NOMA Louisiana celebrates the legacy and mourns the loss, of one of our chapter’s founders and longest-standing supporters. Mr. Lonnie Hewitt, Jr. last week passed away at the age of 75 due to complications of COVID-19.
Born in New Orleans in 1946, Hewitt attended L.B. Landry High School in Algiers, graduating in 1964, and the Southern University School of Architecture in Baton Rouge, graduating in 1969. In 1978, he partnered with James Washington to form Hewitt-Washington and Associates, a partnership whose architectural and planning work can be found throughout the city of New Orleans and south Louisiana. The firm’s bold postmodern buildings house businesses and civic institutions like public schools, libraries, churches, and the Regional Transit Authority, while its contributions to planning projects like the 1984 World’s Fair, the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas, and the Moonwalk enhanced New Orleans’ civic realm. Mr. Hewitt was a mentor to dozens of minority architects, including many past and present members of NOMA Louisiana, and a passionate advocate for minority representation in his field.
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Dryades YMCA, Central City, 2010
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Martin Luther King, Jr. Elementary School and Library, Lower Ninth Ward, 1995
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St Charles Ave McDonald's, 1983
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Medard H. Nelson Elementary School, Gentilly, 1990
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Regional Transit Authority Maintenance and Operations Center, Desire Parkway, 1990
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World's Fair MART ('Mississippi Aerial River Transit'), 1984
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Booker T. Washington High School, Central City, 2019
A more complete account of Mr. Hewitt’s life and legacies can be found in these obituaries published in the Times-Picayune Advocate and in New Orleans CityBusiness. Mr. Hewitt’s family asks that, in lieu of flowers, donations in his memory be made to NOMA Louisiana Project Pipeline.
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