One of my favorite buildings in New Orleans is the Market Street Power Plant in the Lower Garden District. It was in operation between 1905 and 1973. In 1922, NOPSI was founded to serve the entire city of New Orleans with this Power Plant, instead of the more than 200 different gas/electric companies that were in operation at the time.
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| oil on canvas, 12"x24" |
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| oil on board, 9"x12" |
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| oil on board, 12"x16" |
A few Hollywood movies were shot inside this abandoned building. After Katrina, a developer in Miami bought the power plant and nearby TwiRoPa building. To start redeveloping the power plant into a hotel-shops-condos-in-one, they demolished TwiRoPa in 2007. When that multi-use development didn't actually happen, there was also a talk of making this into a sporting goods store. We lived a couple of blocks away and I remember thinking, they better not sell guns in that sporting goods store... That didn't materialize and it still sits vacant. Broken and Beautiful.
