NEW! Hertzberg Finding Aid/UPhO #8

The Southeastern Architectural Archive (SEAA) recently finalized the processing of the Rudolf Hertzberg Louisiana Architecture Photographs. Levee engineer Rudolf Hertzberg (1906-1982) donated the prints and corresponding negatives to the Tulane School of Architecture during the Second World War. These were part of an open collection that served faculty and students. During the 1970s, those contact prints and negatives still extant were transferred to Tulane University Libraries. Hertzberg donated an additional set of prints and negatives in 1972 and Library staff unified the two donations to form a single collection that entered the SEAA when it was founded in 1980.

Read more here.

Anyone know the location?  Van Geffen's Bakery was located at 1325 St. Bernard Avenue, but we have been unable to locate the Susie-Q-Inn. This is one of many Unidentified Photographic Objects [UPhOs] in the SEAA.

UPDATE:  KUDOS to the SEAA's Kevin Williams for locating the structures, 1201-1203 St. Philip Street/1005-1007 Henriette Delille Street (formerly St. Claude).

Image above:  Rudolf Hertzberg, photographer. Susie-Q-Inn. 1201 St. Philip Street/1005-1007 St. Claude [Now Henriette Delille Street]. New Orleans. Circa 1938. Rudolf Hertzberg Louisiana Architecture Photographs, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

War of the Trees

This blog has previously addressed New Orleans' growing parking concerns and the development of private motor stations after the invention of the automobile.

In the winter of 1920, the city's Parking Commission provoked public outcry when it began to fell live oak, sycamore and elm trees along Esplanade Avenue between Liberty (now Treme) Street and North Claiborne Avenue. With the support of architect and Commissioner of Public Property Sam Stone, Jr. (1869-1933) and under the authority of Parking Commission President W.H. Douglas, Superintendent E.A. Farley coordinated the tree removal. Esplanade Avenue residents voiced their outrage, especially when Douglas admitted that the railway company was financing the activity. Dentist George Bernard Crozat, who lived at 1222, expressed to The Times-Picayune:

'It would appear as if some commission or other is constantly trying to wipe out every vestige of historic interest in the Vieux Carre* . . . It is an inexcusable outrage to cut down the beautiful trees of our avenue. Look at them! They tell us they are dead. Their hearts are as sturdy as our own. See the splendid foliage which will never wave again. We must save what remains at all costs.'

Residents claimed that some of the avenue's trees had been planted by Jean-Baptiste LeMoyne, Sieur de Bienville (1680-1767), and "threatened to shoot if certain trees were destroyed."

Read more in The Times-Picayune 6 February 1902, p. 2.

*Another earlier post addressed changing notions of the Vieux Carre. See "The Heart of the French Quarter." Architecture Research 23 June 2009.

Image above: Copy print from glass plate negative. George F. Mugnier (1855-1936). Esplanade Avenue from St. Claude Street. n.d. [Detail]. Miscellaneous Photographs Collection, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

NOLA Cultural Center 1963

As part of the new exhibit at the Southeastern Architectural Archive, we have featured this presentation drawing of the proposed Cultural Center for New Orleans. Designed by local architects Mathes, Bergman, Favrot & Associates, the project was conceived as a part of a "downtown triangle" development project that included the Civic Center and International Trade Mart Complex. Modeled after New York's Lincoln Center, the Cultural Center was intended to consist of theaters, an auditorium, an art museum, community facilities, and copious parking lots.

With an estimated cost of $18 million, the plaza was to extend from the Orleans-Basin Connection to St. Philip Street, and from N. Rampart to N. Villere Streets. Widespread site clearance began in 1966, after the relocation of 122 families. Hampered by financial shortfalls, the CC was delayed and eventually abandoned.

If you want to learn more about the project and the history of Louis Armstrong Park, read Michael Crutcher's new Tremé: Race and Place in a New Orleans Neighborhood. The author will be reading from his book 21 April 2011 at 6:00 pm, Octavia Books, New Orleans. Click here to learn more.

Image above: Mathes, Bergman, Favrot & Associates.

Cultural Center of New Orleans. Scheffer Studio. 1963. Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Exhibit Highlights Historic New Orleans Neighborhood

TREMÉ: People and Places

10 December 2010 -- 4 November 2011

Tulane University’s Southeastern Architectural Archive has announced a new exhibition.

TREMÉ: People and Places celebrates the bicentennial of New Orleans’ historic neighborhood. Often considered the birthplace of jazz, Faubourg Tremé was the city’s first municipally-founded subdivision. Developed in 1810, when Claude Tremé sold his Bayou Road plantation holdings to the city for $40,000, the district rapidly changed from French long-lot habitations to urban squares filled with Creole cottages and shotgun houses.

Stretching from Canal Street to St. Bernard Avenue and from Rampart to Broad Street, Tremé was populated by a diverse mixture of people. With cultural ties to the Caribbean, Africa, Spain, France, China and England, the district featured vibrant public spaces that included boulevards, churches, shrines, squares, parks and markets. It served as a primary port of entry for railroad travelers, who frequently lodged in its rooming houses and inns.

Significantly altered by nearly one hundred years of urban renewal programs, Tremé retains much of its historic vitality. This exhibition highlights Faubourg Tremé using the rich holdings of Tulane University’s Special Collections Divisions -- its Louisiana Research Collection, the William Hogan Jazz Archive, and the Southeastern Architectural Archive.

Co-curated by Keli Rylance and Kevin Williams, TREMÉ: People and Places opens 10 December 2010 in the Southeastern Architectural Archive (SEAA) and runs through 4 November 2011. The SEAA is located at 6801 Freret Street/300 Jones Hall, on Tulane University’s campus. Hours are 9-12 and 1-5 Mondays-Fridays. Admission is free.

Image above: William Toye, Jr. & Al Rose. Scale Models of Lulu White’s Mahogany Hall and Mahogany Hall Annex, 235, 239-41 Basin Street, circa 1965. Courtesy William Ransom Hogan Jazz Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

New Orleans Architect William Surgi

William Surgi, architect. 918 N. Tonti Street. From Souvenir Sketchbook of the Fifth Ward, 1910.

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Surgi family was associated with the New Orleans building trade. Eugene Surgi was an active architect from c. 1860 to c. 1906. He formed a partnership with Edmund Topp, practicing as Surgi and Topp, from 1892-1894. George Surgi advertised his private practice in New Orleans city directories in 1887, 1890, 1892-1893. William Surgi was featured in the Souvenir Sketch Book of the Fifth Ward 1910:

"William Surgi, the prominent architect and builder, has been a resident of the Second District all his life. During the five years that he has been established he has designed and erected many of the handsomest as well as substantial commercial structures in the Fifth Ward. In connection with his business he has a well-equipped factory for the turning out of doors, frames, windows and other building material. Mr. Surgi is a large property holder--he makes a specialty of the erection of modern, up-to-date homes, which are sold on the easy payment plan." (1)

Surgi designed, built, and operated his practice out of the shotgun double illustrated above. By 1914, this structure located at 918 N. Tonti was seized and sold at a sheriff's auction on 2 January. (2)

(1) Souvenir Sketch Book of the Fifth Ward (New Orleans: The Southern Manufacturer, 1910). Louisiana Research Collection, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

(2) "By the Civil Sheriff" The Daily Picayune (19 December 1913): p. 10.