544 Camp Street/531 Lafayette Street (Floor Plans)

[Gerry Down]

The Newman building was demolished in the early 1970's and now all we have left is grainy black and white images of its exterior. I have never seen any floor plans of this building to help understand how the various offices were positioned.

Has anyone who has dealt with the case in New Orleans (Fred Litwin for example) ever interviewed people who had access to this building in the 1960's and could remember the floor plan layout of the building? Mr. Litwin has had access to Harry Connick Senior (see this link: https://www.onthetrailofdelusion.com/pictures ). I'm not certain Mr. Connick had access to the building or if he could remember the floor plan layout of this building but it would be very useful to try and track down someone who had access to the building before it was demolished. Perhaps some of Jim Garrisons investigators.

Has anyone ever tried this?

[Gerry Down]

The above image of the Newman building has always confused me. It appears to be a mirror image? Should it actually look like the below image with the Camp street on the long side and the Lafayette street on the short side:



But the below image shows writing on the building "JAX" and "For Sale" the correct way around. So it appears the image we are all familiar with of this building has not been reversed.



The corner door (angled door) on the ground floor is the entrance door to Mancuso's restaurant. Presumably the shutter door is for deliveries to that restaurant. Then the next door (on the Lafayette street side) is the entrance to Guy Banisters office. According to the HSCA, Banisters office was on the ground floor. So judging by the above, when you went in Banisters door off the street you would have to walk down a long hallway (passing the delivery area for Mancusos on your left-hand side) before arriving in to Banisters office. From this it would appear Banisters office had no direct windows to the outside? Is that correct? As Banister was involved in shady business, having no windows might be a good thing.

[Gerry Down]

Can anyone make sense of the positioning of the Newman building?

If the long side of the Newman building was on Camp Street and the short side (where the door to Banisters officer was) was on Lafayette street, then it does not seem to fit on the site.

So not only can I not figure out the layout of the internal rooms of the Newman building but I can't even position the building itself correctly on the site.

Any help?

[Gerry Down]

The large classical style courts building was apparently built in 1915 according to the wikipedia page:

LINK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Minor_Wisdom_United_States_Court_of_Appeals_Building

So it appears the Newman building could not have been located on that site. With reference to that large court building, the wikipedia page says:

In 1961, needing additional space, the post office moved to a new facility. Two years later, the courts also vacated. The building was unoccupied until 1965, when it served as a public high school for three years after Hurricane Betsy destroyed McDonough 35 High School.

Is this the post office Oswald had his PO address? The 30016 PO address? So the post office would have been located right across the street from the Newman building?

[Gerry Down]

Seriously? No one knows how to orientate the Newman building on its site?

[Gerry Down]

I found this rare photo of the Newman building:





Can anyone use this to help orientate the Newman building on the site? I'm still having difficulty doing this.

[Gerry Down]

I think I solved it. It would appear the long side of the building was along Lafayette street with the narrow side alongside Camp street. This would mean alot of JFK books are incorrect. So the door to Oswalds alleged office at 544 Camp street would have been the door to the left of the shutter door (some books say this was the door in to Guy Banisters office) and would face out to Camp Street. In the below drawing, i've drawn in the shutter door. It looks like the site of the Newman building is empty space. I've drawn the shutter door in red below with horizontal lines: