Field Trip: Ciudad de Mexico

Knowing that the former Mexican Mining Pavilion from the World's Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition (New Orleans, 1884-85) had been returned to Mexico after the fair, I ventured up to Santa María la Ribera to see it. 

When it debuted in New Orleans, the pavilion was immensely popular. Designed by Mexican architect José Ramón Ibarrola, the $200,0000 iron structure was cast at the Union Mills Steel Foundry in Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania under the patronage of Andrew Carnegie. Certain ornamental features emulated Spain's Alhambra Palace, and subsequently the pavilion was dubbed "the Mexican Alhambra." It was used in promotions for the Exposition Universelle (Paris, 1889) and the Louisiana Purchase Exposition (St. Louis, 1904) although it never seems to have traveled to either place.

When the pavilion was re-erected in Mexico City, it was originally placed in the Parque Alameda Central. Diego de Rivera included it in the background of his mural Sueño de una tarde dominical en la Alameda Central (1948). The pavilion had been moved by 1948 to its current location in the center of the Alameda de Santa María la Ribera.

There was a photo shoot happening as I arrived, the model undergoing numerous costume changes over the course of an hour. My favorite for its relationship with the site was her Jarabe Tapatío dress, shown above.

Image above: Kiosko Morisco (Mexican Pavilion). Santa María la Ribera, Ciudad de Mexico, as photographed 4.19.2023 by K. Rylance.

 

NEW! Audubon Park Finding Aid

The Southeastern Architectural Archive recently finalized the processing of its Audubon Park Drawings. The collection includes scant architectural renderings – mostly blueprints – and one set of specifications pertaining to Audubon Park, situated on the former Foucher Plantation Tract and now located in the Sixth Municipal District of New Orleans, Louisiana. Two sheets reflect the park’s layout in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, one sheet indicating the position of Horticultural Hall (1884) and its proximity to the Louisiana Science and Agricultural Association’s experimentation station, designed by James Freret (1889). Four drawings are products of the Olmsted Brothers’ office in Brookline, Massachusetts (1918-1924). These are based on blueprint copies of New Orleans architect Emile Weil’s bandstand (1916-1921). Another set of blueprints and specifications reflect park commissioner Walter Cook Keenan’s designs for the flying bird cage in the Audubon Park Zoo, a Works Progress Administration project (1936; 1948) that replaced an earlier structure by Sam Stone, Jr.

 If you are unfamiliar with the Southeastern Architectural Archive's holdings, consult its list of "Finding Aids by Collection Name."

Early Car Camping

Early automobile tourists frequently slept in or near their vehicles. In the late teens and early twenties, such travelers were encouraged to set up camp in the Crescent City's municipal parks and along its levees. Both City Park and Audubon Park operated short-lived no-fee auto camps.

Norwegian-American pathfinder Anthon L. Westgard published a guide to car camping for the American Automobile Association in 1920. The guide, Official AAA Manual of Motor Car Camping, featured various advertisements for newly invented products, such as the A.B.C. Sleeper and the Stoll Auto Bed (shown above).

Westgard provided advice regarding setting up camp, travelers' attire and how to properly stock first aid kits. His guide featured recipes for making biscuits, cornmeal mush, squirrel and rabbit. His "Health Hints Worth Heeding" also included the following travelers' remedies:

For Lockjaw. --Warm a small quantity of spirits of turpentine and pound into the wound, and bathe backbone with cayenne pepper and water, or mustard and water (vinegar is even better than water). Use as hot as the sufferer can stand it.

To Remove Cinder or Sand from the Eye.--One or two grains of flaxseed placed in the eye. All campers should carry a few of these seeds. Or drop castor oil in the eye freely. Do not rub the sore eye--rub the other eye.

Images above:  A.L. Westgard. Official AAA Manual of Motor Car Camping. Washington, D.C. and New York: A.L. Westgard, 1920. Courtesy University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries.

Charlton & Pruitt: 588 Walnut Street

Architect-contractors Charles H. Charlton, Jr. (c. 1866-1940) and Edwin E. Pruitt, in partnership from 1894-1897, designed this Audubon Park residence for Mrs. Taylor. The furnished residence was available as a rental in the spring of 1897. In the early 1940s, it was converted to a fourplex and then to a triplex in the 1970s. The building's facade appears relatively unchanged today.

In the summer of 1894, Charlton and Pruitt advertised their new practice in The Daily Picayune. They first maintained an office at 808 Baronne Street, and later moved to Thomas Sully's Liverpool, London & Globe Building (200 Carondelet Street).  In 1896, Inland Architect and News Record published Charlton & Pruitt's rendering of a residence for A.L. Levy. The Chicago Art Institute's Ryerson & Burnham Library has digitized more than 5,000 images from the Midwest-based architecture periodical, and the Charlton-Pruitt sketch may be found here.

Image above: Advertisement, The Owl; Organ of the Young Men's Hebrew Association. Louisiana Research Collection, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.