DHS Seal - FEMA    
 
FEMA Section 106 Notices for Louisiana
Comment on "Public Notice NHPA/NEPA1 Seeking Public Comment for FEMA-funded Demolition of House of Detention, 2735 Perdido Street, New Orleans"
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Name: Name redacted at the request of the author
City: New Orleans, LA
Specific
property
affected:
2735 Perdido St
Comments: The House of Detention touched, and often fundamentally altered, the lives of thousands of New Orleanians through its decades of operation. To demolish it without allowing historians, journalists, photographers, and others as necessary, to record and preserve the physical reality of the House of Detention would minimize and sweep away the decades of deep personal suffering experienced by its inhabitants and employees. FEMA and the City of New Orleans should act to ensure that this demolition does not disappear the history and the experience of so many, who were so brutally treated in this place. Current technology allows 360 degree video mapping, which would be the best way to preserve all the physical realities of the space, but at minimum, a photojournalist, historian, and legal team should be allowed to record and document the space prior to any construction work begins.