Mid-Century Bourbon Street

Tulane Digital Library and the Southeastern Architectural Archive are happy to announce a new Digital Collection of mid-century New Orleans photographs.

Walter Cook Keenan (1881-1970), the first architect of the Vieux Carré Commission (VCC), took the photographs in order to document violations of the Vieux Carré Ordinance (VCO). Beginning in 1944, the VCC increasingly sought to regulate the appearance of building facades, especially by limiting signage and prohibiting the use of neon. As VCC architect, Keenan conducted daily property inspections to document VCO violations.

Entertainment businesses along Bourbon Street were notably affected by the ordinance and Keenan recorded nearly every property along the artery more than once. Bourbon Street's night clubs, jazz musicians, burlesque shows, restaurants and boarding houses became his photographic subjects. The collection includes images of Sloppy Joe's, Lenny Gale's Sugar Bowl, the Old Barn Bar, Zonia's Cocktail Lounge, Ciro's, the Magic Lock, the Famous Door, 418 Bar, Dixie's Bar of Music, and Stormy's Casino Royale. Signs for burlesque dancers Evangeline, Bubbles, Kalantan, Pam Holloway, and Stormy's Mother also feature prominently.

Image above: Walter Cook Keenan. 327 Bourbon Street. 16 September 1949. Walter Cook Keenan New Orleans Architecture Photographs, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

2517-2519 Columbus Street

In 1938, New Orleans architects Andry & Feitel developed plans for a two-story frame structure for Reverend Alphonse Janssens for the St. Rose of Lima parish. Paul Andry (1868-1946) had already designed a new church (1914) and brick school (1925) for the parish before receiving this commission.

The two-story weatherboard building was intended to function as a school annex, accommodating restrooms, additional classrooms, an auditorium and a cafeteria. Reverend Janssens contributed personal funds towards the building, as he had with earlier parish building projects.(1)

The Southeastern Architectural Archive retains plans for all three St. Rose of Lima structures, as well as block plans for the properties the parish acquired. The Louisiana Research Collection has additional holdings relevant to the church that have been described in the department blog.

(1)Roger Baudier, Sr. Centennial/St. Rose of Lima Parish/New Orleans, LA. New Orleans: 1957, p. 56. Louisiana Research Collection, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Images above: Andry & Feitel, architects. Raised Frame Parochial School Building for St. Rose de Lima Parish. [2517-2519 Columbus Street] 30 June 1938; Revised 7 July 1938. Andry & Feitel Office Records, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Sully's Penthouse Office

New Orleans architect Thomas Sully (1885-1939) designed his own offices on the eleventh floor of the Hennen Building located at 201-203 Carondelet/800-814 Common Street. A previous post included photographs of the building exterior and his office interior. His suite included a drafting room, individual offices, a vault, blueprinting operations and access to the roof garden. The drafting & blueprinting room skylights provided natural illumination. Two stairways accommodated access to an attic; one of them provided access to a tenth-story bath house and barbershop.

Between 1896 & 1898 Sully, Burton & Stone Company expanded the Hennen Building's top floor to create additional office spaces. The roof garden was lost in the process.

In 1921, Emile Weil altered the Henenn for the Canal-Commercial Trust & Savings Bank by adding two additional bays on the upriver Carondelet Street side and extending the eleventh story. He significantly transformed the lower portion of the street facade by removing the original  fenestration and surface ornamentation.

The Hennen Building -- now called the Maritime -- has been on the National Register since 1986.

Image above:  Thomas Sully & Company, architect. Eleventh Floor alterations, The Hennen Building. Undated. Sam Stone Jr. Office Records, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Central City 1970

In 1970, New Orleans architect Edward B. Silverstein (1909-1989) received a commission to alter the old Dryades Market building located at the corner of Dryades (now Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard) and Melpomene Streets. He was already very familiar with the historic property, as he had worked on the building twice before, the first time nearly twenty years prior. In 1951, his office was able to secure copies of the original 1911 drawings by City Engineer William Joseph Hardee and his assistant Maurice Woulfe, which had included the design of a large arcade conjoining the downriver vegetable market to the upriver meat market, as well as substantive provisions for reinforcing the Melpomene Street roadbed since it covered a subterranean canal.

The structure had already undergone massive renovations during the 1930s. In 1931, Sam Stone, Jr. (1869-1933) developed plans to widen Melpomene Street for vehicular traffic and remove the lower portion of the arcade. He replaced portions of the foundation and the trussing system, modernized the plumbing, added refrigeration units and significantly altered the interior stalls.

Silverstein's first alterations to the structure were developed in partnership with Leon Weiss (1882-1952). Weiss and Silverstein modernized the Dryades Street facade  by replacing it with multiple storefronts comprised of plate glass windows unified by a porcelain enamel frieze. In the late 1950s, Silverstein further altered some of the stores by adding modern lighting and sound systems.

Economic decline was affecting the structure when Charles L. Franck took this photograph (above/circa 1970). Silverstein hired the photographer to record existing conditions relevant to the former meat market building, as some of the shop owners leasing storefronts desired additional security features. Silverstein made his last alterations by replacing his earlier plate glass windows with a brick veneer and adding roll-up metal security doors.

Image above: Charles L. Franck, photographer. Project Number 874. Circa 1970. Edward B. Silverstein Office Records, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries. This image is issued by the Southeastern Architectural Archive. Use of the image requires written permission from the staff of the SEAA. It may not be sold or redistributed, copied or distributed as a photograph, electronic file, or any other media. The user is responsible for all issues of copyright.

Reproduction & Preservation

We have mentioned in an earlier post the relationship between architectural reprographic processes and jazz music in New Orleans. Tulane University's Hogan Jazz Archive retains the blueprint-laden manuscript collection of local musician John Hyman, aka Johnny Wiggs.

For those interested in large format duplication processes, catalogs published by the Eugene Dietzgen Company provide considerable information. Product number 4310B (top image) was a sheet washer for developing blueprints and negative prints in running water. A clamping device fixed the drawing into a near-vertical position for the washing process. Wet prints could be dried on the rack attached to the top of the washer.

Dietzgen vacuum print frames were sold individually (bottom image) or with high power arc lamps (central image). The company recommended the individual print frame for both electric and sun printing. The frame's vacuum pump connected to a rubber blanket designed to keep the sensitized paper and the trace material firmly in position against the glass plate.

When the vacuum print frame was coupled with the lamps, Dietzgen recommended its use for processing Vandykes and Edco process prints. The latter was the company's method of reproducing original tracings by making a Vandyke negative of the original tracing and then placing the intermediate directly atop a sensitized cloth (called Edco Process Cloth) and exposing the sheets to light as one would do in the development of a blueprint. After the Edco Process Cloth was exposed, the technician would rinse it with water, apply a developing liquid, rinse it a second time, and hang the print out to dry.

Companies such as Dietzgen encouraged architectural and engineering businesses to make duplicates of original tracings for preservation purposes: "This is the best insurance known, for the duplicate may be filed away in a vault, or elsewhere, safe from loss or damage by fire."(1)

(1)Catalog of Eugene Dietzgen Co., Manufacturers Blue Print Papers/Drafting Room supplies/Survey Instruments/and Accessories/Measuring Tapes. Chicago: Eugene Dietzgen Co., 1931, p. 33.

Images above:  Catalog of Eugene Dietzgen Co., Manufacturers Blue Print Papers/Drafting Room supplies/Survey Instruments/and Accessories/Measuring Tapes. Chicago: Eugene Dietzgen Co., 1931.
Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

DIY French Quarter Walking Tour

If you are visiting New Orleans and plan to walk through the French Quarter, you may want to use this map. Photograph collector Frank Boatner printed it to chart the many historic buildings he researched, including the French Opera House and the Three Sisters. It may come in handy for your own promenade.

Map for a Promenade through the Historic Vieux Carre of New Orleans. Undated map. Frank H. Boatner Collection of Louisiana Architecture Photographs, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Howard-Tilton Memorial Library Construction

In December 1968, Library Journal featured an article about Tulane University's new Howard-Tilton Memorial Library (construction progress photographs shown above). Designed by the New Orleans firm Nolan, Norman and Nolan with consulting assistance of Harvard University Librarian Keyes D. Metcalf (1889-1983), the building was the largest new library to be reported that year. Tulane received nearly $2 million in federal grants to support the $6.2 million project.(1)

LJ reported:

"BIG AS IT IS, Tulane's Howard-Tilton Memorial Library is only about one-half of its ultimate size. Part of its construction cost represents an investment in future expansion: foundations capable of bearing another four floors atop the first floor, plus an elevator shaft which is to be unused until the building grows.

Built on a 25-foot module, the building presents a massive and simply designed exterior, with both the ground and fourth floors completely walled in glass, and the rest of the building with concrete aggregate.

The new library is across the street from the old one, and already holds some 700,000 volumes, or 75 percent of the university's total collections. It took a wooden ramp and 11,271 book truck trips to make the move across the street."

Today, visitors to the library will have noticed that its entrance has been moved to the Freret Street facade in preparation for the construction of two additional floors. Keep abreast of the progress here.

(1) "Local Affairs." The Times-Picayune (11 June 1965): p. 1; "U.S. Fund Totaling $2,039,833 Approved for Three N.O. Universities." The Times-Picayune (22  June 1965): p. 20. Building cost was $5.5 million; equipment cost was $655,000.

Images above:  B. Samuels, photographer. Pile Driving. 2 September 1966; Form Setting. 1 February 1967; Concrete Pour. 8 May 1967. Nolan, Norman and Nolan Office Records, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.