Stories tagged "Disasters and Epidemics": 26
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Streets on the Table Episode 2: Dr. Sherwood "Woody" Gagliano
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…
Toxic Chemicals Deposited at Agriculture Street Landfill
In 1948, facing increased public health concerns, the Louisiana State Legislature passed a law prohibiting open-air landfills in highly populated areas. [1] However, New Orleans city officials…
Gordon Plaza Residents' Present Day Political Activism
For decades, residents of Gordon Plaza engaged (and continue to engage) in political activism to spread public awareness about toxic contamination in their neighborhood. Residents hope to achieve fair…
Gordon Plaza Deemed EPA Superfund Site
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…
Constructing Gordon Plaza
In the 1970s, under the administrations of Mayors “Moon” Landrieu and his successor “Dutch” Morial, the city planned and built housing for elderly and low-income families on the former site of…
Local Residents Demand Closure of Agriculture Street Landfill
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…
Agriculture Street Landfill Opening and Operations
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…
Irish Canal Workers: Defying Odds and Defying Expectations
Paper Monuments Project #025:
Algiers Immigrant Quarantine Detention Center
Treatment and quarantine of newly arrived immigrants at ports around New Orleans were based on discriminatory ideologies and lead to the mistreatment of many people who arrived in this region from…
Jackson Barracks: The Readiness Centers and the Barracks' Place in the Community
The Washington Artillery, now known as the 141st Field Artillery Regiment, is Louisiana's most historic military unit. Jackson Barracks has been its home since 1923. Part of the post-storm…
Jackson Barracks: "Building 35" and Post Headquarters
The current Post Headquarters buildings were built in the early 20th century and are deemed historic structures. They housed various offices over the years. Units headquartered in these buildings have…
Carville Patients' Cemetery, National Leprosarium.
The Carville cemetery is the only stop on the tour where you may exit your vehicle and take photographs. Just beyond the cemetery is a hospital incinerator with a driving ramp and tower built in…
Carville, The National Leprosarium: Patient Life
In 1940, the patient population was between 400 and 450 and a massive renovation was underway. The improved hospital created individual rooms for 450 patients and the 13” thick concrete walls made the…
Circle Food Store
Originally the St. Bernard Market founded in 1854, Circle Food Store was a community gathering space which housed a grocery store, bakery, pharmacy, uniform shop, dentist, chiropractor, bill payment…
Dryades Streetcar Maims Child in the 1920s
In an era when urban planners tout streetcars as engines of urban redevelopment, it is good to remember how dangerous these urban railroads could be.
In the oral history below, the late journalist…
Josephine Louise House
Mrs. Newcomb bought this house across from the Washington Avenue campus for a residence hall for the growing school in 1894. The original Josephine Louise House was managed by Alice Bowman, who was…
O-K Line: Railroad Collision at Southport, 1926
On the evening of November 18, 1926, a railcar of the Orleans-Kenner Traction Co. (popularly called the "O-K Line") was traveling through Southport when it was hit by the rear end of a Louisiana…
Inner Harbor Navigation Canal (Industrial Canal) and the Lower Ninth Ward
Now known as the historic Lower Ninth Ward, this area orginated as a cypress swamp featuring many bayous. In this rural setting, residents enjoyed ready access to fishing grounds and grew okra and…
Lower Ninth Ward Levee Breaches in 2005
Pre-Katrina, the area immediately in front of the east breaches of the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal (a.k.a. the Industrial Canal) was a dense, thriving neighborhood of primarily African American…
London Avenue Canal Levee Breach in 2005
In 1965, Hurricane Betsy demonstrated that a major hurricane could overtop the earthen levees of the London Avenue Canal. So the Army Corps of Engineers recommended two plans -- raising the height of…
17th Street Canal Levee Breach in 2005
In 1965, Hurricane Betsy demonstrated that a major hurricane could overtop the earthen levees of the 17th Street Canal. So the Army Corps of Engineers recommended two cost-effective plans which were…
Alley of Oaks and the 1884 Cotton Centennial Exposition
Continue on the path in the direction you have been traveling, along the Olmsted lagoon. Soon you arrive at one end of the Foucher alley of oaks, planted in the eighteenth century. Scores of…
Termites and Historic Preservation
While termites have lived and thrived in the world for over two hundred million years, the truly destructive subterranean Formosan termites did not arrive in New Orleans until after World War II,…
New Canal Lighthouse
In the 1830s, Irish and German immigrants dug the New Basin Canal as a link between New Orleans and Lake Pontchartrain. The lake end of the canal featured the New Canal Lighthouse, originally an…