Ellis Marsalis Center for Music
Musicians' Village (New Orleans, Louisiana) is a neighborhood located in the Upper Ninth Ward in New Orleans, Louisiana. Musicians Harry Connick, Jr. and Branford Marsalis teamed up with Habitat for Humanity International and New Orleans Area Habitat for Humanity to create the village for New Orleans musicians who lost their homes to Hurricane Katrina.
Per February 2007, the Musicians' Village is "the largest-scale, highest-profile, and biggest-budget rebuilding project to have gotten underway in New Orleans post-Katrina."
Habitat for Humanity and New Orleans Area Habitat for Humanity, working with Harry Connick Jr. and Branford Marsalis, announced their plans in December 2005 for a “Musicians’ Village” in New Orleans.
On Friday, January 6, 2006, the governing board for New Orleans public schools approved the sale of 8 acres (32,000 m2) of surplus property in the Upper 9th Ward to the New Orleans Area Habitat for Humanity. New Orleans Area Habitat for Humanity was the only bidder for the advertised property. The board unanimously approved the $676,500 sale.
The core property was a residential area for decades and the former site of Kohn Junior High School, which was razed. The land covers two city blocks bounded by North Roman, Alvar and North Johnson streets. It also includes parts of three other blocks along what once was Bartholomew Street—the stretch between North Johnson and North Derbigny streets. Another Habitat project, in the same area, is the Baptist Crossroads Project. The idea of bringing music back to New Orleans was popular, and by September 2006 the entire area, including the Baptist Crossroads project, was known and referred to as Musicians Village. The Baptist Crossroads Project was thought up in 2004, by David Crosby, pastor of First Baptist Church of New Orleans, and initially planned to build 40 houses, a $3 million project, funded in part by a $1.5 million matching grant from Baptist Community Ministries. After Hurricane Katrina hit, they partnered up with Habitat for Humanity New Orleans, and the building began on June 6, 2006. Thirty homes were completed between June and August 2006, and Baptist Crossroads hoped to build 100 houses in the same area over the subsequent two years, according to project coordinator Inman Houston.
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