[1] The idea of bringing music back to New Orleans was popular, and by September 2006 the entire area, including the Baptist Crossroads project, was known and referred to as Musicians' Village.

[3] Politicians George W. Bush, Kathleen Blanco, Ray Nagin and Bill Jefferson volunteered at the Musicians' Village on April 27, 2006.

They put on tool belts and hoisted triangular roof beam sections up to workers scampering across the wooden skeletons of new houses.

Then they went inside the framework, talked with individual volunteers, before Nagin and Bush climbed up and started hammering nails handed up to them by Blanco and Jefferson.

The groundbreaking was kicked off on September 13, 2007, with a celebration that included performances from Bob French and the Original Tuxedo Band and Shamarr Allen Combo, with guest artists Harry Connick Jr. and Branford Marsalis sitting in.