Exhibit Be

Originally known as Bridge Plaza, the 450-unit housing complex opened in 1964 and included a dozen 5-6-story mid-rise buildings. In the 1960s, the property was renamed DeGaulle Manor. Located in the Algiers neighborhood of New Orleans, it was one of the oldest and became one of the most troubled housing complexes in the city. Algiers lies within NOPD’s 4th District jurisdiction of Orleans Parish. The 4th District violent crime rate in low-income neighborhoods has been high since the late 1980s. These areas include the notorious Fischer Projects, Whitney, and Behrman Heights neighborhoods. Once a white middle-class enclave, members of the Black Panther Party were among the first African Americans to move into the complex along with African American players from the New Orleans Saints.

In the early 1970s, half of the units were leased by the Federal Housing Administration and subsidized by the Red Cross. It later became a low-income subsidized Section 8 housing complex operated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). From 1970 to today, no owner has kept the property for longer than seven years. The complex and surrounding area had a notorious reputation for crime and violence. By the mid-1980s only 364 units remained occupied as the rest were abandoned and occupied by squatters who would normally burglarize the apartments.

Each time it changed hands, the new owners made little to no effort to rectify the existing problems. A lack of management has caused the complex to fall into deplorable conditions. Broken elevators, rusty railings, broken pipes, and rodent and termite infestations were common while it was occupied. Security gates did not close, and the property was a dumping ground for old tires and piles of rotting garbage. NOPD enforced extra patrols around the apartments to reduce rising gang activity but never made any arrests. Maintenance workers refused to enter the property for fear of being robbed or killed.

With poor management, the apartments fell into deplorable conditions that included interior walls damaged by water leaks, leaky rusted pipes, and broken elevators. Large rats and cockroach infestations were commonplace as well as rotting garbage stacked up along with clogged trash in the dumpsters. The balcony railings were rusted along with the security gates which did not close. The broken gates made the complex easily accessible for drug dealers to openly distribute narcotics. Between 1987 and 1988, the 4th District’s violent crime rate doubled with the biggest increase in gun homicides and robberies. Algiers made national headlines during 1981 with the “Algiers 7” case in which 7 officers were indicted for killing and torturing black families in revenge for the slaying of NOPD officer Gregory Newport in 1980. In the early 1990s, a rash of shootings and killings made the DeGaulle Manor apartment complex a battleground. In 1993, the apartments became one of NOPD’s 4th District hotspots for drug activity and violence. Robberies and killings occurred frequently to the point that local taxicab companies suspended cab services in the area. In 1996, HUD demolished 39 abandoned townhouse units on the property and renamed it Like Oaks.

On October 28, 1999, 13-year-old Kevin Joseph Mosley was visiting his aunt. Mosley climbed out of an open hole in the top of the cab of the elevator and got stuck and was crushed. Several hours later, a wall was removed to retrieve him from the elevator shaft. He was later pronounced dead at Charity Hospital in the early morning hours of October 29, 1999. Mosley’s wrongful death was caused by the negligence of DeGaulle Manor under the theories of strict liability, gross negligence, total neglect, and negligence. In December 2000, a group of investors that included Woody Koppel, Neal Morris, and Mark Schreiner bought DeGaulle Manor for $5 million in hopes of transforming it. The buildings were plagued with repairs and hazards and many apartments still failed HUD inspections. By then, it had become ground zero for heroin sales and prostitution. Locals nicknamed the apartment complex “D-Block.”

On April 6, 2000, a 12-year-old boy, who was living in an abandoned apartment with his 13-year-old brother was shot in the neck by a New Orleans police officer searching the building for a murder suspect. The 12-year-old identified as Troy Harvey was rushed to Charity Hospital after he was shot around 7 p.m. by Officer Ricky Blanchard, who said Troy sprang at him from a closet in the apartment at Vespasian and Murl streets. Troy and his brothers Adrien and Corey Harvey were all booked into jail for criminal trespassing and attempting to disarm a police officer. The brothers were later released.

On June 3, 2001, Kevin Smith, a 4th District police officer fatally shot 18-year-old Erik Daniels who was being served an arrest warrant for aggravated battery. The New Orleans Police Department reported he was shot in the chest around 3 p.m. in the 2300 block of Murl Street and died shortly after the shooting at Charity Hospital. Police spokesman Lt. Marlon Defillo said Smith believed the suspect was retrieving a weapon from under his shirt. Relatives of Daniels disputed police accounts of the shooting, claiming authorities beat the victim and threw his body off the balcony. No charges were filed against Officer Smith.

In 2002, a gang known as D-Block, or the D-Block Boys formed in the Algiers neighborhood who lived in the DeGaulle Manor Public Housing Complex and Fischer Projects. The gang, which is mainly composed of young adults ages ranging from 16-25, operated out of DeGaulle Manor. The name derived from the apartments which were nicknamed “D-Block.” Single mothers with kids made up 70% of the apartments, and one resident said “Our kids see shootouts, drug deals, and prostitution on a daily basis.” NOPD’s Fourth District police have been tracking the gang since the mid-2000s as they distributed heroin and cocaine out of abandoned units in the DeGaulle Manor apartments, the base of their operation. Investigators stated the D-Block gang had access to high-powered assault rifles, which they used in deadly conflicts with rival drug organizations. NOPD linked the gang to nine homicides in the Algiers area and five in Jefferson Parish from 2004 to 2006.

On December 10, 2004, NOPD Fourth District’s police commander, Capt. Louis Dabdoub, was injured in a shooting near the complex after he stopped a suspected truant. Dabdoub was shot in the leg by a teenager who opened fire on him, police said. Dabdoub fired several shots back, then the suspect collapsed, got up, and then fled the complex. After the shooting, DeGaulle Manor was placed on lockdown while police searched apartments for the suspect. The teen was caught and later charged in 2005.

On May 8, 2005, authorities discovered the decomposed bodies of two men stuffed in the trunk of a car parked in the 2900 block of Vespasian Street next to the apartments. NOPD officers arrived and found two men dead, both with gunshot wounds to the head.

After Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans, 135 of the remaining 364 apartment units were vandalized. Johnson Properties Group purchased the complex and renovated 160 units. In 2007, Common Ground Collective bought the property from Johnson Properties Group, renaming it the Crescent City Gates Apartments. Only a portion of the complex was opened at the time and was in poor condition with termites and rodents infesting the apartments. One hundred families still lived in the apartments until they were evicted on Thanksgiving Day in 2012. The complex was condemned with plans for demolition and a new sporting complex.

In 2014, Bill Thomason, a board member of the foundation that owns the dilapidated complex discovered Brandon “BMike” Odum’s graffiti artwork on the property. Rather than call the police, Thomason agreed to allow Odum and other artists to temporarily transform a portion of the abandoned complex into a street art exhibit and invite the public. Over the course of three months, over 30,000 people from all over the world experienced the public art installation. The heart of Exhibit Be is the peaked recreation building that is now little more than an orange, two-story shell. It is faced by two L-shaped, five-story apartment buildings striped with concrete walkways. A cast of other remarkable street artists has pitched in with Odums to transform the enormous architectural canvas into a surrealistic collaboration that runs the emotional gamut from enormous haunting portraits of a teenage New Orleans murder victim to bubbly purple dinosaurs.

Exhibit Be quickly became a local success, attracting visitors from all over the country and garnered national media coverage. Schools were even taking field trips to see the art exhibit. Mayor Landrieu visited the exhibit bestowing the artists involved with official certifications of appreciation for their community service. Odums described the street art exhibit as a social experiment of the dueling nature of graffiti as art versus vandalism, and also a healing memorial to the tenants evicted from the complex following Hurricane Katrina.

In September 2023, the abandoned Algiers apartment complex home to the Exhibit Be public art installation caught fire. According to the New Orleans Fire Department, 68 firefighters were sent to battle the flames. The call first came in at 1 AM. A vacant building at the Vespasian Boulevard and Murl Street site sent heavy black smoke into the air. A second alarm was sounded at 1:24 A.M. and a third at 1:38 A.M. The blaze was brought under control at 3:13 A.M., NOFD said. Much of the property uninvolved with the fire is overgrown by weeds and vines, though it appeared Sunday morning that the central installation there was largely spared by the blaze. No injuries were reported in the fire, and the cause of the fire remains under investigation.

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