NEW ORLEANS — For decades, New Orleans has been in a battle with blight. This year, the city seems determined to win; drawing on new tools and funding to bulldoze dangerous properties and clear more lots.
But there’s a keen curiosity about some of the city’s most notable decaying properties and the untouched history inside.
While the city cuts through red tape, New Orleans’ many urban explorers risk arrest, and sometimes even risk their lives, to show us what lies beneath.
“How easy was it to get into this building?” we asked John Gualtieri in the shadow of the Plaza Tower at South Rampart Street and Howard Avenues.
“It was pretty easy, not going to lie,” he laughed.
Gualtieri goes by @New_Orleans_Ghost_Hunter online. His hobby is, legally speaking, trespassing.
Informally, he’s an urban explorer.
“First of all, let me tell you, just looking at it, obviously it looks really tall from here,” he said, pointing at the Plaza Tower. “When you get up there, it’s really, really tall. It’s mostly empty. I think a lot of people go in there for the views from the top.”
Gualtieri said he’s been in the Plaza Tower multiple times, and the views from the top are just the beginning.
Often under the cover of night, Gualtieri sneaks into buildings in New Orleans that few have stepped foot inside in decades - abandoned mansions, Charity Hospital, the Six Flags site, Lindy Boggs Medical Center, the former Naval base in the Bywater.
If it’s decaying, the ghost hunter wants in.
“As somebody who loves history, I love New Orleans history, it’s very interesting to me,” he said.
Gualtieri calls his camera his alibi. He broadcasts what he finds to 145-thousand followers on his Instagram page.
The hashtag #urbex on Instagram has more than 12 million posts. There are countless urban explorers across the world and dozens in New Orleans.
To name a few, @NOLADEEJ, @AlexConners_, and @AbandonedNewOrleans all photos of their adventures online.
Gualtieri said those who explore as a serious hobby operate under an unwritten code of conduct.
“Usually what we do when we go in somewhere like that, we try to do research on the building.
[We] find out, has there been documentation of asbestos, or lead paint,” he said. “Try to assess what type of respirator we need if we’re going to use one. You know, lights, lights, lights.”
Entering abandoned buildings can be very dangerous. In 2022, 18-year-old Anthony Clawson fell to his death inside the abandoned Market Street Power Plant.
New Orleans property owners are legally required to keep things secure.
But there’s apparently a lot of easy access and a lot of abandoned buildings.
We asked Anthony Davis, Director of Code Enforcement for the City of New Orleans, what makes a property blighted.
“It could be the foundation itself is falling apart, it could be uninhabitable, it could be windows missing, overgrown lots, material and stuff all over the property,” he said.
Davis holds the list of the city’s “Dirty Dozen” -- 12 properties of top priority for demolition or rehabilitation.
Photos: New Orleans’ urban explorers
Many are open wounds from Hurricane Katrina. But in 2024, more funding means a renewed focus on cleaning those sites up. He says some property owners, though, would rather lawyer up.
“They file temporary restraining orders. They do all that they can in their willpower not to be responsible for those fines. But we just continue to go after them in a court of law, and then hopefully, we’ll prevail in the end,” said Davis.
He says some property owners have been working hard to clean up their site and get off of the list. But the owner of the decaying Plaza Tower has faced hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines.
WWL Louisiana has learned through public documents that police have responded to almost 30 calls for service there in the last two years. That includes a death, fires, and pieces of the building falling off. In December, the city sought bids for its demolition.
But Thomas Mulligan, the Deputy Director of Business and External Services – meaning he works to bolster business in the city – says the goal is always to return big, crumbling buildings to commerce.
“The holdup is trying to put a deal together. Trying to find financing, trying to come up with a planned use for the building that is viable and ultimately enough money can be raised from private investors to make that happen,” he said.
While redevelopment takes decades in some cases, New Orleans residents are seeing these eyesores from a new perspective online.
Gualtieri said, “It’s bittersweet when you look at this as a hobby, how fun it is. And it’s a catch-22. You hate to see the blighted properties, you hate to see how places can just rot to the ground, and then New Orleans' only solution is ‘let’s build another high-rise condo out of this’.”
An important note: Exploring buildings in this way is not legal. NOPD made almost 500 arrests for trespassing last year alone. If you’re interested in seeing these buildings from the inside, we just recommend you stick to the photos on social media.
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