This photograph, probably taken sometime during the early 1950s, shows the Milne Boys' Home at 5420 Franklin Avenue. Dedicated on December 12, 1933, the facility replaced the old Municipal Boys' Home (originally known as the Girod Asylum and perhaps best remembered as the "Colored Waifs' Home," where the young Louis Armstrong learned to play the cornet) on what is now Rosedale Drive near Canal Boulevard. The new Home was actually a complex of five structures--an administration building/dormitory (shown here), two school buildings, and two cottages.

The Milne complex, which had ceased to operate as a home for boys by the mid-1980s, was severely damaged by Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent flooding. Renovations are currently in the design stage with an estimated construction cost in the neighborhood of $12.5 million.