Door To Nowhere

Just a block away from my house, you used to see this:

Door to Nowhere, New Orleans
oil on board, 12"x16"

This is a front wall of a house, nothing special, with a window and two white doors attached, with metal doors on the outside. It stood there like this for about 6 months. I was fascinated by it, and I had to paint it.

I had no idea why on earth you would want to keep just the front wall of a house but demolish the rest. To keep the original wall, there must be a good reason. Maybe this house is a historic structure and the owner wanted to keep the value of it.

One day someone saw this painting and said "Oh that's in my neighborhood." But it wasn't. Apparently, this practice has been done all over New Orleans for quite a while. Why? Most houses in this city was built more than 70, 80, sometimes a hundred years ago. Back then there was no city ordinance on where your front wall should be in relation to the sidewalk. In French Quarter and Marigny/Bywater, you'll see stoops taking up half the width of the narrow sidewalk. Now a newly constructed house has to be 4 or 5 feet away from the sidewalk. I'm not sure exactly how far it should be, but it must be far enough for the home owners who want to maximize their houses' square footage. By keeping this front wall, they don't have to follow the new rules.

It's been about 5 months since I made this painting, and there is a brand new two-story house under construction right behind this wall. Unattached. Interesting.