Standing in front of the former Mercy Hospital in New Orleans’ Mid-City neighborhood, Mayor Helena Moreno sounded an air horn.
Construction crews began spraying the side of the graffiti-covered exterior with water. Then, a pair of excavators began swinging at the soaked brick wall. One of them grabbed onto an empty window frame and pulled it down.
After more than 20 years of sitting vacant, demolition of the hospital began Tuesday (Aug. 11). Demolition will take months, as crews must also remove asbestos. After that, work will begin on a four-million-gallon subsurface water retention tank in what used to be the hospital’s basement, to help mitigate flooding in surrounding areas.
“ Oftentimes when it rains hard in the Mid-City area, it floods,” City Council Vice President Matthew Willard said at a press conference preceding the demolition. “And that is a nuisance for the residents, it's a nuisance for business owners, it's a nuisance for people just visiting Mid-City and who have their cars parked on the street.”
Officials also confirmed a second phase that will include aboveground construction, but could not provide details on specific plans or timelines.
Flanked by graffiti-covered walls, caution tape and construction vehicles, City Council President J.P. Morrell called the demolition “bittersweet.”
“There are many people who were born in this hospital,” he said. “There are many people who were here when it was dedicated to former Congresswoman Lindy Boggs. This was a symbolic anchor pillar of a community that has laid fallow for 20 years.
“Though we are happy to see it go because it has become a stone around the neck of this community, it has truly been something… watching what was once a pillar of the community fall into disrepair. Today is about a rebirth for this community.”
Mercy Hospital opened in the 1920s and moved to its current location in 1959. Until the day it closed, it was the only hospital serving Mid-City. Now, no emergency centers serve the neighborhood.
In 2004, the hospital was renamed Lindy Boggs Medical Center after the first woman in Louisiana to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.
The hospital closed following significant damage from Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
The graffiti-covered hospital has been abandoned since then and stood as a symbol of blight in New Orleans — one of the city’s “dirty dozen” blighted properties.
Last year, city officials reached a public-private partnership with private developer Woodward Design + Build — one of several that had cycled through ownership of the property — and began moving forward with plans to revamp the site.
The city agreed to contribute $11.5 million in city bonds — which voters approved in 2025 and the council approved in April — towards demolition and part of the rebuilding process.
