Dryades Streetcar Maims Child in the 1920s
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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 and historian Charles "Pie" Dufour, in what may have been his last formal interview, describes the maiming of a child on the Dryades Line in the early 1920s.
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Jesuit Church of the Immaculate Conception, Dome, foreground
"Pie" Dufour was on his way to Jesuit High School, which remained at the intersection of Baronne and Common Streets, adjacent to the Church of the Immaculate Conception, until 1926. Library of Congress
St. John the Baptist Church, Dryades Street, circa mid-1950s
St. John the Baptist Church still stands on what has been renamed Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard, between Clio and Calliope Streets. The adjacent parish school was being prepared for demolition when this image was recorded. This may have been the school "Pie" Dufour refers to when relating the horrible accident he witnessed. Courtesy of Louisiana Division/City Archives, New Orleans Public Library
Dryades Streetcar Tracks re-emerge, 2007
The Dryades Line ceased operating in 1929. Courtesy of Derek BridgesLate Historian Charles "Pie" Dufour Describes Dryades Maiming
Source: Videotaped by Ed Jackson, David Wolf, and Michael Mizell-Nelson. | Date: 1993Map
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