Cable car at the end of the line, Hyde St. and Embarcadero. This car has been turned around and is taking on passengers for the trip back up the hill.

The car above having grabbed the cable under the street and departed, the next of several cars on the other side of the Embarcadero crosses the street into the terminal. Cable cars are single-ended, so MUNI workers manually rotate the car on a turntable.

Trolleys on the F-Line - PCC 1056, Ex-Philadelphia, painted in Kansas City livery.

#737, ex-Brussels, painted in livery of Zurich, Switzerland.

Milan Tram 1811, in 1928 livery.

PCC 1010, in MUNI blue/gold livery.

PCC 1063, in Baltimore livery.

The world-famous sign.

Canal Street and St. Charles Avenue, looking lakebound, early 1880s. The church spire in the background on the right is Christ Church Episcopal, at Canal and Dauphine (the current location of the Maison Blanche Building-Ritz Carlton Hotel). The photographer is standing on the northern side of the big monument to Henry Clay in the middle of the intersection.

In the middle of the photo you can see three Stephenson single-ended "bobtail" streetcars. These cars were mule-powered (horses can't work for extended periods in the New Orleans summer). When they reached St. Charles Ave., the operators would turn them around on the turntable visible in the foreground. The man in shirtsleeves is most likely a street railway. working out of the little kisos to the left, behind the street vendor. That kiosk is a "starter house," where the employee working there would assist the operator in getting the mule and streetcar turned around for the outbound leg of the trip.

Four-track operations had already begun on Canal by this time.  The two outside tracks were used by the streetcar lines coming to Canal Street from the Central Business District and Uptown (left side) and the French Quarter/Faubourg Marigny (right side). ; The center tracks were used by the Canal and West End lines.

Since the mule-powered streetcars are in the photo, and Christ Church is still located on Canal, this dates this photo to somewhere between 1880-1883.

Canal Street before streetcars! This is an illustration from an 1857 magazine, before the New Orleans City Railroad Company constructed their streetcar line along Canal from White St. to St. Charles Ave.

The original plan was indeed to construct a navigation canal down the middle of Canal St., which is why it is so wide. Had that plan been followed, Canal would look more like Ponchartrain and West End Blvds. looked before the New Basin Canal was filled in. Canal construction was more difficult than the original planners realized, so it was decided to build a canal that extended Bayou St. John to downtown rather than build a full river-to-lake canal. With the Carondelet Canal following a back-of-town route, Canal St. was poised to become the city's main boulevard.

This illustration shows the wide "neutral" ground between the Vieux Carre on the right and Faubourg Ste. Marie on the left. Since the Creoles and the Americans both needed a shopping district, the central location of Canal St. made it perfect for this role. The buildings along Canal at this time are no more than three or four stories high at this time. The church in the background is the original Christ Church. The Episcopal congregation was located on Canal until Isadore Newman bought the corner of Canal and Dauphine from them in 1883 and built his first Maison Blanche store.

Public transportation along Canal at this time was provided by "omnibus" carriages. These carriages were horse- and mule-powered.

An interurban electric car operated by the Orleans-Kenner Railroad, at the company's barn at Tulane Ave. and S. Dupre St. in 1928.

The O-K railroad ran from what is now Williams Blvd. and Jefferson Highway in Kenner to Canal and S. Rampart Streets downtown. The railroad followed Jefferson Highway to the parish line. When it crossed into Orleans Parish, the O-K ran down S. Claiborne, then turned left on S. Carrollton to follow the Tulane Belt path to Canal St. The return was via the St. Charles belt. The O-K ran from 1915 to 1929. NOPSI converted the St. Charles and Tulane Belts to wide gauge in 1929, making the track incompatible with the standard-gauge O-K. Buses were substituted for the interurbans, running from S. Carrollton and S. Claiborne.

One of the most significant differences between the interurban rail cars and traditional streetcars is the baggage compartment between the cab and rider seating. This area enabled farmers from Kenner to bring bushels of produce into town easily. Once at Canal and Rampart, it was an easy trip by wagon or truck to the French Market.

The O-K RR was the city's only true interurban line. Unlike other parts of the country, the geography of the Isle d'Orleans is such that it was too expensive to run electric interurbans through the swamp to higher ground. Connecting the tri-parish (Orleans/Jefferson/St. Bernard) to the rest of the world was the job of traditional railroad service.

We had a great discussion about the O-K Railroad at the East Jefferson Regional Library last week. I'll be posting more info about the O-K RR in the NOSRA wiki in the near future.

The Pitt Theater, located at Elysian Fields Avenue and Robt. E. Lee Blvd. The theater opened in the 1930s. This photo is from 1954.

My memories of the Pitt go back to the 1960s. My dad took us there a few times, because it was down the street from the University of New Orleans, where he worked. When I went to high school, down the street from the theater in the opposite direction from UNO, we'd go to the Pitt all the time.

By the late 1970s, the owners divided the theater in half. In 1977, I watched "Star Wars" three times in a row in one side of the Pitt. In the 1980s, the Pitt was sold to the Joy theater chain. That company divided the Pitt into four and turned it into a "dollar theater." The Pitt was sold in 1999, torn down, and a Walgreen's was built on the corner.

The corner of the building closest to the street corner is a drugstore, Parker's Drugs, in the photo. By the 1970s, that space was a Tex-Mex place, "Taco Tico." It's your classic local version of Taco Bell. There are still a couple other Taco Ticos in town, in Metairie and Kenner, but I miss the one in Gentilly.

The corner of Robert E. Lee Blvd. and Elysian Fields Ave. was a major intersection in Gentilly prior to the storm. Of the four corners, one was Ferrara's Supermarket, one a convenience store/gas station, the Pitt, and a nightclub/disco on the fourth. My fraternity's house was two blocks down from there, and my first apartment after graduation two blocks west. As a college student, grad student, and new high school teacher, the local taco place and cheap movie theater were important parts of my existence.

The Federal Flood dumped 10' of water on the corner of Elysian Fields and Robt. E. Lee. Of the four corners, only the Walgreen's is back.

Von Dullen streetcar 2020 at Carrollton Shops. The work the craftsmen of Carrollton are doing to get the Von Dullens and the 400s back on the lines is incredible. Here, 2020's body is on the lift so the undercarriage can be inspected. The trucks are still the ones damaged by the Federal Flood. Those will be replaced by new trucks and a new propulsion system from Brookville Mining Corporation.

The "red ladies" that were damaged in the storm are all up at Carrollton (except for 2013, which is at BMC). They've been cleaned out, the bodies are being stripped and sanded all the way down to the bare metal. They are then run through the paint shop, for new primer and exterior coats. 2020 has completed this process, all the way down to the lettering, striping, and detail work. As soon as the new propulsion systems are fabricated and shipped down, the Von Dullens will be back at work on Canal St. and N. Carrollton Avenue.

Carrollton Station, located on Willow Street (the rear is on Jeanette Street) just off of S. Carrollton Avenue, is the home base of the Rail Department. The 2000-series Von Dullens as well as the 400-series Riverfront streetcars were fabricated here. The craftsmen who work here are some of the world's best experts on both "conventional" streetcars as well as LRVs (Light Rail Vehicles). They're good at both the old and the new because they maintain the fleet of 35 900-series streetcars from 1923 as well as the newer red ones. The 2000-series Von Dullens may look like "conventional" streetcars, but they have modern trucks, propulsion, and electronics, just like the slick LRVs you see in cities like San Diego and Baltimore. We just like our streetcars to have that classic, arch roof look that everyone associates with New Orleans.

Dillard University, located at 2601 Gentilly Blvd. This is a WPA photo of the campus right after it opened in 1935. The building on the left is Rosenwald Hall, and Kearney Hall is visible in the right background. The photo was shot from Gentilly Blvd., which was a one-lane road at the time. Now it is a 4-lane boulevard, and Dillard is a gated community monitored by campus police for the safety of faculty and students.

Dillard is an Historically Black University. It was founded by the United Methodist Church and still operates under the church's auspices. Dillard opened its doors in 1930, the result of a merger between Straight University and New Orleans University. The University is named after philanthropist and Tulane graduate, Dr. James Hardy Dillard.

President Bill Clinton will be speaking today, in support of his wife's presidential campaign, at Dillard's Lawless Assembly Center (formerly known as Lawless Memorial Chapel). The chapel is dedicated to Alfred Lawless, Jr., a leader in African-American education in New Orleans, and his son, Dr. Theodore K. Lawless, an internationally known physician.

Of all the colleges and universities in New Orleans, Dillard was hit hardest by the storm. The London Avenue Canal is the western boundary of the campus. Floodwalls along this canal breached on 29-August-2005, the result of a 40-year pattern of lies and perpetrated on New Orleans by the US Army Corps of Engineers that has brought shame and dishonor upon the United States Army. A large number of Dillard students evacuated to Shreveport, LA, and were taken in by Centenary College in that city. The university began the rebuilding process in the winter of 2006, operating out of an office building downtown. The main Gentilly campus is still undergoing renovation and repairs as classes and student life have resumed.

Two engines owned by the New Orleans Public Belt Railroad pulling a mixed-consist freight train along the New Orleans Riverfront.

Even before the storm, many folks began to forget just how significant the Port of New Orleans is to the United States. While other ports along the Gulf Coast have taken away business from New Orleans, the city's port is still the one at the mouth of the biggest river in the nation. As such, it's the largest port for rubber and coffee imports, and a major port for grain exports.

The NOPB Railroad connects rail traffic from the major carriers with port facilities. Hopper cars carrying grain use NOPB to access elevators on the river, and the railroad connects a number of cargo wharves and a large container/intermodal facility with the rest of the nation.

NOPB is owned by the City of New Orleans. It was established in 1904, operating over 25 miles of main track (including the Huey P. Long bridge across the Mississippi) and 75 miles of yard track.

These two engines are approaching the "Moonwalk," which is the walkway in front of the river across Decatur St. from Jackson Square. It's a tricky area to navigate for both streetcars and trains, because tourists are crossing over from Washington Artillery Park and the French Market parking lot to the Moonwalk. Still, the trains must roll, servicing the wharves on either side of the French Quarter.

Because of its location, New Orleans is still quite the train city, in spite of the general decline of passenger rail in the last 50 years. Three Amtrak trains terminate at New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal: The Crescent, the City of New Orleans, and the Sunset Limited. Additionally, several railroads have significant facilities and operations in the metro area, on both sides of the river. The city government in the early 20th Century was aware that the interests of competing railroads might not coincide with those of the city, hence the creation of the Public Belt.

PGT Beauregard was alive and well when this photo was shot, which is one of the reasons you don't see his statue on the City Park side of Bayou St. John. The bayou was still a navigable waterway at this time, a "back door" to the city. Fishing boats and others would come in from the Gulf of Mexico, into Lake Borgne, then Lake Pontchartrain, finally coming down Bayou St. John. That's why the bridge at the end of Esplanade Avenue was a drawbridge. Shrimp boats and oyster luggers would go out from the old turning basin near Congo Square, up the bayou to the lake, and return with their catches.

At this time, the New Orleans City RR Co. ran streetcar lines up to either side of the bridge. On the west bank of the Bayou (left in the photo), the Bayou Bridge & City Park line operated from the Half Way House to the bridge. On the eastern side, the Esplanade line ran the length of that beautiful street, turning into barn, looping around the block, along the bayou on Moss St., then re-joining the Esplanade tracks for the inbound run. The NOCRR had just begun streetcar operations four years earlier, in 1861. Even though the Civil War was raging in other parts of the country, New Orleans was an important port, and opportunities abounded for entrepeneurs. Because the city did not oppose the Union occupation after the naval battles were lost by the Confederacy, New Orleans was spared the fate of many other southern cities. Commerce and development continued throughout the war, in spite of the harsh rule of Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler, USA, whom the locals called "Beast."

This area was referred to as the "back of town" in those days. As the neighborhoods of Mid City and Faubourg St. John spread out this point at City Park, the term "back of town" came to refer more to the neighborhoods around S. Carrollton and Tulane Avenues.