In the wake of the storm, all of the Von Dullen streetcars have been stripped and are getting new paint jobs. This was 2012's turn in the paint shop. Carrollton Station has a full paint shop, which is one of the reasons I'd love to get NORTA a PCC streetcar or two. PCC streetcars could easily be painted to meet the needs of movie production companies that come to town to film.

All of the Von Dullens now look great, and we're waiting for BMC to get the first of the new propulsion units and trucks down here.

The end of the St. Charles Ave. streetcar line, at S. Carrollton and S. Claiborne Avenues. This photo is from June, 2002.

Six more weeks to go, and the St. Charles line will be 100% operational. As of now, the line is only running the length of St. Charles, turning around at Riverbend. NORTA has announced that they expect to finish the upgrades and repairs to the line on S. Carrollton Ave. by May.

The intersection of S. Carrollton and S. Claiborne Avenues has been the location of the end of the St. Charles line since belt service was discontinued in 1951. It is a double-track terminal with a double-slip switch. Several bus lines terminate either in front of Palmer Park (like the bus on the left side of the photo), or on the neutral ground on S. Claiborne (to the right, just out of the photo). This intersection has long been a transit hub, dating back to 1915, when the Orleans-Kenner Railroad began operations.

The streetcars in the photo are Perley A. Thomas cars 940 and 961, both vintage 1923-24.

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.

The floats of Rex, turning from Royal Street in the French Quarter onto Canal Street, around 1896. The photo is undated, but the statue on the left narrows down the possible time frame from 1895 to 1901.

The statue is of statesman, US Senator, Speaker of the House, and Secretary of State, Henry Clay of Kentucky. Clay died in 1852, and a civic group began raising funds to erect a statue in his honor in downtown New Orleans. The base of the statue was huge. If you look at the photo, you'll see two mules in the bottom left corner. The base of the statue extended to where those mules are.

When the New Orleans City Railroad Company brought streetcar service to Canal Street in 1861, the Clay statue became a roundabout in the middle of the intersection of Canal and Royal (or Canal and St. Charles Avenue, as the street is called on the "American" side of Canal St.) The tracks around the statue became more and more complex as other operating companies added their tracks to Canal Street. Most of the lines were able to totally bypass Clay, though, since all they were interested in was to get to Canal, discharge passengers, pick up outbound riders, then head away from downtown. This only required being on Canal St. for a block or two.

Electrification changed the dynamics of streetcar tracks. Constructing the overhead wiring to keep the roundabout configuration of the track would have been too complicated, and a bit dangerous. The City Council decided that the elaborate base of the Clay statue should be cut down so electric streetcars could pass on either side. That's what you see in the photo. The motormen were still unhappy with the clearance they had with the statue, so the city moved it from the middle of Canal St. to Lafayette Square, between St. Charles Ave. and Camp St. Lafayette Square is directly across from what is now Gallier Hall, which was City Hall until the 1950s.

But let's get back to the parade! The only day parade at this time was Rex, King of Carnival, so this is a Fat Tuesday photo. The street in the background is Rue Royal. Parades started in the French Quarter, exited the Quarter onto Canal at Royal, then continued lakebound on Canal, usually to Rampart. They turned onto N. Rampart, then worked their way back into the Quarter, where they would end at the French Opera House. Parades continued to roll through the Quarter until the 1960s, when the city decided that crowds were getting just too big, and parades were a threat to fire protection in the area. The parades then moved to Uptown routes, so they entered Canal Street from essentially where those two mules on the left side of the photo are.

Notice how all the men are up front, crowding in to get a better view of the floats. The women who came out to the parade appear to be hanging in the back, a sign of the times.

The streetcar in the right foreground is a Brill single-truck model. The first electric streetcars had a single "truck" or set of wheels. As service expanded, the operating companies purchased larger, double-truck streetcars, and the single-truck cars were used on lighter-traffic lines and as service vehicles.

The small octaganol building in the right foreground is called a "starter's house." When using mule-powered streetcars, the operating companies put up these small buildings at the end of their lines and stationed an employee there to assist the streetcar operator with getting the car turned around on a turntable and started on their outbound trip. Since that starter's house is still there, that dates the photo even narrower, to 1895-1896.

UPDATE: Two weeks ago, we did a Feature Photo that showed a 400-series Perley A. Thomas streetcar on St. Charles Avenue during a Carnival parade. I wondered in the commentary why the floats were passing on both sides of the streetcar. An astute reader (I won't mention names since I didn't get permission) gave me the answer. In the 1920s-1930s, the "dens" (warehouses where the floats were constructed and stored) for many of the krewes were down by the river, at Jackson and Tchoupitoulas. They would parade up Jackson, then turn Uptown on St. Charles, go to Napoleon, where they'd turn around to head to Canal St. So, that photo was shot between Jackson and Napoleon.

Long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far, away, Carnival Parades in New Orleans were held in a number of different neighborhoods. Uptown, Mid City, Algiers, New Orleans East, and like the Krewe of Pandora, in Gentilly. This shot, from February of 1978, is of the Budweiser Clydesdales coming down Elysian Fields Ave. in Gentilly. I found this photo in a box of stuff from when I was attending the University of New Orleans. The location is in front of what was then the Lambda Chi Alpha house, my fraternity. The chapter sold the house in the 1990s and bought another one down on Gentilly Blvd. The Elysian Fields house got over 10' of water in the storm, but the current owners repaired the place and it looks great.

Pandora was one of two krewes that paraded through Gentilly in the 60s through the 80s. The other was the Krewe of Hercules. Hercules was actually older, being the all-male krewe. Like many neighborhoods, the wives and girlfriends didn't want to be left out of the fun, so they would form their own krewes and parade. Hercules paraded on the Monday before Lundi Gras (8 days before Mardi Gras), and Pandora on the Saturday before that. Neither were big parades, 12-15 floats apiece. There used to be a lot of NOPD and Levee Board cops in Hercules, because it was neighborhood to many of them, and because 8 days before Mardi Gras was a good night for a cop to get off. The closer you get to Mardi Gras, the more people out at parades, the more cops you need.

Carnival krewes in the 60s and 70s were not just about the parade, but rather were year-round social organizations. With strong ties to a particular neighborhood, a krewe would meet monthly in a neighborhood meeting place, like a school cafeteria, VFW hall, etc., to plan and socialize. In the early spring, that meant having a crawfish boil; in the summer, a picnic. The whole family got involved, and life-long friendships were forged. Even the "super krewe" of Endymion had such humble beginnings, starting out as a Gentilly parade (the original route was in the neighborhood near Da Track).

Hercules eventually folded as a krewe, as the city put pressure on them to move the route away from Gentilly. Many of the krewe were lured away by the growth of Endymion, as their "super krewe" status solidified over time. The women kept Pandora going, because there were so few krewes where women could ride. Pandora eventually became a female/male parade, before they disbanded as well.

The photo shows the Clydesdales leading the parade, followed by shriners and police on motorcycles. The Queen's float followed, then school bands, marching units, and more floats with lots of beads and doubloons!

Tomorrow, there won't be a Pandora, but we'll go out to the Metairie parade, the Krewe of Caesar, to see my son march with the Brother Martin High School Band. For a Gentilly school, marching in a Metairie parade is a bit like slumming, but the school's administration asked them for a favor, because they recruit heavily from the 'burbs.