Grand Palace Hotel, New Orleans

The Grand Palace Hotel was a 17-story building located in the Mid City area of New Orleans, Louisiana. The building became known worldwide for its implosion on 22 July 2012.^[1]

Designed by William Nowland Van Powell and Henry Ehrensing^[2] as the Claiborne Towers apartment building, construction started in April 1950 at a cost of $10 million.^[3] The building was the largest apartment complex in the city upon opening in 1951,^[4] containing 1,036 air-conditioned apartments,^[3] and was built on land leased from Tulane University^[3] by the developer Paul Kapelow.^[4]

The lobby was particularly well finished, including terrazzo flooring, wooden panels of black walnut, and a bank of Otis elevators.^[3]

By 1952, the building featured a wide range of facilities and occupants, including a team of cleaners,^[3] a ground floor lounge,^[3] a beauty shop,^[3] a lingerie boutique,^[3] offices of Southern Bell Telephone and Telegraph Company, and a Walgreens store.^[5]

Perhaps the most famous story from this period of the building's history is when the Jewish-American mobster, Phillip "Dandy Phil" Kastel, was found dead in his apartment by a private nurse on 16 August 1962. He had reportedly taken his own life with a .38 caliber revolver.^[4][6]

Construction of the Interstate 10 overpass adjacent to the building in the 1960s proved detrimental to Claiborne Towers' fortunes as an apartment block^[2] and it was partially converted in the early 1960s into the Sheraton Delta Motor Hotel,^[5] then in 1972 converted to a senior citizens' residence called Delta Towers.^[4]

During the 1980s, the elderly residents were evicted in preparation for the building's full conversion into a hotel.^[4] The new hotel, the Ramada on Canal,^[7] first opened, although at the time incomplete, for the 1984 Sugar Bowl.^[5] The hotel was subsequently known as the Crescent on Canal^[5] and the Pallas Hotel,^[8] before taking on its final name, the Grand Palace Hotel.

The building, like many others, was damaged by Hurricane Katrina in August 2005 and never reopened.^[4] During preparation works for demolition,^[9] a fire broke out at the building on 5 July 2012, at the time causing speculation that plans for its demolition might have to be changed.^[10] The main demolition of the building (after months of preparatory work) was by implosion on 22 July 2012,^[1] a story which was covered by many worldwide news organizations due to its speed of just 10 seconds.^[11] The implosion, previously scheduled for 20 November 2011, then 18 December 2011, was undertaken to make way for the new University Medical Center, a replacement for Charity Hospital, which was also damaged by Hurricane Katrina.^[1]

• National Architect Vol. 6 No. 12 (December 1950)
• Barrow, Bill (2011). Failed hotel at Canal and Claiborne will leave decades of lost potential in the dust when it blows up. Times-Picayune, 13 June 2011

29°57′33″N 90°04′43″W / 29.9591°N 90.0785°W / 29.9591; -90.0785