Name:	Emily Ratner
City:	New Orleans, LA
Specific property affected:	House of Detention
Comments:	Please do not demolish this building without giving the public an opportunity to see it and without allowing artists, archivists, criminal justice organizers, and others to document it. While HOD has been out of operation for years, the impact it has had on the lives of thousands still reverberates throughout our community and prison system. Understanding this building can help us to better understand the people who passed through it. A thorough accounting of the conditions at HOD could be critical to the determination of a judge or parole board that someone has demonstrated rehabilitation in the face of extraordinary trauma. This building is too important to the histories of many of our incarcerated and formerly incarcerated neighbors and their loved ones to lose without thorough documentation and an opening of the building to the public.