Algiers: A Tale of One Neighborhood With Two Sides Southeast Louisiana Press Matt Lehman December 31, 1995 In a neighborhood just a ten minute commute from the historic French Quarter lies Algiers, the second oldest neighborhood in New Orleans. With a population of about 47,000 plus residents, this historic district only makes up a small percentage of the city’s violent crime rate, making it one of the safest districts in New Orleans. While it’s one of the safest for crime overall, the crime statistics for one category however paints a different story. For years Algiers has had one of the lowest violent crime rates out of all seven police districts. Algiers which is known as the city’s Fourth District, crimes such as rapes, robberies and assaults rank the among lowest. Reason being is the neighborhood’s size and income. Most of Algiers has a host of large middle-class subdivisions like Old Aurora, New Aurora and Tall Timbers. These sections have some of the highest incomes with zero crime. In the older section known as Algiers Point, has a population of about 21,00 and has been widely known to be the city's safest neighborhood. Algiers Point, Aurora and Tall Timbers combined make up 60% of Algiers population alone. Which is why the Fourth District violent crime is not as high. The only category of violent crimes that has been consistently high in the district is murders, specifically homicides committed by guns. Since 1985, homicides in the Fourth District have tallied at 15-25 homicides a year. Starting in 1984, Fourth District recorded 15 murders then up to 17 in 1985. The following years Algiers violent crimes doubled of what it was during the first half of the decade. In 1990 and 1991, murders spiked into the 30s but decreased tremendously between 1992-1993. Last year, the city hit a grim milestone for murders with NOPD recording 424 homicides, earning the title as the “nation’s murder capital.” The Fourth District recorded one of the lowest numbers of killings in 1994. But stats showed this year, homicides in the
district have already surpassed the homicide count for all of 1994 by October according to The Times Picayune. Some may question how one of the city’s safest districts have so many murders? NOPD Fourth District Lt. Shackelford said the killings mainly occur in the impoverished communities that make up the remaining 30% of Algiers. The other side where crime, drugs and poverty run rampantly. These areas are McDonougville, Whitney, McClendonville, Behrman Heights and lower Algiers aka the “Cutoff.” All five communities are a mix of working-class and low-income residents. Unlike the suburb of Aurora, in these neighborhoods, gunshots can be here’d frequently throughout the day with young men in front the liquor stores or in the projects courtyards soliciting drugs. If you ask a resident living in the Aurora section about Murl Street or the William J. Fischer Housing Projects, they would say “those places are not in Algiers.” Majority of the crimes in the district happen in these poverty stricken pockets. This year so far there have been 29 homicides in the Fourth District. In the Behrman Heights community (which is centered around Martin Behrman Stadium), sits a dozen of run-down 1960’s apartment duplexes, townhomes and public housing units. Some of the buildings stretch a block long, one right beside the other, to accommodate the horde of young adult families who were in need of affordable housing. In the beginning years, Behrman Heights thrived with very little crime until the Housing Authority of New Orleans built the Christopher Park Homes, a 150-unit scatter-site for low-income residents. With the opening of the Christopher Park Homes in 1971, the whites that once resided in the area, then fled to more affluent suburbs resulting in white flight. By the late-1970’s, only a few whites still lived in Behrman Heights which by then had become predominantly black. Problems worsened furthermore during the 1980’s. What was once a peaceful neighborhood, turned into a drug-infested ghetto in a matter of five years. It was no longer a desirable place to live. As of present day, Behrman Heights is filled with decaying paint-chipped buildings along with abandoned homes and grassy lots. Down Murl Street, police regularly patrol the Christopher Park Homes and the Live Oaks apartments (formerly known as Degaulle Manor). On the side streets known as Elizardi, Pace and Jo Ann, drug sales are made out in the open with groups of people in the driveways loitering. In the notorious William J. Fischer Development, officers stakeout in vans, montering the drug dealers on the ramps. A block away in the McDonoughville section, children play out front of their homes as older men sit on their porch steps right beside an abandoned shotgun house where drugs are being sold out of. But Just a 3 minute drive around the corner and you are in a different world. A different side of Algiers where gunshots are rarely heard.
Southeast louisiana Press © 1995