complex nearly six years ago. For the 19th-century, predominantly African-American neighborhood cleared, LSU and UMC board have shown little sensitivity to preserving the city’s architectural culture, said Stokes. Hundreds of properties have faced the wrecking ball.

“They act like they want us to look like Birmingham. I have nothing against Birmingham. It’s just not New Orleans,” Stokes said. “People come here for a reason.” The historical atmosphere that is not being protected, in her view.

Which has brought worries that neoGothic beauty of McDonogh 11 might not make it to its final home. “We spent tax dollars fixing this school after Hurricane Katrina. There were students going there two years ago [at a time where there is limited classroom space elsewhere in the city]. What happens if it sits at its temporary location, and LSU decides that it became unsound in the move?”

The million spent restoring the property after the storm would have been wasted, and one of the original schools built by the behest of John McDonogh in his will, dedicated to providing a free public education to New Orleans youth, would be destroyed.

Spokespersons for LSU said not to be distraught. Representatives cite how the property is being carefully moved on a 304-wheel dolly over a temporary roadway made of interlocking one-foot-thick mats. The building should survive the transport, they predict.

However, LSU officials admitted the possibility that the structure, one of the last surviving buildings by famed 19th-century architect William Freret, might never make it to its new foundation on Tulane Ave.

This article was originally published in the November 21, 2011 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper