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 presented itself. Filling the gap, public history graduate students at the University of New Orleans created projects to illuminate the work of the Street Renaming Commission.

Produced by the Midlo Center for New Orleans Studies, Streets on the Table is a podcast that reflects on the historical relevance of both the old and new street names. Hosted by two UNO graduate students, the podcast highlights the lives and histories unrecognized in the commemorative landscape.

In the second episode, Eddie and Lauren discuss Lost Cause legacies in New Orleans and the renaming of Beauregard Avenue to honor Dr. Sherwood Gagliano.

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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 New Orleans (HANO) recently opened the Guste Homes and housed a population of 2,443 residents, not including the high-rise home for elderly residents that made up a part of the project. Many saw such housing projects as an important first step in addressing the needs of low-income residents of the City. However, the report recognized that housing covered only one aspect of neighborhood revitalization; of those 2,443 residents, 1,731 were young people, and the report emphasizes that for them “recreational and cultural opportunities in the area [were] woefully inadequate.”

Surveys like the one produced by the Urban League can give important glimpses into the demographics and social conditions in the neighborhoods that organizations identified as slums. In the seven tracts of the census considered part of the Guste area (roughly the blocks bounded by Dryades, Claiborne, First, and Calliope Streets, encompassing the Guste Homes and the adjacent areas) the overall population consisted of 28,293 people, 77% of whom the census classified as “Negro.” Streets other than major thoroughfares were unpaved, inadequately lit, and “cluttered with debris.” The survey deemed the tenement buildings adjacent to Guste Homes occupied by renters as “overcrowded and hazardous.” According to the survey, a woman with a family of seven children complained of rats almost as big as cats in the Melpomene neighborhood, saying that several of her children had been bitten and that the rodents occasionally invaded her broken ice box.

Of 103 households the Urban League surveyed in detail, only 29 had lived in New Orleans all their lives. Many of those living in the Melpomene neighborhood recently transplanted to the city from rural parts of Louisiana and Mississippi, and felt isolated from social life and economic opportunities in the city. Ironically, many cited the improved educational opportunities for their children as a reason to move to the city, but the two schools that served Black children in the neighborhood, McDonough No. 36 and No. 38, were so overcrowded that students attended in what was called the “platoon system,” splitting the student body into two groups, each attending only half a day, switching over at lunch time. For working parents, this was a hardship, and many residents complained about the adverse effects the lack of childcare facilities and community centers had on young people in the neighborhood.

Naturally, residents were not happy about these conditions. Tenants complained about the conditions of housing and their inability to get absentee landlords to make needed repairs, though the survey noted that the few owner-occupied properties showed “care and pride” in their upkeep. Many renters felt that landlords overcharged for rent, creating cycles of poverty from which it was almost impossible to escape.

Underlying all of this was segregation and structural inequality. A racist social, political, and economic structure -- meant to keep Black residents of the city in permanent second class citizenship -- limited their choices about where to live, where to work, where to go to school, and even where to shop and socialize. Soon enough, the Guste area would become one of many centers of organizing for the Civil Rights struggle in New Orleans. But the inequalities within it were not inevitable. The Melpomene neighborhood that became the Guste Homes was always a site of struggle for residents of the city, and we can trace those struggles over generations of change in the neighborhood.

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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 documenting sites and artifacts before they are disturbed or destroyed.

Many federal agencies took part in the redevelopment of the Guste Homes, a public housing project located in the New Orleans Central City neighborhood. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) administered the project through the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO) because the federal government owns the land. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) provided some of the funds for the redevelopment. Two local archaeological firms, R.C. Goodwin and Associates and Earth Search, Inc., conducted tests to see the history preserved in the blocks where Guste Homes once stood. These archaeological firms targeted specific areas for excavation that had the most potential to tell us things about the history of the Melpomene neighborhood that we wouldn’t otherwise be able to know.

Before HANO completed the construction of the Guste Homes development in 1964, the Melpomene neighborhood it replaced looked much like the rest of the Central City area, with densely packed houses, corner stores, and other small businesses. When HANO demolished those buildings to make way for the Guste project buildings, old building foundations and footings remained below ground. Most importantly for archaeologists, pits that had previously been dug into the ground, like wells and old outhouse pits, were covered over. Before regular trash pick-up, an abandoned hole in the ground provided a convenient place to get rid of household refuse, like broken dishes, bottles, food remains, and all sorts of small everyday items. These holes become like time capsules, which, once excavated by archaeologists, potentially tell about the everyday lives of the people who once lived in the area.

In archaeology, as you dig downwards, you go back in time: the things that are on top are the newest and the ones that are more deeply buried are older. Archaeologists (and geologists) call this “the law of stratigraphic superposition.” In this tour, we will go back in time starting in 1964, when the Guste Homes opened, and focus on a few families who lived in the area over the previous hundred years.

From a combination of documentary sources and maps, we can trace the development of the Melpomene neighborhood in some detail over this period. Some of those who lived in the area left more traces than others in documents, but all of those discussed left material remains, or artifacts, recovered through archaeology. These artifacts allow us to get glimpses of the daily lives of the city’s residents in a way that other historical documents can’t.

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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 project will consist of 993 dwelling units replacing ten squares of rock bottom slums where 500 negro families have been living in substandard housing. The Housing Authority is dedicated to the eradication of slums in New Orleans. Slums are a breeding place for crime and disease. To remove this slum is a great step forward for our City… it will not only remove this cancer from the heart of our City, but will improve the entire area.”

The proposed new construction included housing for elderly people, a first in the city, comprising a 12-story high rise building in a cruciform pattern containing 528 apartments. HANO presented the design for the Guste Homes as innovative, addressing some of the issues experienced by residents at other housing projects in the city. HANO was particularly proud of the attention given to plans for the exterior areas of the Guste Homes:

“Ten once-shabby squares in the congested heart of this old Creole Metropolis –before 1962 is over—will prove, in a test-tube of better living, that in this New Orleans area Nature, with her trees and vines and shrubs and bulbs, makes by far the most beautiful, the most versatile and useful of structural materials at the command of imaginative architects.” [Wilson Callender, “Horticultural Aspects of the William J. Guste Sr. Homes,” 1961 HANO Report, pg. 44]

The language used to describe the placement of Guste Homes was typical of the era. Since the 1930s, “slum clearance” served as a central feature of efforts to alter housing in American cities, often as a part of what would soon be termed “urban renewal” projects. Local and federal governments often targeted Black working class neighborhoods for clearance.

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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, this almost hidden marker is a powerful reminder of a long line of baking and confectionary businesses that once occupied the space and built on French and Spanish colonial baking traditions.

Mannessier’s Confectionary was the last of several bakeries to operate out of the location. An 1895 photograph shows the elegant and ornate interior of Mannessier’s, lined with the above-mentioned tilework. (Pictured below) According to owner Adolph LeClerc’s 1912 obituary, “he owned a confectionary at the time of his death, which is noted throughout the city as one of the landmarks of the old French section.” [1] The first recorded bakery to operate out of this location was Cadet’s Bakery (1789 to 1824). Frenchman Jacques Molon (or Moulon) established Cadet’s in a rear structure facing St. Peter Street and operated a mill "in which coarse flour, floated down the Mississippi River on flatboats, was reground to a finer grade – the grade that made the loaves Cadet sold over the counters of his corner store second to none. No other baker made a better brioche." [2]

Bakers and millers were among the first laborers sent by the French government to New Orleans in 1718, bringing the supplies and knowledge necessary to establish strong bread-making and bread-eating traditions. The first recorded commercial bakery in New Orleans was for a baker named Francois Lemelle (or Lemesle), who operated under the alias of “Bellegarde” at the corner of St. Ann and Chartres Streets. [3] These transplanted French bakers relied on standard methods and recipes. The types of bread baked resembled those popular in eighteenth-century France – large dense round loaves of mixed grains, smaller enriched loaves of white flour, and hard, long-lasting biscuits suitable for sea voyages. Bakeries often produced two qualities of bread, one of more refined quality and one of second quality, for those unable to afford the higher-priced loaves. This two-tiered bread system continued into the next century and reinforced bread as a marker of social class. [4] Eventually, the more elite white loaves of bread became the norm, replacing the large whole grain loaves. [5] Today, small artisan bakeries are again reversing the trend, returning to whole grain rustic loaves, but this time at an elevated status/price.

Bakeries in eighteenth-century New Orleans also resembled bakeries of the same time in France -- equipped with one or more wood-burning brick ovens, wooden peels to move the loaves in and out, long wooden dough troughs to mix the dough, and a workbench to weigh and shape loaves. By 1820, approximately sixty French bakers and confectioners operated in New Orleans close to the Mississippi River – a source for the water needed to make bread. Rainwater collected in outdoor cisterns provided an additional source of water. While the bread baked at Cadet’s bakery maintained a French identity, the bakery opened when New Orleans was under Spanish colonial control. The Spanish colonial forces had a lasting impact on bread-making history in New Orleans not through recipes but by implementing ordinances on the price of flour and the size and price of bread due to flour shortages. The Municipal Council of New Orleans also taxed the number of barrels of flour bakers consumed to collect funds for the city's illumination system. This tax replaced a system of taxation based on the number of chimneys on each building, obsolete following a fire in 1784 that destroyed many buildings and chimneys. [6] These government regulations contributed to the standardization of a loaf of bread in the city.

After Cadet’s bakery closed, several other bakers and confectioners operated in that same location (Leblanc, Lefevre, Tambelli, Vincent, Desbonnes and Bonnecayes, Mannessier, and LeClerc). [7] While always evolving and adapting, the bread-making traditions of New Orleans remain firmly established in the familiar identity of the early French bakers.

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Claiborne Avenue, from Treme to the 7th Ward, is a corridor packed to the rafters with memory, resistance and a refusal to be assimilated, dominated and denigrated. It is rockin’ – from one side to the other - with a resounding sense of life and history but also with evidence of development that has disenfranchised black residents and black-property and business owners. Claiborne tells multiple stories – stories of displacement and condemnation, absence and presence, erasure and memory, the past and the present.

Claiborne folds time so that the past cannot be forgotten and so that folks who created life out of what was once a plantation still press upon the present saying there is another way forward, there is another possible future that does not exclude, does not degrade, does not devalue.

Claiborne reminds us of possibilities, it witnesses the past in order to call forward new trajectories – new life, new ways of loving the place of a stoop, the shade of an oak tree, the echo of a brass band.

The murals that line the concrete underpass trace this corridor’s history of black-owned businesses into the present. They bring back the oak trees that once lined the neutral ground. They challenge conceptions of progress that have repeatedly asked black communities to suffer and sacrifice.

The La Branche Pharmacy and the Standard Life Insurance Company are here – just as they were in the past - speaking not just to the power of holding onto history and the life and vibrancy that were in these spaces but to holding these forces into the present moments.

They witness – they shape – they create space for the present practices of second lines, Mardi Gras Indians, brass band music. These murals are the structural roots of a new space – a new moment – they inform the present to create a new future. Perhaps what most embodies Claiborne is its duality – as a corridor, it represents life and a fight for a future where racism doesn’t construct highway overpasses and clear oak trees, where love reconstructs buildings, streets, and space.

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Starting in the 1920s and increasing exponentially in the 1930s, and onwards, the urban landscape of New Orleans, like many urban municipalities across the country, began to change as a result of a series of racially restrictive covenants and zoning ordinances, New Deal housing policies, local government blight and slum clearance initiatives, and real estate and banking practices. These changes took root with the passage of several federal and state acts, key among them was the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation Act of 1933, the National Housing Act of 1934 that established the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), and the Housing Act of 1937, also known as the Wagner-Steagall Bill, which created the United States Housing Authority. The formation of the Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) established by Congress to refinanced mortgages in default to prevent foreclosures, and HOLC’s subsequent color-coded Residential Security Maps, or redlining maps, to measure real estate risk assessment of neighborhoods based on the racial demographics set up a discriminatory practice of urban divestment and exclusion. Outlined in the lending protocols of the FHA’s Underwriting Handbook, the practice of redlining institutionalized racial residential segregation, discriminatory housing practices in mortgage lending, and divestment in urban communities. The establishment of the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO) by the Louisiana Housing Act of 1936 coupled with the passage of the federal Housing Act of 1937, charged with coordinating and financing the construction of public housing developments in urban settings, set the stage for the displacement and relocation of low-income Black residents in public housing in the city.

In 1938 New Orleans became the first city in the country to receive federal funding under the Housing Act of 1937, codifying racial residential segregation in public housing and the social positioning of black residents, particularly low-income black women, in the city for decades to come through the public demonization of their subsidy-status and punitive socials policies that justified their mistreatment. For decades, nearly all mortgages underwritten by the FHA supported white families, while private banks frequently discriminated against Black households seeking mortgage assistance in the neighborhoods in which they resided. Slum clearance and urban renewal projects disproportionally uprooted black communities, and the locations chosen for public housing developments both displaced and confined black people to racially and economically segregated neighborhoods. Within its first three years, HANO secured $30 million in federal loan contracts for the construction of public housing, and by the time the U.S. entered World War II in 1942, the first six public housing developments in the city were completely occupied.

Four developments were reserved for Black occupancy

— the Magnolia (1941) Lafitte (1941), Calliope (1942), St. Bernard (1942) and the two developments for white occupancy — the St. Thomas (1941) and Iberville (1941).

By 1957, HANO was the fourth largest public housing authority in the country managing over 10,000 units or public housing, with Desire (1956) being the biggest development. Low-income black women found it difficult to find places to live in this continually changing housing landscape as racial and gender stereotypes, biases, and fears combined in insidious ways rendering public housing, for many, their only ‘choice.’ Public housing became sites of housing security, contradictions, activism, demonization, violence, community, poverty, and isolation.

Hidden within the history of public and subsidized housing in New Orleans are narratives of black women who engaged in a movement without demonstrations.

Circumscribed by opportunity and discrimination, possibilities and restrictions, affordability and surveillance, low-income black woman organized to improve the lives of public housing residents, transform housing policies, advance tenant rights, encourage resident engagement, support policy changes, and participate in community building efforts through partnerships and collaborations.

With the formal incorporation of The New Orleans Public Housing Tenants, Inc. in 1972, and the establishment of the Community Services Department at HANO in 1974, public housing residents significantly increased involvement in shaping management decision-making affecting their communities.

Through resident councils, the New Orleans Citywide Tenant Council, and interactions with housing officials, black women challenged poor maintenance policies, fought against illegal and unfair evictions, sponsored neighborhood clean-ups, created programs for senior citizens, developed recreational and after school enrichment programs for youth, organized against police brutality, established community centers and resident management corporations, formed non-traditional resident councils, created work opportunities for residents, partnered with local groups establishing child care centers and health clinics, hosted cultural events, advocated for safe and healthy housing conditions, and worked daily to address the impact of economic and housing-related poverty, violence, and substance addiction. Black women challenged dominant stereotypes purported by the media, elected officials, and others that criminalized their poverty, family size and composition, and residential neighborhoods. Resident leaders engaged with and reshaped housing institutions as they fought to improve the living conditions of their families and communities. Unable to actualize rights gained during the Civil Rights Movement, low-income black women in New Orleans, like many of their counterparts in urban cities across the country, developed mechanisms to address the harsh circumstances of the everyday violence of racist and sexist housing policies and the irresponsibility of government actions that accompanied living in public housing. Although limited by their housing options, the biographies, political agency, activism, struggles, triumphs, setbacks, experiences, and advocacy efforts of low-income black women—and the communities that supported them—is often invisible or marginalized in historical narratives of black freedom struggle and women’s liberation movements.

Here we acknowledge some of the women who transformed public housing in New Orleans:

Ursula Spencer, Mildred R. Taylor, Dorothy Allen, Lolita King, Hilda LeBlanc, Viney D. Reynolds, Donna Johnigan, Yvonne Marrero, Augusta Kerry, Barbara Villere, Debra Davis, Kathleen Matthews, Desiree Williams, Cynthia Wiggins, Leah Green, Birgil Green, Dianne Lee, Angela Winfrey, Lillie Clark,

Constant Haynes, Christopher Homes, Karen Johnson, Marla Taylor, Demetria Farve, Barbara Jackson, Fannie McKnight, Helen Lane, Crystal Jones, Barbara Carter, Beverly Magee, Yvonne Miles, Laura Johnson, Irene B. Griffin, Cynthia Doughty, Laura French, Delores Morrel, Sharon Jasper, Theresa Nicholas, Kim Piper, Stephanie Mingo, Kawana Jasper, Julie Andrews, Jessie Brock, and Ollie Pendleton.

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“Weeds, snakes, and a contaminated lake.”

These were the swimming conditions that New Orleans provided for African Americans prior to the opening of Lincoln Beach. In 1938, Sam Zemurray, president of United Fruit Company, deeded a 2.3-acre tract of land to the city. The following year, the Orleans Parish Levee Board purchased the land. The tract was along the lakefront in the Little Woods section of New Orleans East. The city asserted that Little Woods was a ‘separate but equal’ recreational area, in compliance with the standard established in Plessy v. Ferguson. However, many African-Americans recall a 12-mile trip on an unpaved road that was followed by crossing active railroad tracks, and waste from nearby fishing camps which polluted the swimming water.

African-Americans continued to seek out other options so they could stay cool in the tropical summers. Some visited the nearby Seabrook in spite of police harassment and the city’s refusal to provide lighting or lifeguards. The most impactful tragedy at Seabrook occurred in 1931 when a group of six family members all drowned together due to a sinkhole in the lake. Such drownings became increasingly common as structural improvements were made along the North Shore of the lake. Real estate investments increased the value of homes in burgeoning white communities. Additionally, the white sand that was imported for the newly constructed and segregated Pontchartrain Beach eroded the South Shore.

After 25 years of struggle for recreational equality and environmental racism, the Orleans Levee Board invested $500,000 in building a lakeside amusement park for African-American citizens, who comprised about 200,000 — or 32% — of the city’s population in 1950. More extensively developed than the park designated in 1939, Lincoln Beach was a better-equipped site. Some remember tickets for free admission to Lincoln Beach that came in Sunbeam Bread. There was a Midway with rides, a ferris wheel, rollercoaster, and games of chance. Patrons dined at the Carver House Restaurant, and danced atop its terrace.

There were two swimming pools with a lifeguard corps and a swimming teacher, Edward X. Dunn. One of the pools was named in honor of Capt. Nolan McNeal, a former slave and fighter for black progress. Highlights at Lincoln Beach included bathing beauty contests and diving expositions. It was also the site of the annual Negro State Fairs. Musical artists included Fats Domino, Irma Thomas, Earl King, The Neville Brothers, Nat King Cole, The Ink Spots, Ernie K-Doe, Dr. John, and many others.

Despite marked improvements, most African-Americans recognized that Lincoln Beach was a park of lesser quality than the Whites-only Pontchartrain Beach. Lincoln Beach was a quarter-mile in length in contrast to Pontchartrain Beach’s half-mile, and it was difficult to arrive at, but it was a place where African-Americans produced culture through their bodies. And as many have said, “It was a place where I felt safe.”

Since its closure following the desegregation of public accommodations under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Lincoln Beach has become dilapidated. It barely shows the skeleton of what it once was. As soon as Pontchartrain desegregated, the Orleans Levee Board abandoned caring for the beach. And once Pontchartrain Beach integrated, owner Harry Batt disinvested in his own property. White violence was initially enacted against African-Americans that began to integrate Pontchartrain. Eventually, whites stopped attending the park at all.

Mr. Leon A. Waters [researcher, author, and native of New Orleans] took me [storyteller Danielle Abrams] to Lincoln Beach in the summer of 2018. We stood on the levee looking down into a forest that blanketed the beach. Mr. Waters said to me, “They let that forest grow so we’d forget it [segregation] ever happened.”

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By 1985, just four years after the first residents moved into Gordon Plaza, state environmentalists recommended testing soil and air in the Gordon Plaza subdivision to determine the extent of hazardous wastes underneath the houses that were built over an old landfill. Testing performed at the site of the new Moton Elementary School in 1983-1984 revealed high levels of toxic chemicals in the soil. Due to their proximity to the contaminated school site, Gordon Plaza residents demanded the testing of their own soil. It was at this point that residents discovered their homes were built on the former Agricultural Street Landfill, where many of the growing industries of New Orleans dumped their toxic chemicals and garbage for over fifty years. [1] A Times-Picayune article from October 3, 1986, states that “residents and local environmentalists were still concerned with the toxic chemicals after Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials told them that lead was the only one in over 130 toxic chemicals discovered in levels high enough to generate health concerns.”

Following a sewage leak in 1993, concerns over the toxicity of Gordon Plaza land surfaced once again. Despite earlier assertions that the pollutant levels were not dangerous, the EPA designated the Gordon Plaza subdivision as a Superfund site in 1994. The initial reaction of the community was positive because they believed they would be able to get access to funding for relocation, however, this would not prove to be the result. The EPA encouraged people not to dig in their yards or gardens. Relocation of Gordon Plaza residents was not considered as a solution by the EPA. In 1994, the first class-action lawsuit was filed by Press Park and Gordon Plaza residents against the city of New Orleans, the New Orleans school board, and two unnamed construction companies, for knowingly putting their houses in a contaminated area. In 2001 the EPA oversaw the installation of a layer of topsoil on Gordon Plaza properties to form a barrier from the toxic land. This soil was washed away by flooding during Hurricane Katrina.

In the videos below, longtime Gordon Plaza resident Shannon Rainey discusses the impact that toxic chemicals buried underneath Gordon Plaza have had on her, her family, and her neighbors.

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Throughout the 1950s, the local community suffered from horrible stenches, pest infestations, and smoke emanating from Agriculture Street Landfill (ASL). Spontaneous combustion commonly occurred at the site when incompatible wastes came in contact underground, garnering ASL the nickname “Dante’s Inferno.” [1] In October of 1950, police guided motorists through the streets surrounding ASL at 10 miles per hour due to low visibility caused by smoke emanating from the landfill. [2] In October of 1956, eight public schools stopped serving hot lunches due to a severe fly infestation at the dump. [3]Residents near ASL began to make public complaints and eventually organized legal and political action against the landfill. One resident quoted in a local newspaper article said “the cost in depreciation of land in the close proximity of this landfill has been tremendous.” [4] In 1951, neighborhood residents made a failed attempt to sue the City for its negligent operation of the landfill. [5] In 1955, residents of the Eighth and Ninth Wards picketed the landfill. Residents quoted in local media coverage of the protest condemned ASL's "menacing operations" and "the deplorable conditions it inflicted upon the neighborhood." [6] City officials responded to these protests with a plan to construct a supposedly odorless and smokeless incinerator on Florida Avenue just ten blocks from ASL. [7] Community members, outraged that the incinerator would remain so close to their homes, circulated a petition to bar its construction. [8]  In 1957, the City closed the landfill because it could not accommodate any more trash. City officials celebrated the closure of ASL and called for the redevelopment of the blighted site. Councilman Glenn P. Clasen asserted that the land would be “restored and developed to provide additional housing within a very few years,” aiding in the “progress and growth [of] the rest of our city.” [9] While overlooking mounds of rubbish during a landfill inspection, Councilman Victor H. Shiro proclaimed: “I’d like to see the day when this is a beautiful subdivision.” [10] In September of 1965, following the destruction wrought by Hurricane Betsy, the City temporarily reopened ASL to accommodate excess trash produced by the storm. [11] The City did not place any restrictions on these deposits and every day trucks delivered 300 loads of hurricane debris and trash to ASL. Much of this refuse contained high levels of toxic lead and arsenic. [12] Though sanitation officials stated that “emergency burning of garbage in long-unused landfill locations [would] cease as soon as practicable,” ASL did not close again until the summer of 1966. [13]

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In 1909, Agriculture Street Landfill (ASL) opened to accommodate trash produced by half of New Orleans residents. ASL occupied 95 acres of previously undeveloped swampland surrounded by Abundance Street, Industry Street, and the Northeastern Railroad Company tracks. The new landfill received trash via train cars. Employees either burned the deposits in open fires or buried them underground. [1, 2] By 1912, employees began freely using toxic disinfectants to treat infestations and stenches permeating from the landfill. [3] In 1914, landfill operators oversaw the erection of an incinerator. [4] Through the 1930s, the amount of waste produced in New Orleans dramatically increased. Trash deposits overloaded the ASL incinerator and employees once again burned excess garbage in the open air. In 1939, the Works Progress Administration refurbished the incinerator, tripling its daily capacity. [5, 6]  

City officials did not enforce sanitary regulations at ASL. In 1957, City Sanitation Director George M. Rittiner said it was "only necessary to use six- to 10- inch cover" when remediating the landfill’s trash laden soil, even though he acknowledged the regulations recommended two feet of cover. [7] As garbage mounted at ASL, residents of the surrounding neighborhood expressed growing dissatisfaction with the landfill’s unsanitary conditions.

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The French Market is a notable location right at the edge of the French Quarter. The market was built in 1791 and has continued to be a historic and important location for the people of New Orleans. Throughout its years the market has changed with each new government, starting as a Native American trading post right on the banks of the Mississippi, and converted by the Spanish into a covered public market on the riverfront. In 1788, a great fire that consumed most of New Orleans destroyed the market. The new covered market was completed around the site of the present French Market in 1791. The market was destroyed again in the Hurricane of 1812 and would not be rebuilt until 1813. Since then the market has been greatly altered, but it still stands as part of the French Market complex. Through the centuries, immigrants from Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean opened their own tables in the market offering part of their local cuisine to the passerby.

From 1936 – 1937, a major renovation was undertaken by the WPA and the city of New Orleans. Rebuilding a new Bazaar Market, wholesale seafood, adding to the Butcher Market and a New Farmers Market. To help with sanitation, new refrigeration and sanitation systems were updated for the sale of meat and fish. Through the years there have been many changes, disasters, and renovations, but the French Market has stayed strong through it all and is still open to the public today. Though the market has been demolished, moved, expanded and redesigned, it still shows the intricate history of New Orleans. The market has become a location that is visited by millions of locals and visitors of New Orleans every year. The French Market is America’s oldest public market that is one of the main attractions to tourist every year.

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In 1891, Lyle Saxon was born in Baton Rouge and, after attending Louisiana State University, moved to New Orleans to become a newspaper reporter. He played a pivotal role in the French Quarter Renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s.

When Saxon moved to New Orleans in the 1920s, the French Quarter was dilapidated and viewed as a dangerous area. Saxon restored a number of houses in the area and encouraged his friends to do the same. He also used the Times-Picayune to champion the renovation of the French Quarter. His friends credit him with playing a major role in transforming the French Quarter into “more art colony, less an underworld.” Saxon began his career as a journalist and later gravitated toward a literary career. The latter part of his career was devoted primarily to work as the head of the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Writers’ Project in Louisiana. Saxon was named the state director of the project in 1935, and was well known and well-liked among his peers. A great host and a gifted storyteller, he entertained at his three homes in the French Quarter, his apartment in Greenwich Village, his quarters on Melrose Plantation, and his suite at the St. Charles Hotel in New Orleans. In 1937, Saxon bought the home at 534 Madison Street with the money he had earned from The Buccaneer, a film adapted from his novel Lafitte the Pirate. In the 1920s, Saxon had restored properties at 612 Royal Street and 536 Royal Street. He planned to make the property at 534 Madison his last restoration project before retiring there.

In the mid-18^th century, Spanish soldiers occupied the property as they oversaw New Orleans’ transition from French to Spanish rule, and it was later converted into a slave hospital. The building that stands on the property today is an important two-story U-shaped porte-cochere building, constructed circa 1830 for Jules Baloc.

Baloc was attacked by a “mulatto” in the house and rescued by his slave, Baptiste. Before Baloc died from his injuries he left his fortune including a large number of slaves, to his wife. He freed Baptiste. The courtyard is framed by the main building and two wings which extend perpendicularly from the main building. The right wing has an attic story, and there are arcades on the first and second floors of one of the wings. The ground floor openings of the main building, however, have been greatly altered over the years. According to Saxon, the house, with its elaborate courtyard, was “so peaceful and quiet … [that] I wanted to stay on, with Joe [Gilmore] to take care of me, and dream the rest of my life away, while I listened to the chiming of the Cathedral clock.” However, the Madison Street house meant “to keep him in his old age” did nothing but “ruin his middle years.” Not only did Saxon pour a great deal of money into the restoration project in the late 1930s, just as he planned to move from St. Charles Hotel, but his health began to fail and his duties at the Louisiana Federal Writers’ Project became increasingly demanding of his time.

Instead of moving permanently to the Madison Street home, Saxon continued to reside at his suite at the St. Charles Hotel, near his office. Saxon eventually sold the Madison Street home in 1945, but not before his close friend, John Steinbeck, married Gwyn Conger in the courtyard in 1943.

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In the early 1900s, New Orleans public libraries only permitted white people and black attorneys to use their facilities. This policy was a cause for great concern among the black community. James Hardy Dillard, Tulane professor and advocate for African American education, persuaded the Andrew Carnegie Foundation to donate $25,000 for the construction of a library for black New Orleanians. [1,2]

The Dryades Street Library opened on October 24, 1915. [3] The library's opening ceremony was cause for great celebration and numerous black civic leaders spoke at the event. [1, 2]

In addition to circulating books and providing popular educational programming for children and adults, the Dryades Library became home to civic meetings, including the Negro Board of Trade, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA.) [1, 2]

In 1955, under the leadership of Rosa Keller, the board of the New Orleans Public Library (NOPL) desegregated the NOPL system. [4] In 1965, Dryades Street Library closed due to damages wrought by Hurricane Betsy. The YMCA purchased the building and converted into a community center that is still in use today. [2]

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The Louisiana Supreme Court decided one of the famous “Batture Cases” while located in the Government House. In Morgan v. Livingston, the Louisiana Supreme Court held that the owner of “rural” land fronting the Mississippi River owned the batture, or “alluvion,” which accrued on the property. The batture consisted of silt deposited by the Mississippi River, which naturally added to the dimensions of the property.

Today, many important buildings in the New Orleans French Quarter and Central Business District near the Mississippi River “occupy batture land,” including the Riverwalk, Canal Place, Aquarium of the Americas, Jax Brewery, and Harrah’s Casino.

Batture from the Mississippi River formed both within the city limits of New Orleans and outside of the city limits. As New Orleans expanded, the batture increased in value, and ownership was hotly contested. This batture was claimed by the City of New Orleans, the United States, private citizens, and attorney Edward Livingston. Mayor of New York City from 1801-1803, Livingston moved to New Orleans in 1804, where he established his law practice and engaged in the real estate business. He later served in Congress, as a U.S. Senator from Louisiana, and as President Andrew Jackson's Secretary of State. Litigation concerning this valuable batture land occupied the state and federal courts in Louisiana, and the United States Supreme Court during the first half of the nineteenth century.

Bertrand Gravier had owned much of the land fronting the Mississippi River, above and adjoining New Orleans, as part of his plantation. He claimed the silt batture deposited on the East bank of the Mississippi as his private land and deeded a portion to attorney Edward Livingston as a legal fee. In 1789, Gravier sold a lot on Levee Street, now located in Faubourg St. Mary, to Poeyfarre, who had bought the land before Faubourg St. Mary was created and before Gravier deeded any right in the property to Livingston. Poeyfarre eventually sold the land to Morgan. Morgan claimed that he was entitled to the batture as the owner of the property fronting the river.

Poeyfarre’s deed stated that the land was “front to the river.” The question facing the Court was whether Morgan owned the batture in front of his property or whether Gravier still owed the batture and could deed it to Livingston as a legal fee. The court ruled in favor of Morgan and against Livingston, finding that the land sold by Gravier extended to the river and that Poeyfarre bought the river “bank, including the levee and batture.”

Louisiana Supreme Court Judge Francois Xavier Martin wrote the opinion for the Court. He considered French and Spanish acts of sale and determined that the words “front to the river” meant that the property was bounded by the river. In the country, as opposed to the city, this meant that the landowner was a “riparian owner” and was responsible for repairing the road, ditches, bridges and levees. Judge Martin held that the river consisted of three parts: the water, the bed and the bank. The banks of the river were the property of the riparian owner and passed “as a accessory of the land sold.”

Judge Martin distinguished between owners of lots in New Orleans and owners of rural estates fronting the river. In the city, the owners of lots fronting the river did not own the river bank. The reason for the distinction is that in the city, all property owners pay for the repair of the levees, roads and streets through taxes. In contrast, in the country, only the property owner has the burden of repairing levees, roads and streets on his property. The Court concluded that Poeyfarre purchased a “rural estate” and was responsible for repairing the road and levee along his property. Since he was responsible for repair, Poeyfarre was also entitled to the “alluvion” or batture. Judge Martin relied on natural law, stating “the advantages of every thing should belong to him who bears its burthen [sic]” (Morgan v. Livingston).

Livingston fought for the batture property until his death on May 23, 1836. In fact, he successfully argued in the United States Supreme Court in favor of the City of New Orleans against the United States in a case decided on February 9, 1836. Livingston claimed title to both rural and city batture property but eventually agreed to a compromise with the City of New Orleans that left the banks in the City of New Orleans public property.

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Palmer Park, previously full of briar bushes and not much else, underwent some major changes in the early 20th century. In 1910, Carrollton Avenue was dug out by hand and paved; the excess mud was put onto carts and pulled by mules to the park where it was dumped. Oak trees were planted at this time as well. In 1912, the Palmer Park arch was built. Palmer Park Commission President T. M. Thompson and City Engineer Hardee designed the arch and it was funded, at the cost of $1500 dollars, by the city. The arch was originally opposed by nearby residents who did not want to see changes to the space.

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Sedgwick Hospital was one of many area hospitals that serviced the military during and after the Civil War. The Greenville Encampment, located along the lower boundary of Carrollton (Lowerline Street), was part of the land formerly owned by Pierre Foucher. Military forces tore down the Foucher residence to make room for Sedgwick Hospital.

Sedgwick Hospital consisted of 15 one-story pavilions, a kitchen and dining facility, and a two-story administration building. The buildings were connected by covered walkways. The military constructed buildings holding patients at a distance from one another for health reasons and better fire protection.

Throughout the country, it was more common for Union soldiers to die from diseases than battle-related injuries. This fact was exacerbated in the subtropical climate of South Louisiana, where mosquitoes quickly spread diseases including yellow fever.

Construction of Sedwick Hospital did not finish until 1864. The hospital remained in use for a few years after the war ended.

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The Village of Greenville, now part of Uptown New Orleans near the Carrollton area, was the site of a federal encampment during the Civil War. New Orleans was captured by U.S. forces early in the war and was militarily occupied until the end of Reconstruction. The site included a barracks for troop housing, a cavalry camp of instruction, and a general hospital.

Sedgwick Barracks, named for the admired Union general killed in action at the Battle of Spotsylvania, was in use from August 1864 to early 1874. Units stationed there included companies from the 1st U.S. Infantry, the 2nd U.S. Infantry, the 22nd U.S. Infantry, Battery G of the 5th Artillery, a.k.a. "The Alexander Hamilton Bodyguard," which had lineage going back to the Revolutionary War, and the famous 9th Cavalry Regiment, "Buffalo Soldiers."

The camp of instruction served as a training ground for cavalry troops. According to official records, there were 2,641 cavalrymen in the camp as of June 1864.

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The Huey P. Long Bridge spans the Mississippi River in Jefferson Parish, a few miles upstream of New Orleans itself, and features a central 4.4-mile rail track. At the time of its construction, the Huey P. Long Bridge was the longest railroad bridge in the world and remains the longest in the US. Before the bridge was built, the only option for trains to cross the Mississippi River was a clunky ferry system. The cantilevered steel truss bridge was completed in 1935, just a few months after the assassination of populist governor Huey Long. The bridge was named in his honor and stands as an homage to his legacy of public works in Louisiana.

One of the most colorful and controversial figures in Louisiana political history, Huey Long remains complex and controversial for both his political demagoguery and his benevolent populism. Huey P. Long served as governor and senator of Louisiana during the early years of the Great Depression. Long courted previously neglected rural, white voters in order to win the governorship in the 1928 election. He garnered popular support with the promise of numerous construction projects that would provide employment and improved infrastructure, like the Huey P. Long Bridge, throughout the state. During his political reign, Long ordered the construction of thousands of miles of roads, numerous bridges and several municipal buildings, many of which are still in use today.

Throughout his political career, Long used the patronage system to secure political support, supplying lucrative government positions and contracts to loyal voters and generous political donors. Long proclaimed himself “The Kingfish” as a result of his political style that combined populist appeals with authoritative control over state operations and finances. During the height of his political career, “The Kingfish” maintained a suite at the Fairmont of New Orleans, today’s Roosevelt Hotel, and the Heidelberg Hotel in Baton Rouge.

Long was elected to the Senate in 1931. While Senator, Long advocated for increased federal funding for state construction projects under his “Share the Wealth” program. “Share the Wealth” garnered so much popular support that it placed pressure on Franklin Delano Roosevelt to create a running platform and national policy that contributed to the formation of Social Security. Originally a supporter and ally of FDR, Long would eventually break with the Democratic President when he found that state politicians like himself would not oversee the dispersal of federal funds from New Deal recovery agencies.

As Long made a run for the White House in 1935, political tensions in Louisiana began to mount between Long’s supporters and opponents. On September 8, 1935, Carl Weiss, son in law of Long’s political adversary Judge Benjamin Henry Pavy, assassinated Long at the State Capitol Building in Baton Rouge in a wild shootout with Long’s bodyguards.

Today Long is remembered for the long-lasting public infrastructure projects he supported, including New Orleans’ Charity Hospital, the New Orleans Lakefront Airport, the State Capitol in Baton Rouge, and the State Exposition Hall in Shreveport, along with his flamboyant style and populist approach to politics. Long’s impact on the city of New Orleans remains strongly present as many of the public building created here at the time are still in use.

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In 1936, a $250,000 Works Progress Administration beautification project took place at the airport and included extensive landscaping, paving roads and runways, and this fountain. Enrique Alférez sculpted each statue to represent one of the four winds, hence the name “The Fountain of the Four Winds.”

This project signified early federal involvement in the construction of airports. Because of the Great Depression, the federal government helped cash-strapped cities improve their airports. Federal involvement helped the unemployed, but it also kept airports up-to-date in case the military needed them. This need would arise in World War II, when the military commandeered airports, including the Shushan Airport.

Despite the stunningly attractive airport, by 1939 Louisiana and federal government officials could no longer ignore the rampant embezzlement of government money, including WPA funds. Coming to light in “the Scandals” were examples of, Shushan and the Orleans Levee Board inflating the savings collected from the bonds sold for the lakefront project in order to give themselves a significant amount of money. Shushan and other officials were indicted and convicted of tax evasion and fraud. Shushan went to prison, and though President Truman pardoned him, the damage was done. The Shushan Airport was renamed the New Orleans Municipal Airport.

For the final part of the tour, walk toward the hangar across the street and face the administration building.

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The art deco administration building epitomized a fine combination of form and function. Not simply a place for travelers to wait for their flights, the airport allowed white New Orleanians to relax and entertain themselves. Observation decks and loggias (porches) on the other side of the building encouraged people to watch the planes land while enjoying a meal in the climate controlled building. Locals could also view Xavier Gonzalez's artwork that graced the second floor or attend parties on the roof or in the banquet hall. The Orleans Levee Board believed that the luxuriously-appointed building showed the taxpayers that the $4 million had gone to good use, and it promoted the airport's image as an international transportation hub.

To learn about the Works Progress Administration’s improvements of the airport, walk across the driveway and through the lawn to the left until you reach the empty fountain.

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You are currently standing in front of the Lindbergh/Williams hangar. This hangar, the administration building behind you, and the Moffett hangar across the driveway were the airport’s original three buildings; space for nine more hangars and other auxiliary buildings remained available. The architectural firm Weiss, Dreyfous, and Seiferth executed the plans of William Arthur, who designed other modern airports in California. Shushan also consulted with aviation experts like Eddie Rickenbacker and Jimmy Doolittle, and he observed other modern airports to make certain that this one would have all the modern amenities. The construction companies hired local unemployed men because this was the Great Depression.

This hangar contains the first pile driven for the airport buildings, which was placed on May 20, 1932. While the buildings were under construction, the runways were active; the first plane landed in June 1932, though the airport would not officially open until November 1, 1933. In recognition of the airport’s modernity, the government installed a radio beacon. This hangar, along with the rest of the airport, filled and exceeded almost all of the government's expectations.

The experts who helped design the airport hailed it as the greatest in the country; though their opinion must have been biased, the airport was modern for the time, combining beauty and function. With a plan to accommodate bigger planes and heavier air traffic over the next five years, the architects and builders had the future in mind. By the time the buildings were completed, there was plenty of buzz about the airport from Arthur Brisbane’s national article and national advertising of the 1934 Pan-American Air Races.

To learn about the 1934 Pan-American Air Races hosted at the airport, walk toward the fence near the runway to your left.

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The New Orleans Association of Commerce was established in 1913 by local businessmen and originally headquartered at 315 Camp Street before relocating to 635 Common Street sometime prior to 1922. The association outlined plans in 1918 to increase the "get together spirit in New Orleans," and collaborate with the city government in order to promote trade and industry, attract new businesses, and encourage civic improvement in New Orleans and throughout the state of Louisiana.

One of the ways that the Association planned to enact this plan was to bring moving picture producers to New Orleans. This form of boosterism promoted the city as a center of innovation and film production. Their push to frame New Orleans and Louisiana as a film mecca coincided with the efforts of local film production companies, such as the Diamond Film Company and Harcol Film Company.

Public and private efforts to brand New Orleans as a center of film production continues today. According to Will French, president of Film Production Capital and board member of the Louisiana Film and Entertainment Association, the increase in production brought about by tax incentives have helped to bolster film related employment and keep jobs from moving out of state. While the policy French describes has been controversial, his desire to frame film as a way to boost the local economy draws upon the legacy of the discourse as found in the 1918 New Orleans Association of Commerce Report.

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The signature attraction of the 1984 Louisiana World Exposition held in New Orleans was MART (Mississippi Aerial River Transit), a $12 million aerial gondola transport system that connected the fair site on the East Bank of the Mississippi River with the West Bank (Old Algiers). For the price of a $3.50 round-trip ticket, fair riders were shuttled 2,500 feet across the Mississippi River in one of 53 six-passenger, teapot-shaped cars strung from cables suspended 320 feet above the river. After the fair, the gondolas briefly became part of the city's mass transit system.

The gondola project was the long-time dream of Mardi Gras float designer and native Algerian Blaine Kern, who envisioned a "combination thrill ride and practical commuter vehicle" to connect both banks of the river, according to a May 6, 1984, Times-Picayune article. During the 1960s, Kern partnered with architect August Perez III to organize MART, Inc.

Two decades later, the concept reemerged during plans for the 1984 Louisiana World Exposition (LWE). The system's initial price tag of $8 million was too steep for area banks. Kern pulled his financial backing from the project, but Perez continued with a consortium of investors to form MART/Perez Inc. The World's Fair and the system's projected $10 million in ticket sales during the first six months of operation gave impetus to the lagging endeavor. Perez found a French bank, Banque de L'Union Européenne of Paris, willing to underwrite the project. Though new to the Louisiana market, the bank was quite familiar with gondola systems. Upon the approval of a 60-year city franchise, the gondolas became a reality.

Construction of the custom-built aerial gondola system began on September 29, 1983, after a host of clearances from sixty-four state, city, and river agencies that shared jurisdiction over the project. Pomagalski S.A., of Grenoble, France supplied the equipment while MART/Perez Inc. constructed the gondola system.

To operate in a generally flat city, two 360 foot steel cable towers spaced 2169 feet apart were built to anchor the aerial gondola system. They were designed at a 20-degree tilt toward the river in order to protect the integrity of the Mississippi River levees. The gondola system included eight safety switches and a unique rescue vehicle known as a Pomabus; this was a self-propelled cart that could traverse a stopped cable and enclose a gondola so passengers could be removed and brought back to the terminal. Evidence suggests that the Pomabus never had to be used.

MART ranked with Disney's Space Mountain ride as the two best thrill rides in America during the six months of the exposition. Despite its popularity, the gondola struggled to attract the anticipated 3 million riders -- mainly because of the fair's low attendance. The fate of the gondolas was tied closely to the fair's success -- or lack of success. Riders either had to buy a fair ticket or possess a season passport before they could purchase a gondola ticket.

After the fair closed, the gondola system was promoted as a unique commuter system. MART officials hoped that West Bankers would ride the gondola daily to and from the east bank, especially to the Central Business District. A commuter could purchase a $25 unlimited (per month) ride ticket or a $50 ticket; the latter included daily parking at the lot adjacent to the West Bank terminal. West Bankers did not embrace the concept nor did the residents of old Algiers welcome the additional automobile traffic during the fair. Four months after the bankrupt LWE closed, its signature attraction ceased operation permanently.

While legal battles concerning loan payments, property rights, and ownership ensued, the last remaining structure of the fair remained idle. The New Orleans Dock Board began the process of having the entire system dismantled. In 1992, the passenger cars were sold, and in 1994 the US Coast Guard ordered the removal of the 360 foot steel towers and their cables. MART did not become a legendary landmark of the 1984 World's Fair, but for thousands of fairgoers it provided a lifelong memory.

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