Desmare Playground

Desmare Playground as it looks today.

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Eileen and Randy Duke recently donated their copy of the 1989 Faubourg St. John Home Tour booklet. The article below is from that booklet.

Desmare Playground in 2007 before the Faubourg St. John Neighborhood Association planted trees.

On April 11, 2007 the Faubourg St. John Neighborhood Association along with HikeForKatreena.com planted 12 trees around Desmare Playground.

1850 lithograph by Xavier Magny

Tivoli Garden, a commercial ‘pleasure garden’ along the Carondelet Canal pictured in the 1850s, was ‘thickly planted with choice trees and shrubbery beneath which were benches and tables, and amid which were latticed bowers and arbors,’ according to the New Orleans Picayune of Oct. 30, 1849. ‘There were buildings for barrooms, ice cream cakes, coffee, etc. … Musicians poured forth German waltzes, to which couples danced for a half dime each ten minutes. … Good order, a spirit of mutual accommodation, and intense vivacity prevailed. Sunday afternoons and evenings drew the largest crowds, of old, young, and middle-aged … French, German, Irish, Spanish and Italian in race or extraction.’