constantly wafting out, but since there was no specific regulation against that, it was considered unimportant. However, the commissioner noted that “in the event of rain [Girod Street Cemetery] is always flooded to such an extent that it will affect the sanitary precautions necessary to prevent the contracting or spreading of any diseases,”. The commissioner deemed that the Girod Street Cemetery was unsanitary and recommended that it be shut down, but it appears that his recommendation was simply ignored. By the early 1940s, the Girod Street Cemetery had run into further problems. It was run by the Christ Church Cathedral, and since the mid 1930s people had begun to use newer, better kept cemeteries in the local area. Since the cemetery catered specifically to deceased Protestants, who were in a minority locally, it fell into disuse and disrepair. During this time the cemetery was subject to vandalism; tombs were found broken into and completely destroyed, a large fire was found burning atop one tomb, and a citizen reported that it looked more like a poultry farm, with many chickens randomly wandering the premises. In 1945 the Christ Church Cathedral tried again to help fix up the cemetery by placing notices on all of the tombs for the owners, saying that if they did not repair their property (the decrepit tombs) within 60 days, it would be demolished by the Church. With the cemetery by now a civic eyesore, in June 1948 under the orders of Mayor Morrison, the cemetery was dismantled. He had people start hauling away bricks, disregarding the protests of the Christ Church Cathedral, and alerted citizens that they should retrieve the remains of loved ones. In October 1958 the remaining 96,000 square feet of the cemetery land were sold to the government for almost $300,000. The cemetery land was deconsecrated on January 4, 1957. According to local historian Leonard Huber, between January and March 1957 the human remains were moved elsewhere on a racially segregated basis: the whites to Hope Mausoleum of New Orleans and the African Americans to Providence Memorial Park. Caesars Superdome, Smoothie King Center, Benson Tower, Entergy Tower, and Energy Centre were eventually constructed near to, but not on, the cemetery site. A local superstition alleges that the notoriously poor record of the New Orleans Saints football team for many years was somehow supernaturally tied to the ground on which the dome was constructed.