Karnofsky Tailor Shop–House, Historic building in Central Business District, New Orleans.

The Karnofsky Tailor Shop–House was a two-story red brick building with a green-painted ground floor on South Rampart Street. Its upper facade had four tall arched window openings covered by flat dark gray panels, with brick latticework panels below each. The recessed central entrance had a metal security gate and a plywood-boarded opening above; graffiti marked the green walls. It was rebuilt in 2025 after Hurricane Ida destroyed it in 2021.

The structure was built in 1910 and housed a tailor shop and secondhand store run by the Karnofsky family. Over the decades, the building endured many storms and natural events that affected New Orleans.

The Karnofskys gave young Louis Armstrong a job at their secondhand store and tailor shop and encouraged his music. Their son Morris, Armstrong's boyhood friend, opened Morris Music, the city's first jazz record store, next door in 1921; Armstrong kept returning to the shop after moving away that year.

The location sits in an easily accessible part of the city with room to explore the surrounding neighborhood. Visitors should know the structure no longer stands and the historical site is now visible only through documentation and markers on the ground.

Morris Karnofsky, Louis Armstrong's boyhood friend, opened Morris Music, the city's first jazz record store, next door to the family shop in 1921. Armstrong had moved away that year but kept returning to the block. The rebuilt structure, finished in 2025, reuses as many of the original bricks as modern codes allowed.