During August 1976, Walter Brock, a program director for the community radio station KCHU in Dallas, Texas, visited the city of New Orleans for the first time. Brock found himself drawn to the music that "always made the city dance" [1] and was…

In the early years of the film industry, few aspects of the industry were more important than distribution. Film exchanges handled the repair, rental, and advertisement of motion pictures both locally and across geographic regions. Exchanges worked…

The site of Audubon Park today was once a twelve and one-half arpent plantation bought and owned by Pierre Foucher. Foucher abandoned his plantation before the Civil War and fled to France, never returning to Louisiana. The abandoned plantation was…

“One of the handsomest structures in the city will be the new building of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association,” [1] said an article from the New Orleans States when the Athenaeum opened in 1896. With various Jewish families from the New Orleans area…

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a 2008 Oscar winning film by director David Fincher, filmed primarily in uptown New Orleans. The film was adapted from a 1922 short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald by the same name, from the collection “Tales of…

The Liberty Theatre owned by the Saenger Amusement Company and managed under the auspices of Boehringer Amusement Company opened in 1918. The theater was lavishly designed with the intention of being “the most complete motion picture theater in the…

The Leeds Iron Foundry was owned and operated by Charles Leeds. It was located at Delord and Constance Streets during the Antebellum period of the nineteenth century. The foundry was opened in 1824. Leeds became a partner in 1844 upon his father’s…

The Prytania Theatre is the oldest operating theater in New Orleans, dating back to 1915. It is the only single-screen, suburban theater in the state of Louisiana. It caters to film buffs and families alike with its eclectic selection of film…

A Streetcar Named Desire is the title of a 1947 Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Tennessee Williams, adapted in 1951 for the big screen by director Elia Kazan. It is undoubtedly one of the most famous film depictions of the City of New Orleans, despite…

The Saenger Amusement Company purchased this lot on Canal Street in 1921 for $250,000 with plans to erect a lavish million-dollar theater. [1] The Saenger Theater opened its doors on February 5, 1927. [2] The venue began as a silent movie house, with…

The TheaterDesigned by architect William Bergman, the theater was first opened in 1973 as The New Orleans Theater for the Performing Arts. Its 2,100 seats were filled up with those citizens of New Orleans who sought to be entertained by some of the…

Lafayette Square is located in what is now known as the Central Business District. Previously home Bertrand Gravier's plantation, the land was divided in 1788 to create Faubourg Ste. Marie, New Orleans’ first suburb. Lafayette Square is the second…

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 operating in 12 southern states, along with Cuba,…

Between 1796 and 1893, no fewer than 35 yellow fever epidemics struck New Orleans. The Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1878 caused over 800 deaths in just one month. In an attempt to quell the spread of disease, of which the cause was unknown, foreign ships…

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 grandeur and spectacle of the Hotel’s exchange…

In the early 1900s, only white citizens and black attorneys were permitted to use New Orleans public libraries, a cause for great concern among many black leaders in the city. James Hardy Dillard, Tulane Professor and advocate for African American…

The 1980s saw a notable decline in the park's prestige. Numerous residents wrote letters to the editor in the Times Picayune complaining about litter in the park; one letter was titled “Palmer Park Dump.” The most common complaints were about broken…

For many Congo Square is the site that inspires the most fantastical images of enslaved life in New Orleans. From the 1840s to the 1880s, intellectuals and artists like George Washington Cable, Louis Gottschalk, and Lafcadio Hearn brought Congo…

The 1970s was a period of contention over the future of Palmer Park as local residents opposed efforts by the city to incorporate the park and convert it to a playground. Residents, labeling themselves “Concerned Citizens of Carrollton,” ran an…

Though designated for public use, Palmer Park was segregated until the 1970s. The park’s namesake, Benjamin Palmer, was a staunch defender of slavery and leading segregationist, set a tone of antagonism towards the black community early on. The…