Parts of Mid City feel like old graveyards, abandoned and unkempt. But vast swaths of Mid City really are old graveyards. All told, the dead occupy 20% of the land between 14th and 23rd streets and between Spanish Town Road and Louisiana Street. The cemeteries all date to the 1800s, when Mid City was still half a mile out in the countryside.

They are a varied crew. Among them are the oldest surviving Catholic, black and Jewish burial grounds in the city. Also there is the official city cemetery from the 19th century, Magnolia, which is populated by Bird-Perkins, Dufrocqs, Nicholsons and other old-line families. It was also the site of the brief Battle of Baton Rouge in 1862. Next to it is a military graveyard with Blues as well as Grays, and veterans of wars from the Revolution through Korea.

For the most part, the cemeteries have been just unusable land in a depressed neighborhood, but things are changing. In 2001, the Mid City Redevelopment Alliance got together with the five cemeteries to set up the Mid City Historical Cemeteries Coalition. The group is now working on creating a visitors center and aims to make Mid City's graveyards a destination for the living.

Mid City redevelopment

"Sometimes we don't recognize the value of our own resources," says Jeremy Hendricks, president of the coalition's board. Having five unusual cemeteries in such close quarters, he says, makes Mid City unique.

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"New Orleans takes such great advantages of its historical cemeteries," he says. "They are able to use visitors and tourism to support their education and preservation initiatives."

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If anyone scoffs that our burial grounds offer little of the picturesque quality of those in New Orleans, a walk through Sweet Olive would disabuse them of such notions. The oldest black cemetery in the city, Sweet Olive is a labyrinthine, gothic place.

"It's loaded with people," says Edna Jordan Smith, who sits on its board and the coalition's. "People are buried on top of other people, many with no headstones, in makeshift graves. There's no structure to it at all. People would just go in there and bury people wherever."

In the decades before the 1970s, Sweet Olive was abandoned. Discarded furniture mingled with overgrown plants and fallen trees. Tombs were broken open, and human remains could occasionally be glimpsed. Today, thanks to Smith and other Mid City residents, the place has been cleaned up.

That matters, and not only for the dignity of the dead. "Once you start to maintain the cemeteries, you create an environment that's more conducive to development nearby," Hendricks says. "It starts not to feel so threatening. The more people you have visiting the cemeteries, the safer you can feel near them."

The coalition wants to get beyond basic maintenance, however. "We hope to help spur economic development," Hendricks says, adding that it worked in New Orleans. "More visitors means more base for retail and restaurants."

And though Hendricks describes that as a long-term goal, it may not be so far off. The retail antiques/warehouse district centered on 14th Street is growing, making that part of Mid City a small-scale weekend destination. And the area is already rife with well-hidden artisan workshops.

A focal point

The visitors center would be a major achievement in the Mid City cemetery campaign. The coalition has worked out an agreement in principle with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to lease the caretaker's house at the Baton Rouge National Cemetery, on 19th Street.

The ultimate plan is to work with the state Division of Historic Preservation to create a museum and interpretive center that would house exhibits and resources for genealogical research, as well as hosting lectures and walking tours.

Inking the deal still requires some fund raising. Hendricks says his group will need about $20,000 to lease, operate and spruce up the building. He hopes to have a lease by the end of the year and be able to begin moving in by mid-2005.

The visitors center would consolidate records of the cemeteries. That's an especially poignant goal for Sweet Olive, where many graves are nameless.

Smith hopes to encourage community members to share what they know about who is interred where at Sweet Olive so the information can be pooled. She also hopes that eventually the cemeteries' resources can be linked with the parish libraries' genealogical collection at the Bluebonnet Branch, where she works.

"Once you become a place that people know to come to do genealogical research, you become a destination," adds Hendricks.

HAL COHEN covers real estate and legal issues. Reach him at hcohen@businessreport.com.

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