Hurricane Ida Destroys New Orleans’ Historic Karnofsky Shop

The building once housed a young Louis Armstrong and a Jewish family who instilled in him a love of singing.

Hurricane Ida has destroyed New Orleans’ historic Karnofsky Shop, where a young Louis Armstrong got his start. In video filmed Monday and shared on social media by CBS42 reporter Jack Royer, a collapsed mound of rubble can be seen where the store once stood. Armstrong lived in the building as a young boy alongside the Karnofskys, a Jewish family that took him in, fed him and hired him to work on their coal and junk wagons. Armstrong credited the family for instilling a love of singing in him, John McCusker, a retired journalist and jazz researcher who guides a “cradle of jazz” tour in the city, told WWL-TV.