NEW ORLEANS — A big part of what makes New Orleans special is its rich history.
It’s in the architecture, music, food and even something as small as the iconic blue and white lettered street tiles embedded in the sidewalk on corners throughout the city.
“People come to the city and they often look at the tiles on the street, the plaques on the buildings and they read about it,” French Quarter resident Ken Caron said. “They learn a lot about New Orleans. They want to know about the history.”
Some of that history is now missing.
“We live on 'Hartres' which is Chartres without the C,” Faubourg Marigny Improvement Association President Allen Johnson said. “We live on 'Kerl' which is Kerlerec without the last 4 letters.”
In recent years, as contractors rebuilt city streets and sidewalks, some of them didn’t replace the street tiles. For example; Marigny, Dauphine, and Mandeville Streets are missing letters.Tiles at the corner of Dante and Apple Streets are gone completely.
“We were told when they started this construction, they were going to replace the street tiles and put them back,” Johnson said.
Caron said the city needs to hold its contractors more accountable.
“There’s parking signs missing. There’s street signs missing. There’s tiles missing. We still, two and a half years after the construction started, we still don’t have this stuff done.”
Marigny shop owner Sem Elias says people are just looking for something to complain about.
“When we’re discussing the safety of transportation for people back and forth, for their kids and their families, I don’t think that the names of streets should even be a consideration.” Elias said.
Neighbors admit in the grand scheme of things, street tiles are rather small. But they say if you can’t trust city leaders to get the little things right, that speaks volumes.
“It’s just attention to detail and showing that we care,” Johnson said.
The city released this statement about the missing and broken street tiles:
The City of New Orleans, Department of Public Works (DPW) requires its contractors to salvage the existing street name tiles and reset them whenever possible. Any historic materials, including street names, that are damaged by the contractor during construction, must be replaced at the cost of the contractor.
DPW is aware that there have been a few instances where tiles have been placed with misspellings. Street name tiles are reviewed as part of the final inspection for all roadwork projects. All instances where misspellings have occurred will be corrected prior to completion of the project.
There are some cases where existing street name tiles have been cracked and / or damaged prior to the start of construction. In these cases, contractors remove and reset tiles that can be salvaged and either repair or replace tiles that cannot be salvaged.
As part of our revised specifications for new road construction contracts:
*If more than 25 percent of the tiles are damaged or missing, they will be replaced; and
*If less than 25 percent of the tiles are damaged, the contractor will remove and salvage those tiles.
Additionally, the new specification for street name tiles includes a $10,000 fine per street name plus the cost to replace all street name tiles not reinstalled in the existing condition. Fines will not be enforced for contracts awarded prior to the specification revisions.
The City will continue to monitor and advise its contractors on how to handle historic materials as a regular practice.
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