To Support New Orleans Culture, Leaders Must Prioritize Both
On November 1, the City of New Orleans issued a press release announcing the NOLA Walk of Fame, a project conceived and spearheaded by newly-minted entertainment ambassador and longstanding No Limit Records mogul Percy “Master P” Miller, intended to honor “notable New Orleans individuals who have made significant contributions globally.” The press release thanked Miller and other partners for “helping embrace our culture and ensuring a bright future for our city and its cultural heritage” and otherwise largely echoed language from the Walk of Fame website. Patterned after the globally known tourist attraction in Hollywood, Miller and the Walk of Fame Committee, an advisory board described as a “dedicated group of individuals committed to preserving New Orleans’s cultural heritage,” developed an initial list of 50 inductees—a combination of names set for acknowledgement that ranged from expected and overdue to inexplicable. The intent is to honor all 50 with a fleur-de-lis imprinted with their name on a “walk” which will begin at the foot of Canal Street and be in place before the Super Bowl on February 9. However, at the November 26 groundbreaking ceremony attended by a cavalcade of politicians, celebrities, and business leaders, only two were unveiled: Hip-hop superstar Dwayne “Lil’ Wayne” Carter Jr. and Raising Cane’s founder Todd Graves. Neither was installed during the ceremony.
The Walk of Fame is only one part of a greater vision, which also includes an educational curriculum, documentary series, mentorship programs and internships, and a “high-tech museum exhibit, which could have interactive holograms of honorees.” Media outlets have widely placed the budget of the project at $6.5 million, and reporting by Axios breaks this down further. According to project consultant and nonprofit fiscal sponsor Syrita Steib, the 50 plaques would cost between $500,000 and $750,000; the rest of the projected budget would be for construction of the walk itself and the creation of the educational curriculum. It’s unclear whether the documentary series and mentorship programs would also be included in the $6.5 million, and it is suggested that the museum exhibit—estimated by Steib to cost between $2 and $2.5 million—could eventually be placed in the Louisiana Music & Heritage Museum proposed for the River District. That museum has struggled to secure its $160 million budget, has no reliable timeline for development, and has not begun construction.
Six months before the groundbreaking there was another sort of announcement, also with implications for the future of the city’s culture. Marguerite Oestreicher, regional executive director of Habitat for Humanity, told the City Council that nearly 100 Habitat homeowners, most of whom were older, faced imminent foreclosure due to skyrocketing insurance premiums. These homeowners included some residents of Musicians’ Village, a high-profile post-Katrina recovery project. The brainchild of musicians Harry Connick Jr. and Branford Marsalis, the Village was created to provide affordable housing for musicians in order to ensure the musical legacy of the city, and by all metrics the project was a resounding success, providing over 80 single-family homes, five duplexes, and a performing arts center. During its launch period, the Village, too, attracted politicians, celebrities, and business leaders, many of whom provided assistance or funding—and copped a quick photo op. It’s not hyperbole to say that Musicians’ Village served as a global symbol of the resilience and recovery of New Orleans music and culture, one that continues to be studied as a potential model for other disaster recovery efforts.
Now, nearly two decades later, the climate-change-driven insurance crisis, worsening economic conditions, and bureaucratic torpor are beginning to put the survival of Musicians’ Village at risk. To provide the necessary financial cushion to stabilize mortgages and prevent foreclosure on the Habitat homes while a long-term solution is developed, Oestreicher estimated that roughly $2 million was needed. Within about six weeks, the City Council unanimously approved an ordinance that shifted the needed funds from federal COVID relief-era American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) dollars that had previously been earmarked for affordable housing development to the Habitat homes instead. The Cantrell administration, rather than sending the funds to Habitat as directed by the Council ordinance, instead created an application process open to all interested organizations. Upon reviewing the submitted applications, the administration rejected them all—including Habitat’s—saying none met the requirements necessary for ARPA funding. When asked, they would not say what requirements were missed, but instead proposed using funding from the City’s General Fund to fill the gap, though they did not provide an updated timeline. According to reporting from Nola.com, Oestreicher was informed of this new funding plan on November 27—the day after the groundbreaking for the Walk of Fame, and nearly six months after the issue was first made public.
The NOLA Walk of Fame is a positive and celebratory project but remains largely unfunded; any tangible benefits beyond the concrete plaques are almost certainly years away. The bulk of its more ambitious ideas—a documentary series, a school curriculum, holograms—are bullet points on a press release, not actual proposals. Its existence and the frantic push to move it forward seem to be entirely driven by the rapidly approaching kickoff of Super Bowl LIX. Meanwhile, the means to resolve a crisis that members of the cultural community are facing TODAY, also tied to a project explicitly created to benefit musicians and culture bearers, are stuck in bureaucratic limbo with no matching sense of urgency. Giving the cultural community their flowers is important, but spotlights are not sunlight, and without proper nutrients even the most beautiful flowers will wither and die.
If the culture of the city is going to be maintained and continue to grow, it is imperative those in positions of power look beyond the spectacle of celebrity and put equal political weight behind quickly resolving less sexy, nuts-and-bolts issues that will allow the people that create the culture to stay in the city. The Walk of Fame went from announcement to groundbreaking in under a month, yet it’s been nearly half a year since relief was identified for the struggling homeowners of Musicians’ Village and other Habitat for Humanity properties, and as of this writing there is no resolution in sight. Maybe they need to schedule another groundbreaking to speed things along.
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