Spring Greening

Historic Green Day 8: Green Spaces

The Sierra Club's Darryl Malek-Wiley works with volunteers to build a roof over the information kiosk for Bayou Bienvenue.

Historic Green Day 7: Restoring a Dream

Historic Green's Volunteer Coordinator Laura Carrera (of UT-San Antonio) briefs a new group of volunteers on their projects for the day.

Volunteers from the Historic Preservation and Restoration Techology program at College of the Redwoods (Eureka, CA) work to re-paint and reconstruct the entire facade of a historic home at 1226 Gordon.

Historic Green Day 6: Ready for Another Week!

PHOTO: Siri Colom

Historic Green Day 5: Wrapping Up the Week

Smitty begins his tour of the Lower Ninth Ward with volunteers.

PHOTO: Siri Colom

Watering a brand new rain garden on N. Rampart Street.

Contractor Ryan Haugaard (of Abacus Design Build in Manhattan, KS) describes his work to restore a two-story historic house at 616 Caffin over the last week.

PHOTO: Siri Colom

Curt Rohner and his crew rest up after finishing up a radiant barrier installation and repairs at 1224 Gordon - job well done!

Historic Green Day 4: Still More Projects!

PHOTOS (above): Siri Colom

Installing radiant barriers on St. Claude Avenue.

Tuck-pointing the brick work for a double shotgun on Tricou. Restoration from start to finish!

Historic Green Day 3: More Projects!

Working at the Delery Street playground.

Greening up a house on Tricou.



Volunteers from SUNY-Buffalo take a break from installing radiant barriers in the home of Don Edwards on St. Claude.

Attending the Holy Cross Neighborhood Assn. meeting at Greater Little Zion Baptist Church - a true exercise in democracy!

Historic Green Day 2: Projects!

Volunteers from SUNY-Buffalo are restoring the bank of windows along the front of the Lower 9th Ward Village - re-caulking, cleaning, replacing temporary plexiglas panes with glass, and then adding solar film to minimize heat gain during the hot summer months.



Ryan Haugaard (of Manhattan, Kansas) and his crew rebuild the back of a two-story double shotgun in Holy Cross - took it all down, reconstructing it greener.



PHOTO: Darryl Malek-Wiley

Working on the rain garden at Delery Street playground - thanks to students from SUNY-Buffalo!

Meet James Lewis of the Lower Ninth Ward. Crews are working on his home (radiant barriers) at 1224 Gordon and the house next door (re-sheathing the exterior) to make them far more energy efficient. Mr. Lewis and his family were able to return to the Lower 9 about 1 1/2 years after Katrina - doing most of the repairs and rebuilding himself.

Historic Green Day 1: Prepped and Ready

The Lower 9th Ward Village: Our home and center of operations for the next 10 days!



Rain garden and reconstruction materials - ready for a project!

John Williams of Williams Architects offers an orientation of the Lower 9th Ward - before and after Katrina - and the amazing story of a neighborhood building back green.

Curt Rohner of Historic Green provides safety training to our first group of volunteers working this week.

Jenny Poole of USGBC interviews Lower 9 resident John Taylor for the Council's new podcast series.

Historic Green in Eco-Structure Magazine

Check out Historic Green featured in Eco-Structure Magazine here.  Historic Green Chair and Co-founder Jeremy Knoll is interviewed about HG discussing why we exists and where we are going. 

Touring the Armstrong School

The Louis Armstrong Elementary School at St. Claude and St. Maurice is one of our featured venues as part of this year’s Historic Green. Activities at the school included a structure walk-through (led by deconstruction experts and former FEMA inspectors), followed by a design charrette to generate ideas for the use of the abandoned building as a community arts space. Finally, volunteer teams worked on site beautification, to clean up the school’s front green space and landscaping the surrounding area with hardy, native plants.

The Preservation Resource Center provided this terrific slideshow of the building assessment tour on March 11 – and featuring our very own Heather Gay.



In addition, the National Trust’s online Preservation Magazine featured a story on the school’s restoration plans – and Historic Green’s involvement in the cleanup:

“This month, there's new hope for an abandoned New Orleans school that was one of the first to be integrated in the Deep South during the Civil Rights Era.

The Leona Tate Foundation for Change, which incorporates tomorrow [March 18], will raise money to renovate the McDonogh No. 19 Elementary School in the Ninth Ward as "a Civil Rights museum that can attract people from all over the nation," says Rev. John Moore, foundation chair.

The 1929 structure (now called the Louis D. Armstrong Elementary School) was shuttered before Katrina, when floodwaters damaged the first floor. The school district plans to mothball the facility, having concluded that it will cost $8.8 million to repair and $10 million to replace.”

You can read all of “New Life for New Orleans School and Civil Rights Landmark?” here.