New Orleans Insurance

Here in southern Louisiana, where floods, hurricanes, termites, the Byzantine political and subtropical red come with the territory, a late 18 century rise from its ashes.

The Cabildo, a survivor of the colonial French and Spanish days was once the town hall is now a museum of State, which lies at the heart of the French Quarter beside the cathedral of Saint-Louis, with which Jackson Square and the Mississippi River into one of the most dignity most landscapes.

Inside, workers, the 193-year-old building, rehabilitation of the wreckage by fire on May 11, 1988. A spark a sheet metal flashlight worker believes that lit the fire that destroyed the third floor. Water and black smoke and saugte the rest.

The fire was only the recent disaster, the Cabildo. The Formosan termites munched at the establishment in 1980’s. Émeutiers attacked in the early 1870. And a fire, the fourth level 1788 fifths of the city destroyed a previous Cabildo.

“He is one of the most important historic buildings in the country, compared with Independence Hall in Philadelphia,” said Samuel Wilson, the main city preservationist architect. The building is dignity vaults, shady arcades and beautiful wrought-iron balustrades magic visions of the Spanish colonial period sleepy capital - if the viewer can block incongrous Frenchified attic.

The museum, which has a large-scale (some would say enough points), the collection includes objects of art and history, was closed in late 1984 to 1986, for lack of money. And even after having recovered their future was uncertain. Louisiana’s oil economy was in recession of the decade, too much money and the State was rare.

“The fire as tragic as it was a chance in misfortune,” said James F. Sefcik, a historian, is director of the State Museum. “Now we have the money.”

The Cabildo (Spanish for town hall) is restored to $ 6.5 million insurance policies and money rest of the Independent State of investment projects. At the same time, four buildings near the museum are refractory.

Another million dollars, increased private funding for permanent exhibitions. Without fire, “we would never have raised a million dollars for an exhibition,” said Robert Cangelosi, former president of the Friends of the Cabildo, the architect overseeing the restoration.

The Cabildo’s finest years 1803, that France sells the Louisiana territory to the USA for $ 15 million. Within the Cabildo on December 20, 1803, the signatories used a pen to pen silver scratch their names on the papers has doubled the size of the nation.

Over time, the Cabildo was filled with a museum of objects too superfluous history of Louisiana, french as a shell from World War I. One of the most popular pieces was a death mask of Napoleon.

The mask, one of four, after the death of Napoleon in 1821, was the Cabildo, if the building burned. As Mr. Sefcik under the stairs during the fire, in research on the flames, he suddenly remembered the mask and was exalted, to find injured.

If the museum during the next year is re-opened to interpret the LA regularly exposed’s lurid history, including parts distasteful.

Changing times complex replacing the third floor and the roof. The originals were virgin cypress, but they were no longer in the marshes of the country. Rather, is 42 feet long, 12 inches thick cypress beams supporting the roof had to be cut and milling prefabricated in Florida and New Hampshire.

During the restoration aims to be exhaustive, at the beginning of next year, “said Cangelosi control voracious Formosan termite is “underway”. The termite, as the Cabildo itself, is a survivor. “Even after the fire,” he said, “We have seen, eat termites away in the ash.