SAVE WHEATLEY SCHOOL! sign and share this petition

Dear friends,

On behalf of DOCOMOMO US/ Louisiana I ask you to consider signing an online petition to save the historic modern Phillis Wheatley Elementary School which is threatened with demolition. This petition was started by Phyllis Montana-Leblanc. PML spoke passionately at Friday's hearing before the Historic District Landmarks Commission in defense of her alma mater, "If you tear down my school, a part of me dies with it."

Unfortunately we have learned that there will NOT be a review before the City Council and an RFP has been issued for the demolition. Apparently since this is a city-initiated (Orleans Parish School Board via Recovery School District) demolition of a city-owned building, the City Council is not required to review the demolition request. Still, we remain dedicated to the call to preserve the Wheatley School which was listed on the World Monuments Fund Watch in 2010. 

We hope to gather more than 2000 signatures and present the petition to Mayor Landrieu and the City Council.

I'm so very grateful to Phyllis for coming forward and reminding me that there is still Hope.
This is truly our midnight hour.

SAVE PHILLIS WHEATLEY ELEMENTARY SCHOOL IN NEW ORLEANS! SAY "NO!" TO DEMOLITION(AUGUST 2011)

If you have already signed and shared the petition with your friends, I extend my heartfelt gratitude.  Please consider joining DOCOMOMO US to help support the documentation and conservation of the buildings, sites and neighborhoods of the modern movement.

Sincerely yours,

Francine Stock

President

DOCOMOMO US/Louisiana

Raymond Boudreaux Residence (1966)

Raymond Boudreaux Residence (1966), originally uploaded by regional.modernism.

In 1966 Louisiana architect Raymond Boudreaux (b. 1922) designed a significant renovation and modernization of a center hall cottage for himself and his wife Hilda Mary (Boss) Boudreaux at 1218 Moss on Bayou St. John. Boudreaux drew a complete set of drawings of the extant structure at the start. The monumental cypress shutters were salvaged from Three Oaks Plantation formerly on the site of the American Sugar Refinery in Chalmette.

Boudreaux was born in Marrero, but raised in the French Quarter and attended McDonogh 15 Elementary and Samuel J. Peters High School. After graduating from Tulane School of Architecture in 1949 he went to work for Freret and Wolf. In 1951 he left for a six-month European tour, traveling from Denmark to Southern Italy. Upon his return, he went to visit former professor Charles Colbert, now head of the new Office of Planning and Construction for Orleans Parish Schools. Colbert offered Boudreaux a job writing programs for new schools. In 1954 Boudreaux joined the firm Colbert, Lowrey, Hess and Boudreaux. When Colbert left New Orleans to become Dean of Columbia University, the partnership became Lowrey, Hess and Boudreaux, and practiced as such until December 1990.

[Francine Stock, Regional Modernism; photo: Francine Stock, New Orleans Virtual Archive, Tulane School of Architecture]

Kirschman Residence (1962)

Kirschman Residence (1962), originally uploaded by regional.modernism.

in 1960 architect Charles R. Colbert designed a new residence for Victor F. Kirschman at 12 Swan Street in Lake Vista. The house was designed to maximize views of Lake Pontchartrain over the levee and beyond the park. Kirschman was the president of Kirschman Furniture founded by his father Morris Kirschman in 1914.

[Francine Stock, Regional Modernism; photo: New Orleans Virtual Archive, Tulane School of Architecture]

International Trade Mart [First] 1947

International Trade Mart [First] 1947, originally uploaded by regional.modernism.

The first International Trade Mart building on the downtown riverside of Camp and Common was designed in 1947 by Rathbone DeBuys, AIA (1874-1960). It opened in 1948 as a testament to the progressive nature of the new New Orleans.

"The International Trade Mart, the first world-trade market place, is as modern as the Middle South spirit which inspired its construction. Five streamlined stories of windowless concrete and glass brick, it houses the export-import displays and sales offices of hundreds of manufacturers, some 50 leading international traders and several nations." [i]

The first ITM was actually an adaptive reuse and modernization of a late 19th century structure (A. Baldwin Wood & Co., Thomas Sully, 1889). After the second ITM building (Edward Durell Stone) at 2 Canal was completed in 1967, the first ITM was renamed the Gateway Building. It was demolished in 1978 along with several other buildings for the Sheraton Hotel.

[Francine Stock, Regional Modernism; photo: Dorothy Violet Gulledge Photograph Collection, Louisiana Division/City Archives, New Orleans Public Library]

[i] Times-Picayune July 5, 1948

F. Edward Hebert Federal Building (1939)

Federal Building (1939), originally uploaded by regional.modernism.

The 12-story art deco F. Edward Hebert Federal Building on Lafayette Square was designed by architects Louis Simon and Howard L. Cheney in 1939.

Lafayette Square, the second oldest urban park in New Orleans is also surrounded by Gallier Hall (formerly City Hall, James Gallier, Sr., 1845), the Federal Reserve Bank (Goldstein, Parham, Labouisse, 1963), the Hale Boggs Federal Building and U.S. Court House (Freret & Wolf, August Perez & Associates, Mathes Bergman & Associates) and the John Minor Wisdom U.S. Court of Appeals (Hale and Rogers, 1908).

Since the city's inception, New Orleans has organized public buildings around public parks, initially with the location of the Cabildo on the Place d'Armes (now Jackson Square) and more recently with the development of the Civic Center (1958) around Duncan Plaza.

[photo: Anthony DelRosario]

Plan of Lake Vista (1936)

Plan of Lake Vista, originally uploaded by regional.modernism.

On September 29, 1936 work began on Lake Vista, a $3 million residential development on New Orleans lakefront sponsored by the Works Progress Administration. The plan of Lake Vista was designed by Hampton Reynolds, consulting engineer for the Orleans Levee Board.

Reynold's radial plan was designed to provide safe passage for children to the community center, school and two churches at the end of Spanish Fort Boulevard in the core of the residential neighborhood. Mr. Reynolds explained, "The plan gives every child of these families a way to go to the community center of the residential park without crossing an automobile highway. We wish to set an example for the country at large to pattern after. This is the age of the automobile and there must be physical protection for children and the less agile. We have sanctuaries of safety for birds, why not for human beings? Another feature of the plan is that the lots are staggered, so that the house on any one lot does not face the house on the next lot, but rather looks through the open space of the first lot."

The first lots were sold on September 18, 1938, developing initially to the west of Spanish Fort Boulevard.

[F. Stock; photo: Works Progress Administration, Louisiana Division/City Archives, New Orleans Public Library]

First National Life Insurance Co. (1960)

First National Life Insurance Co., originally uploaded by regional.modernism.

In July of 1960 Thurston B. Martin, president of the First National Life Insurance Company (est. 1914, New Orleans) announced the construction of a new twelve-story glass office building.

The Times-Picayune reported, ''Designed by Mathes Bergman & Associates, the structure will have a porte cochere entry from a circular drive, will be air-conditioned and encased in glass with limestone and granite trim. Three elevators will service the structure which is to be finished with a marble and wood lobby and with stone floors."

The irregular site on Howard, S. Rampart and Dryades was conveniently located near the new Union Passenger Terminal (completed 1955). The building currently houses the offices of the Archdiocese of New Orleans.

[photo: M. Saxer, TSA NOVA]