La Landmark Society annual list of endangered historic sites

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Another hot-button property on the list is a 19th-century camelback shotgun house at 2501 St. Claude Ave. It’s been the subject of a legal fight between the building’s owner, local businessman Troy Henry, and its neighbors. Henry wants to tear it down and replace it with a convenience store; the neighbors say he has let the historic structure fall apart.

The landmarks society argues it ought to be preserved. “Behind the graffiti and boarded-up windows, there is still a renovation opportunity for the historic St. Claude community,” it said.

The Bywater neighborhood is also threatened by change, the group said, because of what it referred to as “proposed out-of-scale development” and “exploitative tourism,” reinforced by the city’s goal of doubling the number of visitors it hosts each year by 2018.

Other endangered landmarks on the society’s list have been less in the news — historic sites and structures threatened by decay and neglect.

They include the state-owned Fort Macomb at Chef Menteur Pass in New Orleans East, built after the War of 1812, and an Enrique Alférez sculpture called the Fountain of the Four Winds, which was installed at Lakefront Airport in 1936.

The rest are private homes, including the long-neglected Pedesclaux-Lemonnier House, the city’s “first skyscraper,” built during the Spanish colonial period at Royal and St. Peter streets.

The house at 1505 St. Bernard Ave., built in 1927, is deteriorating and in danger of being demolished by its owner.

And a “once elegant Greek Revival townhouse” built in 1846 at 468 St. Joseph St. in the Warehouse District has been undergoing “demolition by neglect” for more than 20 years.

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