"Who Ya Gonna Call?" "Chicago Building Busters..."

Larry Freeman of Ferrara Fire Apparatus Inc., which provided the equipment, described the "controlled demolition" of New Orleans' Naval Brigade Hall, a historic building, as a training exercise for the Chicago Fire Department.

George Jennings, on the Preservation Forum email list, responded to my post yesterday about the demolition of a historic building in New Orleans...

This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard of! Let the visiting firefighters/FEMA revist the area at their expense and rebuild the building over which they had no jurisdiction - without due process. As Elizabeth said, they might have been unaware of proper procedure, but that doesn't excuse them from the lack of knowledge that there would be a procedure. And also as Elizabeth said, an uninhabitable building can be made habitable again. And in an area such as New Orleans, where history is the framework of the culture, the money spent on making an uninhabitable building inhabitable is more likely to be spent.

Firefighters are responders - to emergencies that are life and property threatening. But in such a case as this they are the threat themselves. Who are the fighters to protect us from firefighters like these "uninformed characters?" The little boys with their great big toys! I know of too many instances where a property owner has called the fire department to have a controlled "practice burn" of an historic building to clear the land for other uses. But that is owner initiated. There is no threat to life, and the threat to the property is the owner himself. In such a case, you can't point the finger at the firefighters. As sad as it is that it happens, it falls under the property rights argument.

In this case, you can blame the firefighters/FEMA, and now Nagin, whom I'm beginning to think is cracking under the stress of wondering what is going on around him. If the brick is still onsite, I think they should all come back to the site with their trowels and mortar, and put it back together! (Thank God I don't get emotional about this kind of stupidity)

But this is inexcusable, and I hope someone with the knowledge of how to expose it in such a way, and to the point ! of having an effect, will move on it. If there is any way I can help, other than just being a "loose cannon," I will.
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According to Anomaly News, the firefighters that destroyed the building are from Chicago...

Another day, another outrage. From the New Orleans Times-Picayune October 5 2005: "... recent demolition of the former Naval Brigade Hall, at 823 Camp St. in the Warehouse District, has preservationists alarmed. The building, which dates to 1903 and for a time housed the Grunewald Music School, was one of the city's more significant jazz landmarks, and preservationists fear that the manner in which it was torn down - without any review process - could be a sign of growing peril to New Orleans' architectural heritage as the city rebuilds.

Demolition of the hall occurred Monday, a few hours after city inspectors placed a sign on the building declaring it unsafe for habitation. The work was done by a group of out-of-town firefighters - led, witnesses say, by a contingent from Chicago - who used a device known as "the strong arm" that is capable of spraying water and knocking over walls simultaneously.

Though the hall was not on fire, "they began to spray water on the building, and then after a while they began to bang on the roof, pushing through the roof from the top," said neighbor Lee Madere, who watched and protested as the building went down. "They were showing how it could break through roofs."My wife said, 'Look, we save historic structures here, we don't destroy them for demonstration purposes. After a while they began to knock the brick walls down and pull the façade off and demolish the structure. At that time, I said, 'Guys, that's a historic structure, you can't do this.' They said, 'We have to do it for safety.'

"City officials said they did not authorize the action."It has come to our attention that some of our mutual aid firefighters, in their enthusiasm to assist the New Orleans Fire Department, used a piece of equipment called the strong arm to demolish a storm-damaged building," Mayor Ray Nagin's press office said in a statement. "They were unaware of the proper procedures and the 'chain of command.'" . . .

The first floor was basically intact, [neighbors] said, and its unusually thick walls were still plumb. Larry Freeman of Ferrara Fire Apparatus Inc., which provided the equipment, described the "controlled demolition" as a training exercise for the Chicago Fire Department. [...] *[Ferrara Fire Apparatus, Inc. is a leading manufacturer of fire and rescue apparatus.Located in Holden, LA and founded by Chris Ferrara in 1982,]

City officials say they only marked the building as uninhabitable. The notice posted last week, similar to those on hundreds of thousands of other buildings damaged by the storm, reads: "This structure is unsafe and its use or occupancy has been prohibited by the building official."

Said Meg Lousteau of the Louisiana Landmarks Society, "I'm very saddened that we've lost such an important piece of jazz history, seemingly without a permit or the owner's approval." Lousteau added, "Just because we're in the midst of a disaster, I don't think people should be taking it upon themselves to decide which buildings need to be destroyed."

CHICAGO FIRE DEPARTMENT (312) 745-4213
FERRARA FIRE APPARATUS (225) 567-7100

Maybe you should hesitate before calling.

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The thing about the Chicagoans going to New Orleans to tear down buildings is somewhat ironic for two reasons. (1) Chicago is notorious for demolition of potentially historic buildings, as the great series in the Chicago Tribune, "A Squandered Heritage, makes clear.

(2) This reminds me some of the stories you hear from people who lived in neighborhoods demolished for urban renewal back in the 1950s to the 1970s. They tell stories of scavengers from the suburbs coming to take parts from doomed buildings of architectural merit...