Five historic N.O. sites to receive grants today Posted by mcarr May 13, 2008 07:33AM The National Trust for Historic Preservation and American Express will award $400,000 in grants today to five historic New Orleans sites. All five sites are run by nonprofits. They must complete repairs within a year. The initiative, called Partners in Preservation, was announced last month with a focus on historic New Orleans sites that are "community-gathering spaces." The awards committee considered each building's importance to its neighborhood, through stories told on the Web. One of the online entries came from Rogerwene Washington, a lifelong member of St. James African Methodist Episcopal Church and a sister of its pastor, the Rev. Otto W. Duncan Jr. As a child, Washington recalled, she'd sat in a pew counting the 60 bulbs that light the iconic "God is Love" sign hanging over the church's pulpit. In another Web entry, Arianne Rumley-Moore called St. James a "very important place in my heart." When she was young, the church -- where she was baptized and married -- had paid for her piano lessons and bought her college textbooks. "If I had attended another church, my life would not have been the same," she wrote. The biggest preservation award went to that beloved church, a Gothic structure on North Roman Street a few blocks from Canal Street. The church, built in 1844 by free people of color, received $100,000 to repair the pressed-tin ceiling and plaster walls of the sanctuary, which has been unusable since Hurricane Katrina, mostly because of a gaping hole in its roof, left by a steeple that toppled during the storm. The congregation returned in December 2005 and has held services in its fellowship hall since then, even though it had no electricity for nearly a year, Duncan said. Two other grants also went to churches. The St. Alphonsus Art & Cultural Center, a Renaissance Revival building in the Lower Garden District, secured $80,000 to restore its front portico, built in 1891. The St. Augustine Parish Hall, built in 1869 in Treme, will receive $75,000 to repair its storm-damaged roof and a rotted and termite-damaged second-floor balcony. On the project's Web site, a longtime parishioner remembered neighbors dancing, playing bingo and hearing music within St. Augustine's building, which he called "a touchstone of Treme." The Odyssey House Louisiana, a social service and health care agency in the Esplanade Ridge neighborhood, also got $75,000 to repair its windows and shutters. The agency's pair of connected brick buildings have been serving the city since 1866, when Thomy Lafon, an early African-American philanthropist, financed an orphanage there for children who'd lost parents during the Civil War. The last grant went to Save Our Cemeteries, which received $70,000 for Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, a burial spot in the Garden District established in 1833. The nonprofit plans to stabilize the cemetery's whitewashed vaults and walls and install a drainage system. Several people had advocated online for the cemetery, listing the prominent citizens laid to rest there and movies filmed within it. Louise, a New Orleans resident, asked that the project finance repairs to Lafayette No. 1 for more personal reasons. "A visit to the family tomb there makes me feel close to my dear grandparents and great-grandmother," she wrote. . . . . . . . Katy Reckdahl can be reached at kreckdahl@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3396.