The Wimawalas Part II

In a September post, I reported on the plight of the self-proclaimed "Wimawalas," who in August of 1950 were fighting to save their neighborhood from the wrecking ball. The Magnolia Housing Project (aka Louisiana Project 1-10; later renamed C.J. Peete) Expansion was planned to cover the area that was home to shotgun houses, tenements, and a number of small churches.

New Orleans landscape architect William S. Wiedorn planned the drainage, lawns and plantings according to the Public Housing Administration's Low-Rent Housing Bulletin (31-10-1950) Division 25: Lawns and Planting. His planting scheme included Live Oaks, American Elms, Yaupon, Fern Bamboo and Bermuda Grass.

Additional information about the Magnolia Extension may be found in a number of collections housed in the Southeastern Architectural Archive: Koch and Wilson Collection and the William S. Wiedorn Collection.

To read more about American federal housing, see:

Davis, Sam. The Architecture of Affordable Housing. Berkeley, CA: U California-Berkeley Press, 1995. ARCH NA 7540.D38

Newton, Norman T. Design on theLand: The Development of Landscape Architecture. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press for Harvard U, 1971. Multiple locations, Tulane University Libraries.

Radford, Gail. Modern Housing for America: Policy Struggle in theNew Deal Era. Chicago: U Chicago Press, 1996. HTML HD 7293.R28
Sanborn Insurance Company, Detail of Wimawalas Neighborhood, 1909 Map of New Orleans, vol. 4 (with corrections to 1933). Sanborn Fire Insurance Atlases Collection, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.