Lost Central City

A few years ago, we posted some information about the mid-twentieth century slum clearance program that affected a group of self-proclaimed "Wimawalas."

We recently came across this circa 1937 glass lantern slide marked "Slum Housing Displaced by Magnolia Street Project." It's unusual to find historic photographs of these lost New Orleans neighborhoods, as the federal photographers of the period had a tendency to focus their energies on the French Quarter.

Image above:  Digital reproduction from glass lantern slide marked "Slum Housing Displaced by Magnolia Street Project." Undated. Tulane School of Architecture Glass Lantern Slide Collection, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

$50 House 1945

I was recently at the Midwestern Region Friends of Dard Hunter Conference at the Paper Discovery Center in Appleton, Wisconsin. The Discovery Center's permanent exhibition references a paper house designed for emergency shelter (fires, flooding, or other disasters) by the Institute of Paper Chemistry. With the exception of plastic windows and metal hardware, the house (shown above) was built entirely of recycled paper products.

The structure was erected in less than one hour by two men, using chipboard that was made from waste paper (newspapers, etcetera). A fortifying agent strengthened the chipboard against water and humidity, and the house was coated with a fireproof paint. The 8 x 16' structure was intended to safely house a family of four.

Paper houses were not completely new. In 1924, a Massachusetts mechanical engineer named Elis F. Senman designed a timber-framed paper house and its furnishings. It remains a popular tourist attraction. Read more here.

Read more: "Paper House Costs $50." Popular Science (March 1945): p. 85 available from Free E-Journals. [Image above from article]

Central City 1964

In 1964, New Orleans photographer Frank Lotz Miller (1923-1993) took aerial views of the newly constructed Guste Housing Project, designed by Curtis & Davis (altered 2002-2005). Miller's negative captured a broad expanse of Central City beyond to the Mississippi River and the West Bank.

Image: Frank Lotz Miller, photographer. Guste Housing Project, 1964. © Curtis & Davis Office Records, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries. Do not reproduce without written permission.

Segregation Forms

Graham, Anderson, Probst & White. Area P Housing for Un-Skilled Laborers, Nitro, West Virginia, 1918.
Graham, Anderson, Probst & White. Area A Housing for Un-Skilled Laborers, Nitro, West Virginia, 1918.

We frequently receive inquiries about the architecture of segregation here in the Southeastern Architectural Archive, and it can be a tricky topic to research for the simple fact that architectural drawings were not historically labelled or organized as "segregated." We inventory and organize drawings based on the architect's or architectural firm's organizing information, normally name of property owner, building function (possibly building name for commercial structures), street address, project number, date.

One can generally assume segregated spaces for U.S. government and municipal structures (courthouses and schools especially) predating the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and those are the easiest to locate. Today, a new acquisition came through Tulane University Library's Technical Services unit, & it reminded me to post some information about related urban planning and residential plans.

The Southern Pine Association, founded in 1915 New Orleans, produced various self-help books and pamphlets designed for property owners and those in the construction trades. One such publication, Homes for Workmen (New Orleans: Southern Pine Association, 1919), presented examples of industrial community developments (aka company towns).

One of the book's featured examples was Graham, Anderson, Probst & White's "transitory city" designed for World War I era government workers in Nitro, West Virginia, a small town founded in 1918 and named for "nitrocellulose," used in the manufacture of gunpowder. The transitory city was intended to accommodate an estimated population of 20,000 skilled and unskilled workers:

"In providing these housing accommodations the well recognized facts were considered that the best workmen can only be obtained and held where housing is not only comfortable but attractive and designed to fit the special needs of each class.

With this in view, the employees have been placed in separate sections as follows, giving in detail the type of workmen and number of buildings, with an estimated number of inhabitants housed in each particular type of dwelling."

The prominent Chicago firm divided the new Nitro into four discrete areas: Area A, Area P, Area S and Area R. The latter was intended to provide services to all inhabitants (post office, entertainment, etc.), while Areas A, P, and S housed workers segregated by class and race.

The bungalow structures designed for unskilled laborers, shown above, were prefabricated and constructed so that they could be dismantled in sections when the explosives plant -- and related laborers -- were no longer needed. GAP & W estimated that the building materials would have a 40% reclamation value (of the original cost), and that the nearby coal industry could readily re-use the building materials. Although bungalow facades are quite similar, room configurations/space allotments differ.

There are a number of articles and books that address the architecture of segregation, and their citations may be found via google scholar. Harvard University has digitized its copy of Homes for Workmen: A Presentation of Leading Examples of Industrial Community Development (New Orleans: Southern Pine Association, 1919) here.

Images above: Graham, Anderson, Probst & White. "Nitro, West Virginia." Chapter in Homes for Workmen: A Presentation of Leading Examples of Industrial Community Development (New Orleans: Southern Pine Association, 1919), pp. 78-87.

The Wimawalas Part II

In a September post, I reported on the plight of the self-proclaimed "Wimawalas," who in August of 1950 were fighting to save their neighborhood from the wrecking ball. The Magnolia Housing Project (aka Louisiana Project 1-10; later renamed C.J. Peete) Expansion was planned to cover the area that was home to shotgun houses, tenements, and a number of small churches.

New Orleans landscape architect William S. Wiedorn planned the drainage, lawns and plantings according to the Public Housing Administration's Low-Rent Housing Bulletin (31-10-1950) Division 25: Lawns and Planting. His planting scheme included Live Oaks, American Elms, Yaupon, Fern Bamboo and Bermuda Grass.

Additional information about the Magnolia Extension may be found in a number of collections housed in the Southeastern Architectural Archive: Koch and Wilson Collection and the William S. Wiedorn Collection.

To read more about American federal housing, see:

Davis, Sam. The Architecture of Affordable Housing. Berkeley, CA: U California-Berkeley Press, 1995. ARCH NA 7540.D38

Newton, Norman T. Design on theLand: The Development of Landscape Architecture. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press for Harvard U, 1971. Multiple locations, Tulane University Libraries.

Radford, Gail. Modern Housing for America: Policy Struggle in theNew Deal Era. Chicago: U Chicago Press, 1996. HTML HD 7293.R28
Sanborn Insurance Company, Detail of Wimawalas Neighborhood, 1909 Map of New Orleans, vol. 4 (with corrections to 1933). Sanborn Fire Insurance Atlases Collection, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Who Were They: The Wimawalas

In August of 1950, the Atlanta Daily World reported the plight of a New Orleans citizen group -- the Wimawalas -- who were trying to prevent the expansion of the Magnolia Housing Project into their neighborhood, encompassed by Willow and Magnolia Streets, and Washington and Louisiana Avenues.

President Harry Truman had just approved some $26.5 million to be utilized for public housing in New Orleans, and the municipal housing authority wanted to enlarge the four existing projects using these funds.

The Wimawalas' founder and spokesperson, Mrs. Ida W. Johnson, conveyed to the press:

'This is not a slums neighborhood. Many of us moved into this community 40 or 50 years ago when it was nothing. Now we have built it up and have invested thousands of dollars in our homes. Naturally, we resent any movement which will force us out. Then, too, another question presents itself: Where are we going?'

The google-generated satellite image of the site today:


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[Image uppper left: Digital reproduction from glass lantern slide of the New Orleans neighborhood bounded by Louisiana Avenue and Third Street, Magnolia and S. Liberty Streets, c. 1937. Tulane School of Architecture Glass Lantern Slide Collection, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.]