TULANE ELIMINATES UTSA, ADVANCES TO AAC BASEBALL TITLE GAME 1C
N O L A.C O M
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S u n d ay, M ay 25, 2025
$2.50X
Cantrell leaving mixed bag for next N.O. mayor The crime rate is plummeting, but the population is dwindling
BY JAMES FINN, BEN MYERS, SOPHIE KASAKOVE and JONI HESS | Staff writers
Our daily bread
The next generation at Leidenheimer, famed baker of po-boy bread, is intent on maintaining cornerstone of New Orleans culture BY IAN McNULTY | Staff writer During a weekday lunch at Domilise’s Po-Boys, cooks working behind a well-worn counter were cutting 32-inch loaves of bread down to sandwich size, slathering the mayo and ladling gravy. All around the tightly packed dining room of this onetime bar-turned-restaurant deep Uptown, people were digging in, and a few tourists were snapping photos of their lunch. The po-boy, after all, is an enduring emblem of New Orleans food. Sharing a table over po-boys in the middle of the room were a father and son whose work is now deeply entwined with maintaining that status. Sandy Whann, 60, and his son William Whann, 28, represent the fourth and fifth generations at Leidenheimer Baking Co., maker of the lion’s
share of the distinctive local loaf known as New Orleans French bread, the essential first ingredient of any po-boy. They were visiting a longtime customer. Domilise’s, itself a third-generation family business, is one of Leidenheimer’s longest-running accounts. Increasingly these days it’s the son, William Whann, asking cooks and shop managers how they’re doing, and what they might need. “When I see them together, I see my future. That’s the future for Domilise’s,” said po-boy shop proprietor Joanne Domilise. “We put a lot into our roast beef, into our seafood. But the bread is the first thing people eat. If you don’t have that, you don’t have po-boys. We need them.”
New Orleans’ population is shrinking again after years of steady recovery from Hurricane Katrina. A lack of affordable housing is making life unbearable for some. At the same time, residents are taking home bigger incomes than eight years ago, when Mayor LaToya Cantrell was running for the city’s top office. And despite a surge in killings in 2022, crime later plummeted, and 2025 is on pace to finish as the city’s leastdeadly year on record. A swath of economic, housing, demographic and crime data reviewed by The Times-Picayune Cantrell paints a complex portrait of the city the next mayor will inherit when Cantrell leaves office in January. New Orleans has made strides in key areas over her eight-year term, a period when the city weathered several punishing hurricanes and a global pandemic. But its leaders have struggled mightily to enact meaningful progress on other entrenched challenges.
ä See MAYOR, page 8A
ä See BREAD, page 4A STAFF FILE PHOTO By SOPHIA GERMER
New Orleans made strides over Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s eight-year term, a period when the city weathered punishing hurricanes and a global pandemic. But its leaders have struggled to enact progress on other challenges.
Shift in coastal strategy proposed STAFF PHOTOS By DAVID GRUNFELD
Bread comes through the giant oven at Leidenheimer Baking Co. in New Orleans, the primary producer of loaves for the city’s famous po-boys. TOP: William Whann and his father, Sandy Whann, of Leidenheimer Baking Co. share a lunch at Domilise’s Po-Boy & Bar, where sandwiches are made on their family company’s bread.
Louisiana billionaires with ties to the sport as the most likely potential buyers should it be put up for sale. Top of the list is Saints and Pelicans owner BY ANTHONY McAULEY | Staff writer Gayle Benson. A horse With Churchill Downs Inc., the Ken- breeder who has had Benson tucky-based owner of the Fair Grounds runners in the Kentucky Derby and Race Course and Slots, threatening to Preakness Stakes, and owns a Kentucky leave the state if it doesn’t get a pub- breeding and rehabilitation facility, lic subsidy, leading figures in the local Benson sought to buy the historic New horse racing industry are eyeing two Orleans horse racing venue eight years
WEATHER HIGH 90 LOW 77 PAGE 8B
BY ALEX LUBBEN | Staff writer
ago with her late husband Tom, according to four sources with direct knowledge of the Bensons’ past interest who weren’t authorized to speak publicly about it. Also mentioned as Bernhard a potential buyer, according to interviews with a half-dozen horse industry players, is Jim Bernhard, the Baton Rouge-based founder of
Gov. Jeff Landry’s plan to abandon the $3 billion Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion, once considered the cornerstone of Louisiana’s coastal restoration efforts, may see the state revive an old project to replace it that his administration says will be cheaper, faster and more effective. Not everyone is convinced. The Mid-Barataria project is on life support after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers suspended a key permit for it. Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority Chairman Gordon “Gordy” Dove is signaling a major shift in strategy that prioritizes protecting coastal fisheries over the original plan that took years to develop and has already cost $500 million. In a detailed presentation before the Senate Transportation Committee on Wednesday, Dove said that he supports the construction of a smaller river diversion in Plaquemines Parish called
ä See FAIR GROUNDS, page 7A
ä See SHIFT, page 6A
Local buyers floated for Fair Grounds Race Course Horse racing industry thinks Benson, Bernhard have interest
Project much smaller than Mid-Barataria pitched as its replacement
Business ......................1E Deaths .........................3B Nation-World................2A Classified ..................... 1F Living............................1D Opinion ........................6B Commentary ................7B Metro ...........................1B Sports ..........................1C
12TH yEAR, NO. 286