"Second Line" Parade Draws Attention to Charity, Mid-City
On August 31, 2009, activists in New Orleans used an age-old tradition to raise awareness about how how proposed new medical complexes for Louisiana State University and the Department of Veterans Affairs would harm the historic Mid-City neighborhood. More than 1,200 revelers formed a traditional “Second Line” parade that marched (and danced) around the 25-block site that would be decimated in order to make the point that gutting and rehabbing historic Charity Hospital would be a faster, less expensive and less destructive option. Losing an entire neighborhood would be a painful blow for a city that has already lost too much.
Learn more about our ongoing efforts to save Charity Hospital and the Mid-City neighborhood »
Jack Davis, one of our trustees, attended the event and sent this report:
The Monday evening second-line parade to protest LSU's hospital plans was one of the largest and most moving showings of preservation advocacy I've ever witnessed. It also means that preservation has engaged a multitude of new people from all walks of life in New Orleans.
A crowd estimated by police at 1,200 or more marched with two of the city's most noted brass bands, Rebirth and the Hot 8, in a second-line parade that started at Charity Hospital and circumnavigated the neighborhood that LSU wants to seize and destroy for its new hospital. The spirited marchers represented a true cross-section of New Orleans – Uptown and Downtown, black and white, white-collar and blue-collar, young and old – united in opposition to the city and state officials who would abandon Charity and the Central Business District and at the same time destroy a 25-block section of workforce housing and small businesses. We had great speakers and loud applause at the parade's end – Dr. Tlaloc Alferez, the daughter of the sculptor who did the magnificent sculpture of the Charity entrance; trombonist Glen David Andrews; 79-year-old Wally Thurman, who faces eviction from his lifelong home before his next birthday; our eloquent new-wave event empressario and MC Jonah Evans; and more.
This whole growing movement may have started with preservation concerns – to save the Charity building, to save a historic neighborhood – but it has become a movement based on powerful arguments for a quicker return of healthcare, a stronger impetus for new jobs, a boost for economic development, and a great respect for sustainability, fairness and justice. Preservation helped link all these objectives together. The growing sentiment in New Orleans for renewing Charity shows the strong resonance of our messages about sustainable building practices, community revitalization and the importance of place. That big crowd is also telling political leaders, I suspect, that they are going in the opposite direction of the voters. (The crowd, in fact, confirms the findings of the recent poll, commissioned by Smart Growth for Louisiana, that shows New Orleans voters, by a 2-1 margin prefer a new modern hospital in the gutted Charity shell over the LSU plan for a suburban-style hospital.)
News Coverage of the Second Line
Second line done to save Charity Hospital (WWLTV.com)
Secondline Protest To Save Charity Hospital (ABC26.com)
