This week, bulldozers are chipping away at three historic public housing projects in New Orleans, and workmen are doing preparatory demolition work at a fourth.

The B.W. Cooper, St. Bernard, and C.J. Peet housing complexes, and part of the Lafitte complex, built in 1941, all of which contain 4,500 units, will become landfill fodder.

In a Mar. 10 op-ed column in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, the National Trust for Historic Preservation urged the city to suspend the demolitions.