What You Can Do
- Learn more and help Save Mid-City.
- Give $11 to help support the 11 Most Endangered Places.
11 Most Endangered
Charity Hospital and the Adjacent Neighborhood
Year Listed: 2008
Location: New Orleans , Louisiana
Current Status: Endangered
Threat: Deterioration, Development, Poor Public Policy
Latest News
For the most current information on Charity Hospital, visit our Save Mid-City website and learn how you can help.
Charity Hospital and the Adjacent Neighborhood
Historic homes in the Charity Hospital neighborhood. Photo by Walter Gallas.
Charity Hospital and the Adjacent Neighborhood
Historic homes in the Charity Hospital neighborhood. Photo by Walter Gallas.
Charity Hospital and the Adjacent Neighborhood
Charity Hospital. Photo by Todd Callender.
Charity Hospital and the Adjacent Neighborhood
Charity Hospital. Photo by Walter Gallas.
Significance
Once a prestigious center of medical training and a beacon for public health care, Charity Hospital now faces an uncertain future. Surrounded by flood waters when Hurricane Katrina shattered the levees around New Orleans, the Art Deco icon has been shuttered and vacant for nearly three years. Despite its legendary role in serving hundreds of thousands of uninsured patients and the critical need for medical facilities in New Orleans, this historic building continues to languish and remains vulnerable to demolition.
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the basement of Charity Hospital suffered water damage and some of the electrical and mechanical systems were damaged or destroyed. After the water receded, the medical community, the military and a number of volunteers pumped out the flooded basement, cleaned up the debris, and restored electrical power to make the building usable again, but the doors to the hospital were permanently locked when the building was deemed unsafe and unusable by the Louisiana State University (LSU) Medical System.
Updates
For the most current information on Charity Hospital, visit our Save Mid-City website and learn how you can help.
Share your memories of this endangered place
Submitted by CH at: December 19, 2009
Having lived in New Orleans, studied historic preservation law at Tulane University School of Law, and working for two years (starting one week after Hurricane Katrina made landfall) on the restoration, rebuilding, and renewal of this great American city that I love dearly, I am disheartened and stunned by the insagacity of the NTFP. In selecting Old Charity and University Hospitals as one of the 11 Most Endangered Historic Places in 2008, the Trust displayed gross negligence and an extreme ignorance of the state of these facilities prior to failure of the NOLA levee system; the complexities of preservation issues, revitalization issues, the medical needs of the people of New Orleans; the city, regional, state, and federal politics (going far beyond Huey Long); and the hundreds of other buildings in NOLA and the region that need the Trust's help. This one decision was so recklessly flawed and, frankly, stupid that I no longer have any faith in the Trust and its judgment or work. New Orleans needs all the help it can get in order to renew. I am greatly disappointed that this nation lacks a national historic preservation organization with the resources, influence, and sapience to be of any meaningful assistance.