Archive for Preservation
November Festivals Happening on New Orleans Main Streets
Posted by: | CommentsYou’ve probably noticed the abundance of festivals around town this month: The Fringe Festival, the Broad Street Brewhaha, the Po-Boy Festival… November is a great month to be out and about in New Orleans. But did you also know that these festivals are part of the larger Louisiana Main Street Program?
New Orleans Main Street Districts. Broad Street, North Rampart Street, Oak Street, OC Haley Boulevard, St. Claude Avenue
The goal of the Louisiana Main Street program is to promote the cultural heritage of Louisiana, cultural tourism, and historic preservation of America’s historic main streets. Each November, designated Main Streets in Louisiana are required to participate in the Louisiana Main to Main initiative by hosting a festival that celebrates its unique heritage. These annual events are big boosts to individual Main Street communities because it promotes awareness of their efforts, stimulates the local economy, promotes local history, and brings residents together in order to create a sense of community pride.
There are a total of 35 designated Main Streets in Louisiana. New Orleans currently has 5 Main Street communities, and each of them have held festivals over the course of this month. Some of them have already happened, but you still have time to attend the Po-Boy Festival on Oak Street and the North RampART Festival on North Rampart Street. Go out and show your support for our local Main Streets!
Broad Street and the Broad Street Brewhaha
North Rampart Street and the North RampART Festival
Oak Street and the Po-Boy Fest
OC Haley Boulevard and the Make a Joyful Noise Gospel and Arts Festival
St. Claude Avenue and the Fringe Festival
To view some of the historic properties located on designated Main Street districts in New Orleans and pictures from a few of the festivals, please view our New Orleans Main Street Districts set on our Flickr site.
The Annual Po-Boy Festival on Oak Street
City To Hold Public Auction for Two Historic Firehouses
Posted by: | CommentsThe City of New Orleans is offering two historic firehouses for sale via public auction.
The first property at 718 Mandeville Street is a fabulous two-story Arts and Crafts building located in Faubourg Marginy, a neighborhood which just received recognition as one of the top 10 great neighborhoods in America for 2009 by the American Planning Association. The starting bid for this property is $190,000 with subsequent bids in $200 increments.
718 Mandeville
The second property at 1421 St. Roch Avenue was built in 1916, and is another great example of Arts and Crafts style located in the New Marigny neighborhood. The starting bid for this property is $85,000 with subsequent bids in $200 increments.
1421 St. Roch Ave.
We hope to see these properties sold to loving new owners who will restore them both to their former glory!
Auction information:
Wednesday October 28, 2009
10 A.M. City Council Chamber
City Hall – Civic Center
1300 Perdido St
New Orleans, LA 70112
400 Block of S. Rampart: Landmarks’ 9 Most Endangered
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For nearly a decade, Jerome “PopAgee” Johnson has been trying to buy the entirety of Rampart’s 400 riverside block, envisioning a Jazz history destination that showcases African American impact on the development of the genre. It’s been a frustrating, complicated and expensive project, full of pitfalls and spiraling costs.
Although there hasn’t been very much of a payoff to this effort- Johnson finally acquired one of the block’s four important buildings in 2008 and hasn’t managed to renovate it as yet- let’s take a look at the history at stake on this block:
Frank Doroux’s Eagle Saloon (401-403 Rampart) Built in 1875, the building was originally maintained by the Odd Fellows Fraternal organization, which maintained its ballroom on the third floor. Downstairs in the saloon, future jazz greats such as Joseph “King” Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton, Sidney Bechet, Kid Ory, and Buddy Bolden got their starts. Louis Armstrong marveled as the man he referred to as “Papa Oliver” played in the building and he would later play with Oliver in the Creole Jazz Band.
The Iroquois Theater (413-415 Rampart)- Built in 1911 by George A. Thomas (who also ran the famous CrackerJack Drugstore across the street at 435 Rampart, a notorious Voodoo/Hoodoo shop catering to African Americans), it quickly became the most popular Vaudeville and movie theater catering to middle-class African Americans in the city. The bill changed constantly, but were always on the edge of going too far- risky and risqué, the double- entendre was always welcome at the Iroquois, though questions of what was too ‘smutty’ often arose. By the early 1920s, the balance of Vaudeville to motion pictures had tipped, with movies being shown each night until the theater closed in 1927. Louis Armstrong won a talent contest singing and dancing at the Iriquois Theater.
The Model Tailors/Morris Music (427 Rampart)- The owners of The Model Tailors, Karnofsky family, had a profound impact on Louis Armstrong’s development. Armstrong’s own world was rough-and-tumble, and he found the Karnofsky family, Lithuanian Jewish immigrants, to be warm, welcoming and stable and he worked for them and lived with them throughout much of his childhood. After Karnofsky’s closed the tailor shop, it became Morris Music, the first store catering to Jazz records and an African American clientèle.
Frank Doroux’s Little Gem Saloon (445-449 Rampart) (Also David Pailet’s Loan Office from 1926-1949 and Pete’s Blue Heaven Lounge in the 1950s)- this is where the jazz musicians and vaudevillians that played the local clubs would come to unwind and relax after their gigs. It became such a central hotspot that it became the place where Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club’s Jazz funerals and parades both began and ended.
It was in this block where a 12 year old Louis Armstrong fired a gun into the air on New Year’s Eve in 1912. He was arrested and brought to the Colored Waif’s Home where he began to take formal coronet lessons.
This year the Louisiana Landmarks Society deemed the entire block to be threatened and worthy of saving, placing it upon the list of New Orleans’ Nine Most Endangered Sites.
While several attempts have been made to renovate these buildings, so far no renovations have been completed.
Duncan Plaza update: State office and Supreme Court buildings demolished
Posted by: | CommentsNOLA.com ran a piece today about Duncan Plaza’s origins and the demolition completion. In it, Bruce Eggler quotes a Times- Picayune editorial from 1957, at the opening of the new City Hall:
“Orleanians of later generations will probably take for granted the five-structure Civic Center dominated by the gleaming 11-story City Hall. It is easy to imagine them thinking, ‘We’re a big, proud city. It’s only what we deserve.’ It will be human nature.”
The editorial concluded: “Now is the time to reflect on the vision and energy of the men who planned and built the new heart of the city.”
Demolished: State Building at Duncan Plaza
Wise words, unheeded.
The fate of these buildings is sealed, but the future of City Hall is still a matter of debate. Hopefully, this rare peice of modernist history will be salvaged, repaired, and restored to its original gleaming promise.
Our original Duncan Plaza story can be found here.
Learn more about preservation of the recent past on the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s blog, Preservation Nation.
Two-Bay Creole Cottages
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A beautifully renovated two-bay Creole cottage in the Marigny Triangle
Two-bay Creole cottages are a relatively rare architectural type found only in New Orleans oldest residential neighborhoods. At first glance, these homes may look like a typical two-bay single shotgun house, but there are distinct differences between the two.
Creole cottages pre-date shotguns by roughly half a century, appearing during the late 18th to early 19th centuries, while shotguns appeared around 1840. Creole cottages are more shallow than shotguns, but the easiest way to tell them apart is by the roof line. The roof line of a shotgun runs perpendicular to the street, while a Creole cottage roof line runs parallel to the street.
Additionally, Creole cottages generally have a steep gabled roof that contain a half-story on the second floor, while shotguns usually have hipped roofs and do not contain a second floor (with the exception of camelback shotguns). Finally, Creole cottages have an overhang or abat-vent and are built right up to the sidewalk, while shotguns generally have galleries and are set further back on the property.
Most Creole cottages have four bays (usually two doors and two windows in front). The four-bay cottages are two rooms wide and two rooms deep. There are no interior hallways (which improved circulation before modern air conditioners) and each room opens into the next. Kitchens were initially built in a separate outbuilding in the back of the property, but after 1840 they were built as attachments to the back of the cottage.
The two-bay Creole cottage is small by today’s standards, being half the size of the four-bay with two openings in front, one room wide, and two rooms deep. The earliest examples contained two doors that opened onto the sidewalk, but after 1830 one door and one window became standard. Most of them were weatherboarded, but some were brick-between-post construction or plastered brick.
Although four-bay cottages are still prevalent in New Orleans, the two-bays are fairly rare. They appear in neighborhoods like Treme, Marigny, and New Marigny with greater frequency simply because those areas were being developed during a time when the type was very popular, and before the time when shotguns became more widely used. In an effort to document the remaining two-bay Creole cottages and advocate for their continued preservation, we will be locating and photographing them in the coming weeks. Keep an eye on the PRC’s Flickr page for new photographs of this wonderful, early type of New Orleans architecture!
Prominent Pittsburgh Preservationist Stanley A. Lowe Attacked
Posted by: | CommentsPlease join us in our thoughts and prayers for Stanley A. Lowe, a dedicated preservationist who has been crucial to Pittsburgh’s revitalization and New Orleans’ post-Katrina recovery. Stanley was the victim of a violent break in that left him with multiple stab wounds, but is expected to make a full recovery.
Stanley has dedicated his life to improving the historic fabric and livability of cities throughout the country, including playing a role in New Orleans’ ongoing recovery effort. He had been the vice president of National Trust, recently resigning that post to free up time to play a more active role in New Orleans and his local neighbhorhood.
We at the PRC are particularly saddened as we were privileged to work with him in the aftermath of the storm. Stanley came in and helped us quickly evaluate the condition of the city and determine how best to effectively move forward and assist the our fellows. He arrived full of passion and principle, never flagging in his dedication to the cause. He was and continues to be an inspiration, and we wish him a speedy and full recovery.
