DeGaulle Manor

DeGaulle Manor, now Crescent City Gates,[1] is a housing complex in the Algiers section of New Orleans.[2]

History

The apartments were built in the 1960s with 364 units under HANO before Anthony Reginell brought the property in 2000.[3] With 12 5-story sprawling buildings on Sandra Drive, it included a garden of flowers and working elevators for handicapped citizens. It was then labeled as a paradise for the white middle-class families of Algiers. Known as Bridge Plaza in the early 1970s most of the residents were Middle class Blacks and Whites. In the years that followed, the community was desegregated along with its public schools. The Black Panthers were the first to move into the apartments along with the African-American New Orleans Saints players. White flight caused the area to lose its property value. After whites moved out of the community, tons of African-Americans flooded DeGaulle Manor, leaving other crowded housing projects in the 9th Ward and the over-crowded William J Fischer Housing Development. The newly built Christopher Park Homes were also heavily populated by blacks as well. White New Orleans policemen avoided the area due to its increasing black population, resulting in neglect. Between 1970 and the present, no owner has kept the property for more than seven years; and each time that it has changed hands, the new owners have made little effort to rectify the many problems that arose under the supervision of the previous owners.[4] In 2005 after Hurricane Katrina struck, 135 out of 350 units were vandalized. One hundred families still lived in the apartments until they were evicted on Thanksgiving.[5] Johnson Properties Group purchased the complex and were able to renovate 160 units.[6] In 2007 Common Ground Collective bought the property from Johnson Properties Group, renaming it the Crescent City Gates Apartments. Crescent City Gates is now vacant and will be demolished and replaced by a new sporting complex.[7] North of Crescent City Gates were the Christopher Homes Projects, another run-down housing complex torn down in 2013.[8]

Crime

In the past 30 years, DeGaulle Manor has suffered from high crime rates and poverty, and was labeled as a troubled, crack-infested housing project.[9] Between the early and mid 1980s the complex became a nesting ground for drugs and crime. Many of the apartments served as crack dens for drug dealers and sheltered drug addicts. In 1982, NOPD enforced extra patrolling around DeGaulle Manor to reduce the drug activity in the area, but failed to make any arrests.[10] Security gates where installed to keep drug dealers from entering. City council have been receiving numerous reports of crime and drug dealing beganing of 1991. Since then, the problem has been ignored and unaddressed.

When the complex closed in 2012, crime decreased 20% in the area.

ExhibitBe

In 2014 Brandan Odums and his graffiti crew transformed DeGaulle Manor into a graffiti art exhibit after painting murals of famous civil rights leaders and entertainers such as Tupac Shakur, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr. and Muhammad Ali.[11] The murals located on 3010 Sandra Drive attracted 3,000 people when Odums opened it as ExhibitBe on November 15[12] It was described as "the largest single-site street art exhibit in the American South." ExhibitBe closed in January 2015 with an ending concert including musicians David Banner, Erykah Badu, Dead Prez, Dee-1 and a performance by the Edna Karr High School Marching Band.[13]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Crescent City Gates on the Yellow Pages website
  2. ↑ "DeGaulle Manor".
  3. ↑ "Woodlands residents struggle with the affordable housing quagmire in New Orleans".
  4. ↑ http://brandanodums.com/be/the-history-of-the-site/
  5. ↑ http://www.democracynow.org/2006/11/27/hundreds_face_eviction_in_new_orleans
  6. ↑ "Woodlands Apartments".
  7. ↑ http://www.noladefender.com/content/curtain-closes-exhibit-be
  8. ↑ "Officials witness demolition of Algiers public housing complex".
  9. ↑ "Mother of two found shot to death in Algiers apartment complex".
  10. ↑ https://www.linkedin.com/pub/kevin-moon/9a/b6/2a5?trk=pub-pbmap
  11. ↑ http://www.fastcompany.com/3040852/how-a-single-building-covered-in-eye-popping-street-art-explains-new-orleans
  12. ↑ http://www.nola.com/arts/index.ssf/2014/11/exhibitbe_spectacular_outdoor.html
  13. ↑ http://www.nola.com/arts/index.ssf/2015/01/exhibit_be_closing_celebration.html
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