NOLA in Kansas

Listening to WWOZ this weekend, I heard Truckstop Honeymoon's "Mardi Gras in Kansas" for the first time. The duo left Ninth Ward New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and settled in Lawrence, Kansas. They established their 9th Ward Pickin' Parlor, a recording studio in a "barn-style cottage."

Listen to their August 2010 NPR displacement interview here.

Happy Lundi Gras!

First California Bungalow

New Orleans architect Morgan D.E. Hite (1882-1959) claimed that the first California-style bungalow built in New Orleans was this one, completed in April 1911. Francis P. Hammatt was the contractor, Hite the architect. The frame structure was located at 3117 North Galvez Street in the Ninth Ward.

Image above: "A Little Matter of History." Building Review (November 1920): p. 17. Louisiana Research Collection, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

The People's Slaughterhouse

In March 1892, Brooklyn architect J.Graham Glover (1852-) published his competition proposal for the new People's Slaughterhouse and Refrigerating Company to be located in New Orleans' Ninth Ward at Alabo Street and the Mississippi River (top image).(1) Ultimately, his design was not selected, and instead the commission went to the local Williams Brothers, who developed a more modest scheme (second & third images) that utilized a simple frame structure as the corporate office (fourth image).

By 1895, the People's Slaughterhouse was modernized under new management operating as the New Orleans Abattoir Company, Limited. The main structure was demolished in the summer of 1964 and its accoutrements publicly sold.

If you want to read more about nineteenth-century New Orleans slaughterhouses, see Lindgren Johnson's "To 'Admit All Cattle without Distinction': Reconstructing Slaughter in the Slaughterhouse Cases and the New Orleans Crescent City Slaughterhouse," chap. in Paula Lee, editor. Meat, Modernity and the Rise of the Slaughterhouse. University of New Hampshire Press, 2008.

(1)American Architect & Building News (12 March 1892). Louisiana Architecture Prints, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Top image from (1).

Others from: Williams Family Records, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Gehry in New Orleans

As Frank Gehry's new Make It Right house has been gaining attention, it reminded us that the Southeastern Architectural Archive retains drawings of the architect's first New Orleans project, the Louisiana World Exposition Amphitheater.

An American Institute of Architects award-winning structure, the LWE amphitheater was designed in 1983. Originally the city expressed an interest in retaining the amphitheater beyond the duration of the World's Fair, but the Dock Board  had concerns about the structure's impact on wharf operations and property owner Lester Kabacoff felt that it would obstruct river views.

The Liggett and Myers Quality Seal Amphitheater -- the structure's promotional identity -- was dismantled shortly after the fair ended.

Image above:  Inverted detail, Frank O. Gehry & Associates, Inc. L.W.E. Amphitheater. 12 January 1983. Perez Associates 1984/Louisiana World Exposition Records, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collection Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Dedication of the Industrial Canal

This photograph was taken by an unidentified photographer on 5 May 1923 during the dedication of the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal. Governor Parker addressed the thousands who had gathered at the locks to celebrate the public holiday. Dauphine and Claiborne Avenue streetcars transported hundreds of visitors to the Ninth Ward location.

The photograph includes the steamboats Susquehanna and Aunt Dinah as well as a dock board tugboat that participated in the event's marine pageant.

Image above: Unidentified photographer. Dedication of the Industrial canal. 5 May 1923. Miscellaneous Photographs Collection, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

New Orleans in New York/New York in New Orleans

From today's New York Times:

"With a star-filled roster of 81 artists and a projected 50,000 visitors from out of town, it may indeed bring benefits to New Orleans. But it is already clear that the arrangement has not been one-sided, and the New Orleans contribution has been rich. With its history of destruction and rebirth, artistic triumph and economic struggle, this crumpled crescent of a city provides a singular interpretive context that acts as a resonance chamber."

To read the rest of Shaila Dewan's piece about Prospect.1, click here. To watch a slide show, click here.