Club Desire (THREATENED)

2604 Desire, originally uploaded by Karen Apricot New Orleans.

The Cornerstones Project celebrates "the everyday monuments and gathering places of New Orleans neighborhoods." The Neighborhood Story Project and Tulane City Center collaborated to produce the Cornerstones Book which is already going into its second printing. They are continuing to grow their registry of these often overlooked social and cultural landmarks. Anyone can nominate a structure or site of social significance. Below is the text from my nomination of Club Desire.

Name of public place: CLUB DESIRE
Address/location: 2604 Desire St. corner of Law
Neighborhood: Upper Ninth Ward, Florida Development

Why does your place deserve to be nominated? Explain in detail why this place is important, such as how it tells an important story from history, houses cultural activities and traditions, serves as an important space for socializing, or enhances the beauty or artistic character of your neighborhood.

The club was likely built sometime between 1920-1940 in an a hybrid mission / moderne style. The entrance was lined in glass blocks which glowed when the club had live music. The club hosted the finest of New Orleans jazz, rhythm and blues: Fats Domino, Deacon John, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holliday.

Please include any details about the site or physical features if the place. Also, are you aware of any physical damage or plans that threaten the future of the place?

It is on the imminent health threat list. On Monday 10.20.08, the Club Desire was slated for review by the Neighborhood Conservation District Committee.

Are you aware of any other individuals or organizations that may have more information about the place you nominated?

In May WDSU reported that attempts were being made by Marguerite Doyle-Johnston to save the club. YouTube

FutureProof is designing a new sustainable house for Ms. Doyle-Johnston who hopes to save the Club and renovate it into a community center.

Fats Domino would be a great interview. According to this interview with Rick Coleman, Fats Domino was discovered in 1949 playing at The Hideaway across the street from Club Desire.

For more photos, see Flickr. David Keyes, Preservation Resource Center Advocacy Department, Karen Apricot, Julie Dermansky, New Orleans Lady, anthonyturducken,

MapSquared

robinson24Holy Cross, originally uploaded by jeff lamb. Source: Robinson’s Atlas of the City of New Orleans, Louisiana, 1883, New Orleans Notarial Archives

The NetSquared experience was more than a bit intense: two extended days of discussions with the progressive and powerful. We were one of 21 projects recognized for our efforts to use the internet for social change. We came home to our swampy fertile crescent with a bit of seed money to get our project going. It's a small seed, but it's an official start. So, thank you NetSquared. I've been asked to define this project in terms of its benefits. How does the development of this mapping application directly create positive change? How will people use it? How will the benefits be realized?

Our project will create a visualization tool that can be used to document the historic significance of neighborhoods. Yesterday I spoke with Liliana at the Partnership for Transformation of Urban Communities about how we can help map their photo census of Pontilly. Pontilly is the neighborhood organization for Ponchartrain Park and Gentilly Woods. These are early and mid-20th century neighborhoods that have joined forces to lobby for historic district status. Our photo-mapping presentation tool can help them achieve that goal. They are so close. They have already created the photo census of the neighborhood and uploaded the photos to a server. Their data is in a spreadsheet. The photos and data just need to be integrated into a dynamic map to help tell their story.

Open data. Open source. Open access. We will make it clear to participants upfront that they are contributing to the creation of a virtual public library. Any data sets integrated into our maps will be licensed though Creative Commons. Our maps will provide information about the sources for the data, recognizing the work of the people, organizations and archives who are creating and providing the data and photos. The data sets themselves will be exportable as KML for re-mashing. We have so much more to gain by sharing this information, than by keeping it proprietary.

Our project will create a library of historic base maps and data sets. This is a dream come true. Every architect I know (and I know more than my share) would love to have the ability to review different historic site maps online and then be able to actually USE those maps to present their work. Not only will architects use this feature, but so will the academy, the non-profits, the government, city planners, the schoolchildren, the tourists.

We are creating a site-specific presentation tool for telling stories. The Neighborhood Story Project's mission is "Our stories told by us." In a collaboration with Tulane City Center, they produced Cornerstones, celebrating the everyday monuments of New Orleans culture and neighborhoods. They are accepting nominations to expand their registry of everyday monuments, sites which other people just don't see. It's such a beautiful project. We have partnered with the Tulane City Center to help integrate their photos, oral histories, video and building plans into a dynamic map.

I don't think I would be so engaged in this mapping project, were it not so incredibly loaded with potential. Our crescent city is such fertile ground for mapping and data collection and photo documentation. We need to strike while it's hot.