A 143-year-old former church at 2517 Jackson Ave. in Central City will become a single-family home with a pool and gardens, according to Uptown Messenger. The Neighborhood Conservation District Advisory Committee last week approved the demolition of a home next door, which will make way for the project.
In the 1950s, this was the site of the Wesley United Methodist Church, the eighth-oldest African American church in the nation and the second-oldest in New Orleans. According to the Louisiana Landmarks Society, who had the church on its "New Orleans Nine" list in 2014, it was a hub for the Civil Rights movement—Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke in the upstairs chapel. At the time, there were talks of it being demolished to make way for a parking lot.
The building’s owner is a company based in Aspen, Colorado, which also owns some properties adjacent to the church. The home next to the church that is being demolished will make way for the pool and gardens, and another lot fronting South Robertson Street would become a driveway.