WTC: Concrete's Poster Child

As Edward D. Stone's International Trade Center and Curtis & Davis' Exhibition Center (Rivergate) neared completion, the Portland Cement Association featured the structures in its Fortune magazine advertisements. Utilizing an illustration by poster artist Bob Peak (1927-92), Portland's copywriters stressed that concrete made good "business sense."

"Concrete gives a world trade center built-in sales appeal. The buildings of New Orleans' new International Trade Center are designed to serve the buyers and sellers of merchandise from every corner of the world. Here, through the imaginative use of concrete, is expressed the very spirit and pace of modern-day trade. In the Convention-Exhibition building, the New Orleans architects used a concrete barrel shell roof to create striking beauty, as well as an interior clear span of 225 feet, sufficient to seat 17,600 people. Textured exterior concrete walls provide tasteful concrete throughout. The highly compressible qualities of New Orleans' soils were mastered by prestressed concrete piles, providing firm foundations for the light but strong reinforced concrete frame and floors designed by advanced new structural criteria. Gleaming exterior curtain wall panels of precast concrete assure visual interest."

Image above: Bob Peak, illustrator for Portland Cement Association. "Concrete Gives a World Trade..." Promotional flyer. [Published in Fortune July 1965].  Architectural Trade Catalogs, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

WTC: First Thoughts

Edward D. Stone's early proposal for the International Trade Mart, located at the foot of Canal Street/The Mississippi River (1958). The structure is now known as the World Trade Center, and the city is currently reviewing five proposals for its rehabilitation.

From: The Annual Report of the Mayor. New Orleans: 1958/59. Jones Hall Louisiana Research Collection, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

New Orleans 360˚

Fifty years ago, The Times-Picayune reported on an important shipment from Stamford, CT to New Orleans. The Macton Machinery Company had completed the fabrication and assembly of the enormous turntable to be installed on the roof of Edward Durell Stone's International Trade Mart (ITM, now World Trade Center). Created with 180 low supporting wheels and 45 horizontal stabilizing wheels, the turntable resembled an enormous lazy susan measuring 97'11" in diameter.(1) Macton's team reassembled the turntable in New Orleans, and the ITM's rotating restaurant and cocktail lounge, the Top of the Mart, celebrated its grand opening on 2 January 1967.

Macton devoted its operations to the manufacture of such steel turntables. They initially undertook much smaller platforms, first for tailors and then for portable entertainment. Popular Mechanics reported on their products during the 1950s-60s. Frank Lloyd Wright utilized Macton turntables in his Park Avenue Jaguar (later Mercedes-Benz) showroom (1955) and the Kalita Humphreys Theatre (Dallas, 1959).

In 1911, millionaire Mary (Mrs. Levi Z.)  Leiter designed and built a revolving glass summer house in Beverly, Massachusetts:

"It stands at the end of some small gardens on a terrace overlooking the beach and sea. Its roof is constructed of small poles and is supported by rustic posts covered with rough bark. Around three sides of the structure heavy plates of glass are set. Curtains within are so arranged that the occupants can protect themselves from the hottest glare of the sun's rays. The structure is balanced upon ball bearings as nicely as the carriage of an expensive telescope."(2)

While Leiter's invention was meant to provide a healthy recreational experience, it was an Alsatian-born waiter turned restaurateur who patented revolving dining room floors in order to reduce the wear and tear on service workers. Antonie Martzolf filed his revolving dining room floor scheme in 1914 while managing the Gustony Restaurant at West 32nd Street in New York. He also developed a patent for a combination electric match stand and waiter-signal device so that customers could signal staff without noise.

The New Orleans Monteleone Hotel's Carousel Lounge operates on a similar principle to Martzolf's revolving dining room floor, only with bar staff situated at the center while customers make their 15-minute rotation. The Carousel opened in early September 1949, with bartenders serving a trademark cocktail, the Carousel. Glenn Flanders (1913-98), a University of Missouri-Columbia fine arts graduate based in St. Louis, designed the original Carousel interiors.

In 1958, a father-son team from New Orleans patented a rotating circular bed with an attached headboard-shelving unit-chairs. But that's another story.


(1)"Ship Unit to N.O. for ITM Tower." The Times-Picayune 20 December 1964.

(2)"Revolving House for Mrs. Leiter Nicely Balanced on Ball Bearings." The Times-Picayune 29 May 1911.

Images above:  Popular Mechanics: January 1951 & July 1964.

Consulates in New Orleans 1964

In 1964, the city of New Orleans paid honor to the members of the New Orleans Consular Corps and their "Ladies." The International Relations Office of the City of New Orleans, then located in Rathbone DeBuys'  International Trade Mart (#1), was the liaison office for the consular corps and arranged an event program that included an art exhibit and a performance by the New Orleans Recreation Department Civic Orchestra.

There were 41 consulates in New Orleans at the time:

Argentina
Austria
Belgium
Bolivia
Brazil
Canada
Chile
Colombia
Costa Rica
Denmark
Dominican Republic
Ecuador
El Salvador
Finland
France
Germany
Great Britain
Greece
Guatemala
Haiti
Honduras
Italy
Japan
Liberia
Mexico
Monaco
Netherlands
Nicaragua
Norway
Panama
Paraguay
Peru
Philippine Republic
Portugal
South Africa
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Uruguay
Venezuela
Yugoslavia

By 1969, many of these consulates and others were located in Edward Durell Stone's International Trade Mart (#2), located at 2 Canal Street, shown below.

Matt Anderson, photographer. Mississippi River from Plaza Tower, New Orleans, LA. Circa 1970. Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

For list of consulates, see: New Orleans International Relations Office. Second Annual Reception in honour of the New Orleans Corps and Their Ladies. New Orleans: 1964. Frank H. Boatner Collection, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Architect Cites Automotive Grip

As written by Glenn Fowler for The New York Times 24 June 1959, p. 48:

New Orleans, June 23 -- Automobile makers and the motor oil producers were challenged today to help the nation's cities fight their way out of an automotive stranglehold.

Edward D. Stone, a New York architect whose designs in recent years have earned him a world reputation, depicted the plight of major urban centers in the United States as the result of failure to realize that "the automobile and the pedestrian cannot be mixed."

"Since the horseless carriage is largely responsible for our troubles, and we are a country that eulogizes free enterprise," he said, "why hasn't it occurred to the great oil and automotive industries to try to resolve some of the problems they have created? Why can't they be shamed into financing studies on the planning of our towns and cities?"

Mr. Stone made his plea at the convention of the American Institute of Architects at the Roosevelt Hotel.

The designer of the United States pavilion at last year's Brussels World Fair and of many other well known buildings in this country and abroad also came out strongly for establishment of a Cabinet post in the Federal Government to deal with urban problems.

In his endorsement of his proposal, which has been made by several groups of planners, city officials and private citizens in the last few years, Mr. Stone stressed what he referred to as the imbalance in our present governmental arrangement between rural and urban interests.

"We need a Cabinet official corresponding to the Secretary of Agriculture," he said, "with outposts in every state, and with architects and planners whose task it would be to guide communities, just as the Agriculture Department's state and county agents have educated the farmer."

Mr. Stone urged architects to take the lead in promoting greater official use of planning tools. He chided them for wasting energy on intramural matters while they might better, in his view, be doing missionary work among the public at large and the country's officialdom.

If architects followed the course, he said, "we would not be wasting our effort on creating precious prototypes for our own personal satisfaction, in the midst of chaos, but rather adding individual and brilliant buildings in a well-ordered plan for our country as a whole."

He said architects themselves were to blame for what he termed a loss of status of their profession.

Read more via Pro-Quest Historical Newspapers.

Reconciling the Old & New Orleans

As reported by Harry V. Forgeron for the New York Times 18 February 1968:

"When the tourists come marching in for Mardi Gras this month, they will see a city that has jazzed up its 250th anniversary year with gleaming new buildings and meticulous restorations of its old French Quarter.

The melding of new and old would seem incongruous, but each type of architecture has its place and need in an expanding port city on the Mississippi that is rich in historical background.

In the downtown area, the sweeping, airy lines of the $13.5 million Rivergate exhibition facility nearing completion bear the unmistakable stamp of Curtis & Davis, architects who are spokesmen for modernity in the Crescent City.

But not far away at 1132 Rue Royal in the Vieux Carre (old square), is the home of Richard W. Freeman, Jr., secretary of the Louisiana Coca-Cola Bottling Company. Its wrought-iron "lace," tall black columns and classic white door frame speak just as eloquently for the restoration work of Koch & Wilson.

The 33-story International Trade Mart, designed by Edward Durell Stone, stands at the foot of Canal Street. Its president, Lloyd J. Cobb, a lawyer and breeder of Angus cattle and race horses, will happily admit that the building is 99 per cent occupied."

To read more of this article, consult the New York Times (1851-2005), the electronic database available through Tulane University Libraries.