Poverty, broken and desolate are all words that describe the Plank Road community. Since the 1990’s over 8,500 residents have left the community. Businesses suffered and, eventually, failed.

“It’s sad cause it’s reality, when you see small businesses trying to make it and you see something like this shut them down,” Tony’s Seafood Manager, Darren Pizzolato said. “And it’s not just here, I’ve seen it happen many times with construction.”

One business, though, continued to prosper. Tony’s Seafood opened in 1959, and has been a staple in the community ever since.

“We are a staple here, we’ve been here a long time so, like I said, the community is good to us,” Pizzolato said. “We have plenty of good business right now, even with the construction going on.”

In early 2018 a $46 million project to restore Plank Road started its planning phase. Since then the new mayor of Baton Rouge, Sid Edwards, started the restoration of the community’s roads. But he doesn’t plan to stop there.

“The road is just one thing, it’s no different,” Mayor Sid Edwards said. “If you put a dress on me, I’m not a beautiful woman, you know what I’m saying. So, it’s a deal where there is so much more to do there.”

Yet, locals feel that restoring the community may be long overdue, and possibly too late.

“I hope some good comes out of it,” Local Rene Caballero said. “But I can’t really see it doing really a whole lot of good because they’ve let it get so down trout, in this area.”

Cove security says the crime rate here is 247% higher than the national average.

“The big attack there is the crime in the blight in that area of town,” Mayor Edwards said. “It’s a forgotten part of town. It has been, but my boots are going to be on the ground there.”

There is a lot to be done in the community, next with the crime, but the restoration project is looking to restore the livelihood back into Plank Road.