Stories by author "Kathryn O'Dwyer, Editor": 82
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Origins of New Orleans City Park
Before the French colonized Louisiana, Native Americans lived on the land that is now City Park. Bayou St. John, which runs through the park today, was part of a trade route commonly used by the…
Fort Macomb
Constructed in 1822 under the direction of architect Simon Bernard, Fort Wood was thought to be impregnable to enemy troops attacking in the narrow straits of lakes Borgne and St. Catherine. In 1851,…
Pitot House
The Pitot House was built in 1799 as a country home for Bartholemé Bosque. The Pitot House is named after James Pitot, who occupied the property from 1810 until 1819.
James Pitot was born in…
Evariste Blanc House
Evariste Blanc built the mansion you see before you around 1834. According to city directories, Evariste Blanc was a hardware merchant, ship chandler, and lime merchant. By 1834 Blanc also had a…
St. Louis Cemetery No. 3
An 1848 city legislature act allowed the Catholic wardens to establish a new cemetery. Land along Bayou St. John, purchased from Evariste Blanc for $15,000, became St. Louis Cemetery #3. The cemetery…
Cabrini High School
Cabrini High School was named for Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini, founder of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart. Mother Cabrini was born in Italy and traveled to New York to provide catechism…
The Geological Formation of the Metairie-Gentilly Ridges
The winding nature of the Mississippi not only gave New Orleans its nickname: the Crescent City but also created the land you are standing on today.
Magnolia Bridge
Magnolia Bridge was built in 1908, when Bayou St. John was still a commercial waterway. It is a Pratt Truss bridge that originally pivoted at the center to allow commercial vessels and barges to pass…
French Opera House
The fabulous French Opera House dominated a vastly different Bourbon Street than the gaudy strip of today. Designed by James Gallier Jr. and erected in 1859, the Opera House became the cultural…
Napoleon House
Built upon the lot bequeathed to him by his brother, Mayor Nicolas Girod built the “Napoleon House” as a safe haven for Napoleon Bonaparte during his exile. Not being successful, the house eventually…
Waldo Burton Memorial Home
The Waldo Burton Memorial Home was a boy's home operated by the Society for the Relief of Destitute Orphan Boys (a Presbyterian organization dating to 1824). The building itself was built and donated…
"Tolerating" Gambling
The state of illicit gambling in New Orleans was summed up well in the 1938 WPA New Orleans City Guide, "although gambling is, strictly speaking, illegal, these places are usually open for business…
Krewe of Carrollton
In 1924, Oak Street merchants formed the Seventh District Carnival Club, which became the Krewe of Carrollton. The krewe’s original parade route was around the Carrollton neighborhood, centering upon…
Courting 1910's Film Industry: New Orleans Association of Commerce
The New Orleans Association of Commerce was an organization dedicated to stimulating New Orleans-based industries, the organization increasingly saw film as part of their public relations strategies…
Diamond Film Company Studios
The Diamond Film Studios was to be the primary production site for the Diamond Film Company, one of the first homegrown film companies in New Orleans. The founding of the company was linked to an…
Filming Location: The Belle of New Orleans
The Old Jockey Club of New Orleans was a primary filming location of the 1912 silent film "The Belle of New Orleans." The film was created and produced entirely in New Orleans by the Kalem Film…
Projectionist Strike of 1914
Projectionists played a key role in early movie theaters. Despite its central function, the job was not without occupational hazards.
Hamilton Square: The Original Palmer Park
In 1831, McCarty Plantation, located upriver from the central hub of New Orleans, was bought by several investors including the New Orleans Canal and Banking Company and Senator John Slidell. Two…
Palmer Park: The Name
Hamilton Square was renamed Palmer Park as a “testimony to the honor of the late B. M. Palmer” through a city ordinance on July 1902. Benjamin Morgan Palmer was pastor of New Orleans First…
Dryades Street Library and YMCA
Today home to the Dryades YMCA, this beautiful building, erected in 1915, was the first New Orleans Public Library created to serve black New Orleanians and had the capacity to hold 10,000 books.
St. Louis Hotel & Exchange: Auctioning Off Lives
Numerous 19th-century travelers who frequented New Orleans for business and pleasure described the slave auction block in St. Louis Hotel. Sensationalism aside, visitors recorded their surprise at the…
“Confined in the Dungeons”: Orleans Parish Prison and Self-Emancipated People
Located in Treme, the original Orleans Parish Prison stood where the Municipal Auditorium and Louis Armstrong Park stand today. From the 1830s to 1895, the prison housed individuals accused of crimes,…
Saenger Amusement Company
The Saenger Amusement Company, organized in 1912 by brothers Julian and Abraham Saenger, grew into one of the largest motion picture chains in the south, with a peak total of 324 Saenger theaters…
Lafayette Square
Planned in 1788, Lafayette Square is named after Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis de LaFayette: a French aristocrat and general who fought on the American side of the American Revolution.