Upper Pontalba apartments in New Orleans French Quarter evict long-

New Orleans CityBusiness, Dec 22, 2003 by Deon Roberts

Gerald Speegle has lived in the Upper Pontalba apartments in the French Quarter for 18 years. He and three other families are being evicted from their homes during the holidays and they want to know why.

Meanwhile, the Lower Pontalba, which is run by the Louisiana State Museum, has renewed every lease for the past 16 years, said James Sefcik, museum director.

Speegle shares a second floor unit - for now - with Clifford Henrotin. From their balcony, on the corner of Chartres and St. Peter streets, you can almost touch the Cabildo. St. Louis Cathedral sits just outside the windows; its bells echo throughout the apartment. Jackson Square is the first thing you see when you walk out the downstairs door.

It's an ideal location in the French Quarter. Speegle said living in the heart of the Quarter is almost like being in another country.

It's as European as you're going to get, just about, in New Orleans, he said.

The idyllic living arrangement is coming to an end for Speegle, Henrotin and three other families in the city-operated 150-year-old Upper Pontalba.

The Upper Pontalba Building Restoration Corp. has failed to renew the four leases and refuses to offer reasons why. Speegle and Henrotin have been given until midnight Dec. 31 to vacate.

No explanations have to be given. The Restoration Corp. is acting within its legal rights, said Pat Henry, deputy director of the French Market Corp., the managing agent for the Upper Pontalba.

We do have a good reason, Henry said. The lease states that we do not have to renew the lease after that term expires.

City officials offered the same non-answer.

The French Market Corp. is not legally obligated to give a tenant a reason why an expired lease has not been renewed, said Chris Bonura, a spokesman in the mayor's press office.

Speegle, Henrotin and others still want to know why their leases are not being renewed. The 59-year-old Speegle said he searched his mind last week trying to make sense of it but drew a blank. Henry would not give him a reason, he said.

Speegle doubts he's broken any house rules that would cause his lease to be nullified for the $1,800-a-month apartment. In the 16 years he's lived in his current apartment, there was at least one incident a couple years ago when some guests were misbehaving. Other than that, he said he's done no wrong.

It seems very arbitrary, he said.

The Upper Pontalba made the renewal decisions at an Oct. 29 meeting. Copies of the meeting's minutes could not be provided because they hadn't yet been transcribed from tape, Henry said.

Councilwoman Jacquelyn Brechtel Clarkson, who represents the area, said the issue has to do with following the lease and following the law. There are lease provisions not being complied with.

But for some, the incident calls to mind age-old, popular rumors about the Pontalba apartments being handed over to New Orleans politicians and their friends.

It's definitely a political thing. I was there for 17 1/2 years when they did exactly the same thing to me, said Alexandra Monett-de Callatay, who lived in the Upper Pontalba until her lease was not renewed in 1997.

I'd always paid my rent. I tried to find out why they didn't renew and they said they didn't have to tell.

I was hysterical, she said. I had just sold my house in the Garden District that I had inherited ... because I thought living in the Pontalba would be permanent. That's how I planned to be carried out, was in a coffin.

Monett-de Callatay said she was in her 50s at the time.

How can you throw out a senior? she asked.

Her second-floor apartment on the corner of Decatur and St. Peters streets was given to someone in the Democratic Party, she said.

Hoping to keep her apartment, Monett-de Callatay sought advice from New Orleans attorney Jane Booth.

Basically, what they did was they accused her of subletting illegally, Booth said.

I had a lot of guests but that didn't happen, said Monett-de Callatay, an international art dealer.

Before Booth could sue the city, Monett-de Callatay failed to pay rent and that ended her case, Booth said.

Booth, who also used to live in the Pontalba, said the apartments have always been considered political plums. During the Morial administration, they used whatever excuse they could to fill the units with corporate tenants, she said. She said she doesn't know how much it happens under the Nagin administration.

(The Upper Pontalba is) owned by the people of the city, not by Mr. Nagin and his people, Booth said. I don't know what their plan is. Everybody has a right to know.

Henry admits there may have been some favoritism in the way apartments granted in the past. But since she's been there starting in the early 1990s, that has not been the case, Henry said.

Sefcik said the Lower Pontalba has had no issues with renewing leases.

If you pay your rent on time, we will renew your lease. We've had very, very, very few problems, he said.

Some have also raised concerns about the Upper Pontalba allowing corporate uses of its units. Nine of the 50 units are now rented for corporate use, which means they can be used for business purposes such as entertainment, Henry said.