St. Thomas Development was a notorious housing project in New Orleans, Louisiana. The project lay south of the Central City in the lower Garden District area. As defined by the City Planning Commission, its boundaries were Constance, St. Mary, Magazine Street and Felicity Streets to the north; the Mississippi River to the south; and 1st, St. Thomas, and Chippewa Streets, plus Jackson Avenue to the west. In the 1980s and 1990s, St. Thomas was one of the city’s most dangerous and impoverished housing developments. It made national headlines in 1992 after the deadly shooting of Eric Boyd. In 1982 Helen Prejean moved into the St. Thomas development in order to live and work with the poor. While there, Sister Helen began corresponding with Patrick Sonnier, who had been sentenced to death for the murder of two teenagers. After witnessing the executions, she sat down and wrote a book, Dead Man Walking. The book inspired the 1995 film Dead Man Walking. In 1998 the project was demolished and replaced with mixed income "River Garden." History Initially the original site of the Irish Channel, bordered by Tchoupitoulas and St. Charles, between Felicity and Phillip streets, St. Thomas Development was one of the oldest housing projects of New Orleans. It was bordered by St. Thomas Street to the south, a service alley between Constance and Laurel Streets to the north, Felicity Street to the east, and Josephine Street to the west. St. Thomas housing development was originally designated for white occupants only. After the Civil Rights Act of 1964, all of the city’s public housing projects were desegregated. At that time, the residents were a group of racially diverse, low-income, working-class families. In the mid/late 60s, many of these families were forced out when the federal government decided that their income was too high. At the same time, there was a decrease in social services in the housing developments – a decrease many attribute to the money going into the Vietnam war. The exodus of industry from the inner city plunged the St. Thomas residents into great poverty, and subsequent White flight meant that, in recent years, residents have been primarily African American. Living conditions and crime became a problem during the mid-1970s when Heroin flooded the project. Problems in St. Thomas continued throughout the '80s and '90s. In 1996, the Housing Authority of New Orleans received a H.U.D. Hope VI grant to