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December 28, 2007
Gentilly Friday - Chicken In A Box
As part of my "Twelve Yats of Christmas" feature on my YatPundit blog, today is "three," which is:
On da third day of Christmas, we stopped at
McKenzie's, for
three french breads
McKenzie's (prounounced MUH-ken-zees) Pastry Shoppes was a New Orleans institution for several generations. People used to say they were going to "McKenzie's Bakery," but the stores themselves weren't bakeries. They were retail storefronts, literally "pastry shoppes." The main bakery was down on Desire Street. All the goodies were baked down there, then trucked to the 30+ retail stores throughout the metro area. To this day, you'll have people tell you that they miss McKenzie's donuts or turtles, or petit fours, or blackout cake, or...well, you get the idea. Even my 19-year old misses their chocolate whip-top pie.
The McKenzie's chain closed in 2001. This is, to my knowledge, the only McKenzie's sign left (If you know of another, please let me know). "Chicken in a Box" was a feature of the McKenzies on the corner of Frenchmen and Foy in Gentilly:
The entrance for the pastry shoppe was right on the corner, or you could go around to the side entrance and get fried chicken. After the storm, someone took over the entire location and it's now a take-out chicken-and-sandwiches place.
There was only one "Chicken in a Box." There was one other variation on the typical McKenzie's store, the "McKenzie's Ice Cream Parlor, on Harrison Avenue in Lakeview. That also closed years ago. The location, a bay in a strip mall, was slated to become a Tastee Donuts prior to the storm, but it never materialized.
Posted by YatPundit at 12:18 PM | TrackBack
December 24, 2007
Feature Photo: Christmas Twofer!
Von Dullen 2001, the CKD/Tatra test car, and 963, all on Canal Street at Christmastime.
The prototype Von Dullen car, 2001, on the street in December, 2000. NORTA was evaluating PCC-style trucks from CKD/Tatra, and the Czech company sent over a streetcar to test. Earl Hampton caught 2001 and the CKD car on Canal Street and got this photo right as 963 is beginning an outbound run on the St. Charles line.
Merry Christmas!
Posted by YatPundit at 12:39 PM | TrackBack
Feature Photo: Carrollton and Claiborne, 1958
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We're not all the way to this point yet, but it's the ultimate goal of rebuilding the St. Charles line--the terminal at S. Carrollton and S. Claiborne Avenues. This 1958 photo, from the collection of Mr. Irwin From, shows Perley A. Thomas streetcars 967 and 908 at the end of the line, ready to begin the inbound run, and 927 is approaching the terminal, concluding her outbound run.
When belt service on St. Charles and Tulane was discontinued, the St. Charles line took on its present configuration, which is point-to-loop. Streetcars start out here, at Carrollton and Claiborne and go down Carrollton to St. Charles. They turn at the "Riverbend" onto St. Charles and head down to Lee Circle. Further down from Lee Circle, St. Charles is one-way going outbound, so the streetcar goes around Robert Edward and then one block up Howard Avenue, turning right onto Carondelet. The line continues inbound to Canal on Carondelet, which is "Stop #1." From here, a new run begins, looping round one block on Canal St., turning onto St. Charles Avenue, running up St. Charles to Carrollton, then Carrollton back to Claiborne.
Yesterday was a red-letter day for NORTA and the St. Charles line. The hard work of Mr. Wil Mullet and his crews in the rail department, along with NORTA management's ability to re-hire a number of the streetcar operators displaced by the storm paid off. The St. Charles line has extended operations to the Riverbend district, so the line now runs the entire length of the city's most famous avenue.
That leaves just one section of the line left to complete, S. Carrollton Avenue to the terminal. The overhead wire is almost complete, but this segment won't go back operational until the spring. NORTA and Entergy are doing upgrades to the power substation at Willow and Dublin, next to Carrollton Station. Once those electrical upgrades are complete, the St. Charles, Riverfront, and Canal lines will once again be fully up and running.
This photo, from 1958, shows the old wooden light poles supporting the overhead wire for the streetcars. You can also see the trolley buses on the Tulane line on the street. After the storm, a trolley bus manufacturer offered to work with NORTA to replace some of the diesel buses with electric ones, but the proposal hasn't gone any further. I don't know what the circumstances are on that, though. My guess is that, like many other people working to bring New Orleans back, NORTA staff just haven't had the time to work on such things. Many city services, from transit to housing to the libraries, have lost employees because they were unable to return. In some cases, older folks took one look at the mess they came back to, became overwhelmed, and retired right then and there. That leaves those working to keep things running even more overwhelmed, to the point where ideas and suggestions that make sense to armchair quarterbacks in other parts of the country end up on the shelf for a while.
We at NOSRA and CanalStreetCar (dot com) would like to express our appreciation to the Commissioners, management, and staff of NORTA, and wish all of our readers a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Posted by YatPundit at 10:56 AM | TrackBack
December 21, 2007
Gentilly Friday - Pontchartrain Park
An aerial view of Pontchartrain Park from the early 1950s. The area in the top left corner is Camp Leroy Johnson, an army supply depot. That land was turned over to the University of New Orleans in the 1960s, and is now the university's East Campus. On the right, jutting out into Lake Pontchartrain is Lakefront Airport (NEW). The top left corner of the undeveloped area is now the campus of Southern University in New Orleans. The drainage canal separating the park from the rest of Gentilly on the left is the Florida Avenue canal. Next to the canal are the tracks for the Southern Railroad. They head from in town, curve right then travel east across the Industrial Canal and out to the train bridge across the lake that runs parallell to US90 and I-10. The canal and the train tracks make for a significant geographical boundary between the established part of Gentilly on the left and the new Pontchartrain Park subdivision on the right.
In the late 1940s/early 1950s, Pontchartrain Park was a new subdivision developed for upwardly mobile black families. Jim Crow laws were still in force at this time, making a new subdivision a gold mine for the developer, since a lot of black men took advantage of their GI Bill benefits, went to college, and now had good jobs. These men became the doctors, lawyers, and other professionals of the black community in the 1960s and 1970s. Shopping centers in Gentilly Woods and Gentilly Terrace (along Gentilly Blvd., just off this photo to the south) began an even faster growth. The archdiocese of New Orleans built St. Augustine High School to educate many of the young black men from these families, and St. Mary's Academy moved out to Chef Menteur Highway from the French Quarter in 1965. Southern University in New Orleans (SUNO) opened in 1959.
Fast forward to 2005. The Federal Flood hit the Pontchartrain Park area as hard as the rest of Gentilly. The combination of Army Corps of Engineers-designed structural failures in the floodwalls of the London Avenue Canal to the west as well as wind pushing water over the tops of the levees and floodwalls of the Industrial Canal in the east were a double-whammy for this neighborhood. Homes in the area got anywhere from 3' - 8' of water. Then, to add insult to injury, a tornado spawned from thunderstorms associated with Hurricane Rita touched down in this neighborhood.
Victims of the Federal Flood who had less than 4' of water come into their homes, generally speaking have had an easier time of rebuilding, since it's possible to cut out drywall interior at 4' and replace it with new sheets of the same height. This is assuming you have the funds to fix your house, and that's where the problem comes in for many residents of Gentilly. Those doctors and lawyers who moved out to Gentilly in the 1950s are now old folks. Their mortgages have been paid off for years, and with those mortgages often went flood insurance coverage as well. When a bank holds paper on a house in most neighborhoods down here, the owners are required to buy flood insurance. The premiums are factored into your monthly note and paid by the lender. Since a lot of folks are on fixed incomes by the time they burn their mortgages, they drop flood insurance. After all, the Corps of Engineers built all these levees and floodwalls, right?
That's where "Road Home" is supposed to help, but the program has been problematic. The state was making it up as they went along, so a lot of early applicants got lost in the shuffle. By the time the process was refined and (supposedly) working, other homeowners found that the state was cutting back on what they were wiling to pay them, fearful in some cases that there wouldn't be enough funds to go around. In other cases, some accuse the program of deliberately being an obstacle to keep blacks from coming back to the city. (I don't subscribe to the notion that they're directly discriminating--I think they're just bloody stupid.)
Then there's the geniuses at City Hall. The city wants to demolish homes that are supposedly "threats" to the neighborhood. Judging by the plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit (PDF) filed against the city to halt demolitions, if you're not living in your home or in a FEMA trailer on the front lawn, your house is in danger of being summarily knocked down, no matter what the condition is. Read the lawsuit, it's scary.
But if you think that developers are having a field day tearing down housing projects, just wait until the Shaw group and other contractors get ahold of entire subdivisions. People still in Baton Rouge, Lafayette, Houston, and Atlanta can't keep an eye on their homes 24/7 while they wait for Road Home money and insurance settlements. Those who voluntarily choose not to return are selling their houses back to the state. Imagine if your dad's house is one of two or three on a block that didn't get sold back to the state? Do you really think those couple of houses are going to slow down these people?
This is how we're treating our middle class in New Orleans. These are people who, in many cases, busted their asses to get out of the projects to make life better for their families. These are men who went to war and women who supported them. Entire neighborhoods still lie empty, hanging in limbo.
The public housing debate has made for dramatic theater in the last couple of weeks while the city, state, and Republican private sector are combining to eradicate what's left of the black middle class in New Orleans. Without a middle class, there will be no tax base. There will be no pool of skilled labor and professionals for corporations to employ. There will be no black health care professionals (and there already are bloody few white ones at the moment).
This is the story you should be blogging about. Those of you who are watching developments unfold in other parts of the country and world see the news coverage and read local accounts of the public housing debate are getting very emotional about what is essentially a small portion of the displaced population of the city. What about the homeowners? It's not fair to say that these people have more of a right to return than those who have less than them, but they damn sure deserve advocates as loud as the out-of-town activists who have been chaining themselves to fences. They're going to move on to the next kabuki stage while people in Gentilly struggle to rebuild.
Posted by YatPundit at 8:19 PM | TrackBack
December 20, 2007
Train Thursday
Making way for modernization -- The Illinois Central Railroad's "Union Station" is being torn down to make way for the new Union Passenger Terminal in 1951. The UPT was the brainchild of then-mayor deLesseps Story "Chep" Morrison. Prior to the UPT, the railroads operated five separate passenger stations in the city. Morrison's vision was to unify passenger service, and the Loyola Avenue location of the IC's station made the best sense for the project.
Compare this photo with last week's, which is an aerial view of the trackage leading into Union Station from a couple years before it was demolished.
The Union Passenger Terminal still services Amtrak trains and Greyhound bus service.
Photo courtesy New Orleans Public Library
Posted by YatPundit at 9:18 AM | TrackBack
December 17, 2007
Heading back into town...
clicky image for a larger versionPerley A. Thomas streetcar 922, departing Beauregard Terminal.
New Orleans streetcars in operation today are "double-ended" cars. When they reach the end of the line and are ready to go back, the front becomes the back and vice-versa. At the end of the line, like Beauregard Circle near City Park in this photo, the operator will pull the streetcar into the terminal, stop it, and then change the trolley pole from which the streetcar gets power. The one in what was the rear of the car coming into the terminal is pulled down so it doesn't make contact with the electrical wire overhead. The pole at what was the front of the streetcar is released, so it makes contact with the wire. The poles are wired to the motors on the streetcar such that the motor will turn one way or the other depending on which pole is active. When the switch is made, the streetcar is powered back on, and the operator will leave at the scheduled departure time.
Beauregard Circle is where City Park Avenue, Wisner Blvd., and Esplanade Avenue come together. The circle also feeds into City Park, to the New Orleans Museum of Art. The streetcar terminal at this location was constructed in 2002-2003. In the early part of the 20th century, streetcars ran on the short stretch of City Park Avenue seen above, when the Canal and Esplanade lines ran as belt service.
Riding the streetcar to Beauregard Terminal is one of the best ways to get from downtown to City Park to see the lights of "Celebration in the Oaks," or in the spring, to get over to the Fair Grounds racetrack for the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.
Posted by YatPundit at 7:48 AM | TrackBack
December 14, 2007
Book Signing Today at Loyola
I'm off to Loyola's bookstore, to participate in a book signing with several other authors.
I'll be the fat guy in the green stretcar shirt. :-)
Posted by YatPundit at 10:18 AM | TrackBack
Gentilly Friday - The Fire Station on Elysian Fields
The fire station at Elysian Fields Avenue and Pelopidas Streets in Gentilly. As you can see from the sign in the photo, this station was a WPA construction project built during the Great Depression. NOFD gave the building back to the city in the early 1980s, and it was converted into a storage facility for the New Orleans Recreation Department. It was being used by NORD until the Federal Flood. This is how it looks today:
This part of Gentilly was once a vibrant commercial district, with Zuppardo's Economical Supermarket on the corner of Elysian Fields and Gentilly, gas stations, fast food places, a K&B Drugstore, strip malls up a block on Gentilly Road, and McKenzie's "Chicken-in-a-Box." Behind the fire station are a number of small office buildings, housing doctors, dentists, the Amalgamated Transit Union, and several other small businesses. Farley's Florist was one block down on Mandeville.
Post-storm, the supermarket is now an empty lot, torn down because flood damage. The McDonald's is now a Chinese buffet (arguably an improvement), but at least Chicken-in-a-Box is back. Down the street, Dillard University still struggles for survival after being heavily damaged by the Federal Flood.
Gentilly is a mess, and it's very slow in returning. The Baptist church Elysian Fields by I-610 has been rebuilt, and Brother Martin High School repaired their damage and re-opened in January of 2006. Residences are extremely slow returning, however. Drive down St. Anthony Blvd. from Gentilly to Robert E. Lee, and you see way too many FEMA trailers. The site of those white disasters is a mixed blessing. Their numbers indicate that the property owners are trying to come back. That there are so many of them two years later means there are way too many obstacles in their way.
DailyKos diarist mlharges has written some very compelling diaries on Gentilly, particularly this one on Jean Gordon Elementary just yesterday. He returned to the school where his girlfriend worked pre-storm and documented its current state and that of the neighborhood. While his counts on houses in the neighborhood behind the school (which was on Robert E. Lee and the London Avenue Canal) aren't scientific, they jive with my observations around Elysian Fields, as well as further down Paris Avenue, in my wife's old neighborhood by Cabrini church. His observations:
Walking up and down the block, I counted twenty different properties in that street. Before the storm each property had a slab on grade home of approximately 1800 square feet. Today the count is as follows: two homes repaired and occupied, a third repaired and for sale or for rent (which ever happens first) and a fourth being repaired and raised. Six empty lots where homes once stood. Two of the remaining ten homes have piles of debris where the owners have cleared out flood damaged belongings but have done nothing else. The remaining homes are untouched.
20% of those houses have been repaired. 30% have been razed, with no likelihood of new ones being built on those slabs.
Two of Gentilly's Catholic church parishes are still closed, St. Raphael on Elysian Fields and St. Frances Xavier Cabrini on Paris Avenue. The entire property around Cabrini was leased to Holy Cross School this year. They've torn down the church and are moving forward to build a new school on the site, moving out of their historic Ninth Ward home. On the positive side, St. James Major parish, on Gentilly Blvd., just off of Franklin Avenue, fared much better, to the point where their school building now is able to house St. Mary's Academy, an all-black girl's high school whose New Orleans East campus was badly damaged.
Fridays are now going to be "Gentilly Fridays," because there needs to be an increased level of awareness of the plight of this neighborhood. It's impossible to say that one neighborhood or one aspect of the city's problems are more important than others at this stage--that's like saying that one Gold Star Mother's suffering is more than another's. What Gentilly is lacking is publicity. Residents of public housing have Bill Quigley and his staff, along with scores of activists and protesters. Da Nint' has Brad Pitt, Harry Connick, Jr., other celebrities, and many folks in the local music community. Gentilly has nothing more than a lot of middle-class families who are wrestling with re-building, dealing with insurance companies and Road Home, all while trying to earn a living.
Without neighborhoods like Gentilly, the city's tax base goes down the tubes. With no property and sales taxes coming in from blue-collar and professional families, the services needed to allow the working poor their "right of return" will never get put back into place. The people rebuilding in Pontchartrain Park, or over on Cameron Blvd., or off St. Bernard Ave. need help, prayers, and support. They need political representation at City Hall, in Baton Rouge, and in Washington that will give them the opportunity to return to a productive and happy life in the city they love.
Posted by YatPundit at 8:54 AM | TrackBack
December 13, 2007
Train Thursday -
clicky for larger image
Aerial view of the Illinois Central roundhouse near Earhart Boulevard in Central City, 1949. The roundhouse is an engine facility for passenger trains servicing the IC's Union Station. The station was demolished in 1952 when the new Union Passenger Terminal was constructed in front of it on Loyola Avenue.
Since steam engines were no longer used for passenger trains coming into New Orleans by the 1950s, the roundhouse was torn down and replaced by a diesel engine facility. The railroad also expanded its coach yard and Pullman service facility. These facilities were taken over by Amtrak in 1972, and remain in use by Amtrak to the present.
To the left of the roundhouse facility is Earhart Blvd. The building at center-left is Booker T. Washington High School, and just above the school is the B. W. Cooper housing project.
Posted by YatPundit at 8:25 AM | TrackBack
December 11, 2007
"race screens"
From the New Orleans Public Library comes the text of an interesting 1928 memo concerning "race screens" and what streetcar motorman and conductors should do if a black person refused to move to the back of the streetcar. Here's the memo:
Form 542 COPY 12-26-2mNEW ORLEANS PUBLIC SERVICE INC.
TRANSPORTATION DEPARTMENT
ORDER No. 1128Subject: ADJUSTING RACE SCREENS
COPY
Date March 6, 1928.TO ALL TRANSPORTATION EMPLOYEES:-
We have received quite a number of complaints from the public lately to the effect that some of our conductors will not attempt to seat white passengers when it is possible to do so, by having the colored passengers who occupy a single seat to move to another seat occupied by only one passenger.
It is the conductor's duty to see that the race screens are placed in the cars at all times in such a way as to prevent too many seats being occupied by the single colored passenger. This arrangement can only be had by the conductor requesting the colored passengers to change from the single window seat to another seat that is occupied by only one other colored passenger.
If your request is refused do not attempt to force the passenger off the car but call the first Police Officer you meet and enlist his aid in having the passenger move. Be sure that you personally make the request upon the passenger to move and not indifferently shift that responsibility upon the person making the request to be seated, in cases where a seat is to be had, thru a shift of the colored passenger, nor tell them you cannot do anything that might assist them in obtaining a seat.
Division Superintendent
Approved:- (signed) D. C. O'Dowd
Supt. of TransportationCopies to:
Arabella
Prytania
Carrollton
Canal
Poland
Canal & Wells
Canal & Bourbon
Switchboard
Training School
Mr. A. B. Paterson
Mr. A. B. Mc Coard
Mr. W. H. Renaud, Jr.
Mr. J. C. Barnes
Mr. F. E. Bourgeois
Mr. A. E. Kern
Mr. E. T. Colton
Mr. J. J. Kornfeld
Mr. P. Mc Kay
Mr. A. J. Sarre
Division #194
The distribution list is interesting, since it shows locations significant to the system at the time.
Posted by YatPundit at 9:59 AM | TrackBack
December 10, 2007
Feature Photo: Ford, Bacon, & Davis Streetcars on Carrollton
Two Ford, Bacon & Davis streetcars pass each other on S. Carrollton Avenue at Willow Street in 1901. This car is still configured as it was delivered: open vestibule, Lord Baltimore truck. Car #197 is one of the 70 FB&D cars built by the American Car Company.
The New Orleans & Carrollton Railroad Company (NO&CRR) built two new facilities upon electrification in 1893. One was a power station at Napoleon and Tchoupitoulas (later to be come the NOPSI Training Facility), and the barn and shops of Carrollton station, at Dublin and Willow Streets. Carrollton Station was one block into the neighborhood from the location of this photo.
At this time, a small stand had been constructed at Carrollton and Willow. Car 197 is blocking the view of the stand in this photo, but you can see it in a sequence of photos on the NOSRA website.
Posted by YatPundit at 10:21 AM | TrackBack
December 6, 2007
Train Thursday - New Orleans Public Belt
The Pullman car, "City of New Orleans," owned by the New Orleans Public Belt, at Esplanade Avenue and the River. The NOPB operates charters of this car for groups. A group can hire the car, and NOPB will pull it out to the Huey P. Long, cross the river, then back.
Photos courtesy of Mr. P. R. Abbey, with our thanks!
Posted by Edward J. Branley at 10:06 AM | TrackBack
December 5, 2007
Gentilly Market/Social This Saturday
Oak Park Civic Association
Coffee Social and Marketplace
Saturday, December 8th
Oak Park Shopping Center (Mirabeau and Paris Avenues)
8:30am - Oak Park Neighborhood meeting
9:30am-11:30am - Breakfast, social, shopping
for more info, contact Nikki Najiola at n_najiola@yahoo.com
Posted by YatPundit at 10:06 AM | TrackBack
December 3, 2007
Feature Photo: Work at the Carrollton Shop
Von Dullen car 2021, fresh out of the paint shop, sits next to Perley A. Thomas car 903, which is up on the rack in the shop.
There are two components to Carrollton Station. The larger building is the streetcar barn, where the 900s operating on the St. Charles line have been stored and serviced for decades. The barn is open on either side--streetcars enter the barn from the rear, on Jeanette Street, and exit onto Willow Street. Next to the barn are two buildings that are accessible only from Jeanette St., and these are the shop areas. The purpose of the shops for years was to fabricate parts for the 1923-vintage green streetcars. The shops were heavily renovated in the 1990s, as their role changed from just parts and repair to being a full-blown streetcar fabrication facility. Both the 400-series Riverfront and 2000-series Von Dullens were built at Carrollton.
This photo shows the routine work done on the Perley Thomas cars as well as the progress being made on getting the 2000s back out on the street. All the red Von Dullen cars are being stripped, then re-painted, then wrapped in plastic until the re-design and re-build of their propulsion systems is complete.
Posted by YatPundit at 8:50 AM | TrackBack
Streetcar Update...
St. Charles: The weather has been pretty good, so things are moving along in terms of the power upgrade. Riverbend by Christmas is still a real possibility. The electric wire has been re-run up Carrollton to Jeanette (the back of the barn). Approximately half of the 900s are in service daily, on all three lines. Transfers at Napoleon from streetcar to bus and vice versa appear to be going smoothly.
The 900s are being housed at the SIS at Randolph. Two of them are at Carrollton, though, undergoing repair work for streetcar-versus-auto collisions. Both cars sustained a bit of damage, but it's one of those "you should have seen the other guy" situations.
Canal: The Von Dullen cars are being worked through the paint shop at Carrollton. All the 2000-series cars except for 2023 are at Carrolton, being cleaned, stripped, and repainted. There have been a number of issues with getting the Von Dullens back on the street. For some critical parts, there was a one-year lead time to ramp up fabrication. NORTA had spares, but not enough to rebuild the entire fleet. Additionally, problems with the 2000's propulsion system are being addressed in the rebuild. NORTA is looking at Tatra propulsion now for the 2000s, with the units being built by Brookville.. These delays have pushed back the return of the 2000s until some time next summer.
Von Dullen 2023 is up at Brookville. NORTA sent it there immediately after the storm. There's been some talk that all the work on the Von Dullens would be done at Brookville, and it appears to have come up once again this weekend at the APTA meeting in Tampa. While Brookville will certainly be involved in the work, it's not likely they'll do all of the re-bulid. If they were going to send the cars north, it's not likely they would have re-painted them until after they came back. So, why is 2023 at Brookville? Because they're experts on those trucks and propulsion. It's just like when you get in a auto accident and you take your car to a body shop. The surface damage might not look so bad, but a little digging can reveal much more serious problems. It was a very prudent move on part of NORTA to get 2023 (as well as one of the 400-series cars) up to Brookville so they could start looking them over.