Hurricane Ida Destroys New Orleans Landmark Where Louis Armstrong Worked

• Hurricane Ida destroyed a New Orleans landmark where Louis Armstrong once worked.
• The Karnofsky Shop and Residence was home to the Karnofsky family, who helped care for Armstrong as a child.
• The family loaned Armstrong enough money to buy his first brass instrument: a cornet.

Hurricane Ida destroyed a New Orleans landmark, the Karnofsky Shop and Residence, where Louis Armstrong first fostered his love of music.

Armstrong began working for the Karnofsky family when he was 7 years old. He wrote in his memoir, “Louis Armstrong + the Jewish Family in New Orleans, La., the Year of 1907,” that the family helped foster his passion for singing and music.

While working for the family, Armstrong wrote that he would play on a tin horn to attract attention for their junk and coal wagons, leading him to want to try playing another horn instrument. The Karnofsky family loaned him enough money to buy a cornet, a brass, trumpet-like instrument, from a nearby pawnshop to nurture his love of performing.

Morris Karnofsky, Armstrong’s friend and a member of the Karnofsky family, opened “Morris Music” at the location of the Karnofsky Shop, a spot that Armstrong returned to several times after moving away in 1921.

Graduate student Laila Vanessa Stuvik posted before-and-after images on Twitter showing the Karnofsky Building’s roof holding an excess of water before the entire building collapsed.

—Laila Vanessa Stuvik (@StuvikLaila) August 29, 2021

Journalist Joel Franco also documented the building’s collapse:

—Joel Franco (@OfficialJoelF) August 30, 2021

 

The US government listed the Karnofsky Shop and Residence on the National Register of Historic Places, a collection of locations “worthy of preservation.” Despite several attempts to restore and preserve it, restorations never occurred.