Stories tagged "Neighborhood and Community": 106
Stories
Streets on the Table Episode 1: Allen Toussaint
In 2019, the New Orleans City Council launched a city-wide effort to change the names of streets honoring white supremacists. While the city implemented its renaming efforts, a clear need for an educational component to give context to the changes…
Archaeology of The Melpomene Neighborhood During Reconstruction
During 2013 investigations in City Square 350, archaeologists excavated a large and well-constructed brick-lined privy shaft, producing a rich assemblage of glass containers and ceramic vessels, along with an abundance of personal items, including…
The Melpomene Neighborhood Before 1880
In the Colonial Era, the area that eventually became the Melpomene neighborhood and later utilized for the Guste Homes was located in a low-lying backswamp zone at the rear of the Livaudais plantation tract, straddling land that became the Faubourgs…
Archaeology of the Melpomene Neighborhood at the Turn of the Twentieth Century: Excavation of a Privy at 1304 Howard/LaSalle
In the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, many of the people who lived in the Melpomene neighborhood of Central City rented their residences with some addresses seeing rapid turnover. Even though people filled features like privy shafts…
The Salvaggio Household: Early 20th Century Archaeology of the Melpomene Neighborhood
In 2013, archaeological firms conducted test excavations in City Square 383 in the Melpomene neighborhood, the city block once bounded by Erato, Freret, Thalia, and South Robertson (or Locust) Streets. Testing focused on lots along the former corner…
The Melpomene Neighborhood, 1900-1930
In working class neighborhoods like the Melpomene in Central City, the importance of women’s labor in the household’s economy is visible both in historical records and archaeological materials. Women worked as dress makers, cooks, and laundresses.…
The Puckett Household: 1930s Archaeology of the Melpomene Neighborhood
In 2013, archaeological consulting firm Earth Search, Inc., excavated a block of the Melpomene neighborhood originally bounded by South Liberty, Erato, Clio, and Howard/LaSalle Streets. Earth Search identified brick foundations and artifacts from a…
The Melpomene Neighborhood, 1930-1960
Between the 1930s and 1960s, racist policies at every level of government pushed Black residents of New Orleans into lower-paying jobs and racially segregated neighborhoods. Throughout the nation, local and federal government agencies used coded…
The Guste Homes and Melpomene Neighborhood in 1964
In 1964, the Urban League of Greater New Orleans published the results of “A Survey of the Recreational, Social, and Economic Conditions of the Negro Population of the William S. Guste, Sr., Homes and the Adjacent Areas.” The Housing Authority of…
Guste Homes: Excavating a Central City Neighborhood
According to the U.S. National Historic Preservation Act, any time a federal agency does something that could affect historic resources, it must take into account the effects of those actions. In the case of archaeology, this typically means…
1961 Construction of the William J. Guste, Sr. Homes
In 1961, the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO) announced plans to construct the William J. Guste, Sr. Homes, named for the Housing Authority’s long-time general counsel. The 1961 Report of the Housing Authority of New Orleans declared:
“The…
Sicilian Bakers of New Orleans: F. Lombardo and Sons Bakery
The French may claim New Orleans French bread, but later immigrant bakers' influence on the city's bread-making traditions is undeniable. At the turn of the nineteenth century, a wave of Sicilian immigration to New Orleans left a lasting impact on…
The French and Spanish Colonial Mark on New Orleans Bread-Making: Cadet’s Bakery
The intersection of St. Peter and Royal Streets is loud and busy with the passing hustle of to-go drinks, music, and tourists, making it hard to notice a faded patch of tile work outside the corner grocery store located at 701 Royal Street. However,…
Leona Tate: Integrating McDonogh 19 Elementary School
In the 1954 Supreme Court Case Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that racial segregation in public schools violated the Fourteenth Amendment prohibiting states from denying equal protection of the laws to any…
A Bakery Shaped by Place: Garic’s Bakery
Often visible in the background of historic images of the French Market, the three-story Italianate building with the “Garic’s Bakery" sign anchored the neighborhood. [1] Garic’s Bakery was once part of a bustling riverfront commercial corridor,…
Sintes Boat Works: Life and Business on the Banks of Lake Pontchartrain
In 1952, Lawrence Sintes Sr. opened Sintes Boat Works on the edge of Orleans Marina in Lake Pontchartrain with his oldest son, Lawrence Sintes Jr. The Sintes family’s move to the area, known as the West End neighborhood, coincided with a…
Stephen Herriman House
Here — near the corner of Royal Street and Esplanade Avenue — a white riverboat captain named Stephen Herriman, originally from Long Island, made his home from 1843 until his death in 1854.
Stephen Herriman’s house is no longer standing. It…
Chessé Family Home
There are three buildings still standing in New Orleans where it is most likely young George Herriman spent his childhood days: St. Augustine Church, the site of the Herriman & Chessé tailor shop, and this handsomely restored Creole cottage on…
The Herrimans and St. Augustine Catholic Church
The Herrimans were devoutly Catholic. They attended Masses and celebrated sacraments at numerous churches surrounding their neighborhood. Yet the historic St. Augustine Church was their “home” church.
Celebrated as the first African-American…
George Herriman Birthplace and Family Home
The house where George Herriman was born no longer stands; in its place is a gate leading into a school parking lot. But it was here that, on August 22, 1880, George Joseph Herriman was born into a mixed-race, middle- to upper-class family headed by…