Mayor: Contractor damaged jazz great's statue

Associated Press / ABC26 News
NEW ORLEANS - With Louis Armstrong's birthday festival less than a month away, jazz fans and art lovers were distraught to hear that a careless contractor had damaged his statue in Armstrong Park. "I'm so disturbed, I can't tell you, " said Phoebe Jacobs, vice president of the Louis Armstrong Foundation and a close friend of the Armstrong family.

Jacobs said that when she helped raise money for the statue during the mid-1970s, the largest donation came from Armstrong friend and fellow singer Bing Crosby, who turned over the proceeds of an all-star concert he gave in San Francisco. Since then, Jacobs and others from the foundation have organized park cleanups and made sure the statue is cared for.

"This is like our baby," she said. "How could this happen?"
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