Hands Around Wheatley

John Stubbs, WMF's Vice President for Field Projects, recently traveled to New Orleans to partake in a demonstration against the demolition of Phillis Wheatley Elementary School.

A public rally was held on April 17th to save the Phillis Wheatley Elementary School, a masterpiece of modernist architecture in the Tremé/Lafitte Historic District of New Orleans built in 1954. Poet Phyllis Montana-Leblanc, a graduate of Wheatley, led in speeches that day, and in subsequent approaches to Mayor Mitchell Landreu to issue a reprieve to demolishing this highly innovative icon of American modernism by architect Charles Colbert.

The Wheatley School is on the 2010 Watch List and endorsements for its retention and reuse have been made by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Society of Architectural Historians, and DOCOMOMO.