YOUR HONOR (copy)

Bryan Cranston addresses jurors as Judge Michael Desiato in the Showtime series 'Your Honor.' 

 Provided photo by Skip Bolen / Showtime

Hey Blake,

I’ve been watching the Bryan Cranston series “Your Honor” on Netflix and notice lots of scenes inside the Criminal Court building at Tulane and Broad. That got me thinking about the history of the building. What can you tell us about it?

Dear reader,

The Orleans Parish Criminal District Court building at 2700 Tulane Avenue dates to 1931. It replaced an earlier courthouse opened in 1893 on the present-day site of the main branch of the New Orleans Public Library on Loyola Avenue.

However, the courtroom you’re seeing in the show may actually be a replica of the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court building built at The Ranch, a film studio in St. Bernard Parish.

Construction on the new courthouse on Tulane began in February 1927 and was completed in January 1931 at a cost of about $1.8 million. The building housed the New Orleans Police Department headquarters in addition to Criminal Court. NOPD moved to a different building at 715 S. Broad St. in 1968.

The Art Deco-style courthouse was designed by architect Allison Owen of the well-known firm of Diboll & Owen Ltd. It features bronzed cast-iron panels that depict scenes from local history, along with stylized pelicans in relief, and other architectural features designed by noted artist Angela Gregory.

The tall flight of granite steps at the building’s entrance lead into a marble lobby and great marble hall, featuring huge chandeliers. According to an online history by the Society of Architectural Historians, Owen “likened the great barrel-vaulted hall to the early-seventeenth-century Salle des Pas Perdus of the Palais de Justice in Paris.”

At a May 2, 1931, dedication ceremony, a copper box was placed in the building’s cornerstone. It was taken from the old courthouse and moved to the new site. Inside was a certificate of plans for the old building, a history of the new one, copies of the day’s newspapers and a letter to the mayor.

In 1996, the Criminal District Court building was officially renamed the Israel M. Augustine Jr. Criminal Justice Center. Augustine was the court’s first Black judge and a longtime civil rights leader. He died in 1994.