Neighborhoods: February 2008 Archives

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.

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.