Faubourg St. John neighbor Jimmy Fahrenholtz sent in the photo below with the question,
Do you see a face?
Thanks Tommy!
photo courtesy http://cvunola.org
Artist Lindsey Postaski works on her artwork on the utility box on the neutral ground at Orleans and Moss.
This art was made possible by neighbor Tommy Crane who donated $1,000 to make this happen here and on the utility box at Banks and Jeff Davis. Thanks Tommy!
***
Click on the photos below by Charlie London for a larger view.
Go Ride the Streetcar
Riding the St. Charles streetcar down its historic line is a great opportunity to see different areas of New Orleans, including the mansion lined Garden District and oak tree canopied university area of Uptown. A single ride is $1.25, or purchase a day pass for $3for unlimited rides.
GoNOLA TV is a regular video segment on New Orleans food, music, shopping and nightlife. Visit http://www.gonola.com for all the best places to eat, drink, shop and play in New Orleans or head on over to http://www.neworleansonline.com and plan your vacation today!
***
photos below by Charlie London (originally posted at FSJNAdotORG on May 24, 2012)
Upon returning from the May 10th BlightStat meeting, I had the opportunity to, once again, ride New Orleans’ fine public transportation.
Click on the map for a larger view
If you haven’t taken a ride on a New Orleans streetcar or bus lately you really are missing out.
The streetcar operator told me each one of these refurbished streetcars cost 1 million dollars!
Get a great view of New Orleans’ architecture. Take the bus or the streetcar!
Architectural Vignettes
New Orleans, with its richly mottled old buildings, its sly, sophisticated – sometimes almost disreputable – air, and its Hispanic-Gallic traditions, has more the flavor of an old European capital than an American city. Townhouses in the French Quarter, with their courtyards and carriageways, are thought by some scholars to be related on a small scale to certain Parisian “hotels” – princely urban residences of the 17th and 18th centuries. Visitors particularly remember the decorative cast-iron balconies that cover many of these townhouses like ornamental filigree cages.
European influence is also seen in the city’s famous above-ground cemeteries. The practice of interring people in large, richly adorned aboveground tombs dates from the period when New Orleans was under Spanish rule. These hugely popular “cities of the dead” have been and continue to be an item of great interest to visitors. Mark Twain, noting that New Orleanians did not have conventional below-ground burials, quipped that “few of the living complain and none of the other.”
One of the truly amazing aspects of New Orleans architecture is the sheer number of historic homes and buildings per square mile. Orleanians never seem to replace anything. Consider this: Uptown, the City’s largest historic district, has almost 11,000 buildings, 82 percent of which were built before 1935 – truly a “time warp.”
The spine of Uptown, and much of New Orleans, is the city’s grand residential showcase, St. Charles Avenue, which the novel A Confederacy of Dunces aptly describes: “The ancient oaks of St. Charles Avenue arched over the avenue like a canopy…St. Charles Avenue must be the loveliest place in the world. From time to time…passed the slowing rocking streetcars that seemed to be leisurely moving toward no special designations, following their route through the old mansions on either side…everything looked so calm, so prosperous.”
The streetcars in question, the St. Charles Avenue line, represent the nation’s only surviving historic streetcar system. All of its electric cars were manufactured by the Perley Thomas Company between 1922 and 1924 and are still in use. Hurricane Katrina flood waters caused severe damage to the steel tracks along the entire uptown and Carrollton route and had to be totally replaced and re-electrified. The cars themselves survived and are included in the National Register of Historic Places. New Orleanians revere them as a national treasure.
Creole cottages and shotgun houses dominate the scene in many New Orleans neighborhoods. Both have a murky ancestry. The Creole cottage, two rooms wide and two or more deep under a generous pitched roof with a front overhang or gallery, is thought to have evolved from various European and Caribbean forms.
The shotgun house is one room wide and two, three or four rooms deep, under a continuous gable roof. As legend has it, the name was suggested by the fact that because the rooms and doors line up, one can fire a shotgun through the house without hitting anything.
Some scholars have suggested that shotguns evolved from ancient African “long-houses,” built here by refugees from the Haitian Revolution, but no one really knows.
It is true that shotguns represent a distinctively Southern house type. They are also found in the form of plantation quarters houses. Unlike shotgun houses in much of the South, which are fairly plain, New Orleans shotguns fairly bristle with Victorian jigsaw ornament, especially prominent, florid brackets. Indeed, in many ways, New Orleans shotguns are as much a signature of the city as the French Quarter.
New Orleans’ architectural character is unlike that of any other American city. A delight to both natives and visitors, it presents such a variety that even after many years of study, one can still find things unique and undiscovered.
This material may be reproduced for editorial purposes of promoting New Orleans. Please attribute stories to New Orleans Metropolitan Convention and Visitors Bureau. 2020 St. Charles Avenue, New Orleans, LA 70130 504-566-5019. http://www.neworleanscvb.com/.
Bayou St. John is the Reason for New Orleans
by Angela Carll
Times Picayune – November 15, 1985
Bayou St. John is the reason New Orleans is located where it is. The bayou provided a connection from the Mississippi River overland via an old Indian path to Lake Ponchartrain.
A number of historic landmarks still stand in this neighborhood to remind visitors of the city’s heritage.
The Old Spanish Custom House, built in 1784 at the corner of Moss Street and Grand Route Saint John, is the oldest structure in this neighborhood.
Another renowned home is the Pitot House, named for James Pitot, the second mayor of New Orleans. Built in 1799 at 1370 Moss Street, the Pitot House was later moved a short distance up the bayou to 1440 Moss in 1970.
The Tivoli amusement park once stood where the Pitot House is now. It featured a pavillion, orange trees, and dances were held there on Sundays.
Much of Bayou St. John remained swampy and unable to be developed while the city was attempting to drain the area, which was called “back of town” as early as 1835.
In 1866, the city started using the bayou as a drainage receptacle, and a community of houseboats grew up along it. In 1936, the State House of Representatives declared the bayou a non-navigable stream.
Fort St. John, where the bayou and lake meet, was originally built as a fortification by the French and later became the most prominent resort area in New Orleans during the 1930s. The Old Spanish Fort still stands on this site.
The fort is a modern-day battleground. The Orleans Levee Board has proposed replacing the Lakeshore Drive bridge that spans the bayou at its entrance to the lake with a grade-level crossing using culverts for water to flow back and forth from the lake to the bayou.
Members of the Bayou St. John Improvement Association have sued the Levee Board to halt construction, arguing that wind moves water currents and that the City Park lagoons which are fed by water from the bayou will soon stagnate. They also contend that closing the mouth of the bayou will damage an important part of the city’s historical heritage. (The “waterfall dam” near the mouth of Bayou St. John was removed in 2013. Please visit the link for more information: https://fsjna.org/2012/08/update-on-dam-removal/)
Although the bayou today lacks even the rowing clubs, which were popular in the last century, a drive along its curving shore shows typical Louisiana country homes. It still exists to remind us of New Orleans’ earliest beginnings, and why the city was built in a place that seems most improbable to us today.
CLICK HERE TO VIEW A PDF OF THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE.
Faubourg St. John was a community ten years before the founding of New Orleans in 1718.
Click on the map of Faubourg St. John for a larger view.
For more information, please visit the ABOUT and HISTORY tabs at FSJNA dot ORG
Old Soldiers Home
The Confederate Soldiers’ Home at 1700 Moss St. was built for veterans of the Civil War and was named Camp Nicholls to honor local Civil War Brig. Gen. Francis T. Nicholls, who later was a two-term governor of Louisiana.
In March 1866, shortly after the end of the war, the Louisiana Legislature decided to provide for local veterans, and the result was the Confederate Soldiers’ Home for Louisiana. The original home operated in Mandeville until the Reconstruction government stopped funding it. Reconstruction ended in 1877, but it wasn’t until 1882 that a reorganized board of commissioners purchased land on Bayou St. John to build a residence for the soldiers.
The new home was dedicated with a ceremony on May 16, 1884. Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson’s wife made a flag of Louisiana with “Camp Nicholls” embroidered on it, and this flag was raised to the top of a 70-foot pole.
As a special surprise, the Washington Artillery loaned a mounted brass howitzer named “Redemption” for the ceremony and hid it behind a grove of trees. When the canon was fired, folks were startled.
The property where the soldiers’ home was built measured 325-by-350 feet and had several buildings already on the grounds, but more buildings were added for living quarters. The property also had amenities such as live oak and magnolia trees, a stocked pond for fishing and vegetable gardens. Years later, several old cannons taken from Spanish Fort were placed at the home, and in 1908, a submarine torpedo boat constructed during the Civil War resided at the grounds until it was moved again in 1942.
Camp Nicholls filled an urgent need for housing among indigent and disabled Civil War veterans, and 25 men became its first residents. By 1901, 117 veterans were living there. During its 60 years of operation, it was home to more than 300 Civil War veterans. After World War II the National Guard established a camp that operated there into the 1970s. Before Hurricane Katrina, the property was occupied by the New Orleans Police Department’s 3rd District, special operations division and EMS.
All the buildings on the property were razed in 2009. It is the future home of Deutsches Haus, which moved to Metairie after the building it had occupied for 82 years was demolished in 2011 as part of the University Medical Center/VA hospital complex. Deutsches Haus President Keith Oldendorf says his group will begin clearing the property in January 2013. He says plans are to begin construction in the fall and open in 2014.
***
February 15, 2011
CLICK HERE for Stephanie Bruno’s article about Deutsches Haus at 1700 Moss
Curt Sprang talks with Kerry Tully of Swirl Wines about the Deutsches Haus planned relocation to the property at 1700 Moss Street.
Curt Sprang of ABC 26 News did “man on the street” interviews February 15, 2011 in Faubourg St. John about the possibility of Deutsches Haus relocating to the property at 1700 Moss.
1700 Moss is also the site of the old Confederate Soliders Home.
April 9, 2009 video below by Charlie London. The video shows the demolition of the Old Soldiers Home.
Just outside the fencing around the old Police Station at 1700 Moss Street there is embedded in the grass some blue-and-white lettered tiles which say “SOLDIERS’ HOME.”
‘On this site at 1700 Moss St. there was a Confederate soldiers’ home named “Camp Nicholls” in honor of Gov. Francis T. Nicholls, a Civil War hero.
In March 1866, the Louisiana Legislature established a Confederate Soldiers’ Home for Louisiana. The home operated at Mandeville until 1868 when the Reconstruction government halted the appropriation. Then under an 1882 amendment of the 1866 Act, a reorganized Board of Commissioners bought the tract of land on Bayou St. John for the purpose of building a soldiers’ home.
The new home was dedicated with great ceremony on May 16, 1884. Mrs. T.J. (Stonewall) Jackson had herself made a flag of Louisiana, and this flag was raised to the top of a 70-foot flagpole by her daughter, Miss Julia Jackson; the daughters of Gen. Robert E. Lee, Mildred and Mary; Gen. D. H. Hill’s daughter, Nanny; and Mary May, daughter of Col. A.H. May, veteran officer of the Washington Artillery. The large brass howitzer “Redemption” of the Washington Artillery fired a salute of 13 rounds.
The camp was home for many years to Confederate veterans, and on the grounds a visitor could see several old cannons taken from Spanish Fort and a submarine torpedo boat constructed during the Civil War.
Then in 1949, it became the State Headquarters for the 39th Infantry Division of the National Guard; and in April 1951, a new $120,000 armory was constructed, and the site became the home of the 135th Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron of the Louisiana Air National Guard.
After a period of vacancy, the building was renovated in 1983, and the Police Department took up residence.’
http://bestofneworleans.com/gyrobase/…
“Camp Nicholls, 1700 Moss Street, is a Confederate soldiers’ home established in 1883 during the Administration of Governor Nicholls. Only a few veterans remain in the institution. On the grounds may be seen several old cannon taken from Spanish Fort and a submarine torpedo boat, said to be the first of its kind, constructed by a Captain Hunley during the Civil War. The boat sank in the bayou on its first trial, and lay submerged many years before being salvaged.”
The New Orleans City Guide, 1938 Federal Writers Project, WPA
Photo by Jim Danner
Harding and Moss
The short film “Harding & Moss” premiers as part of timecodenola’s feature film “Where Y’at?” Saturday night September 29 at One Eyed Jack’s.
“Harding & Moss” is an adaptation of Connie Adler’s book “My Bayou” and stars Rosemary Monroe and Will Crocker.
Pre-order tickets at:
http://www.timecodenola.com/FFONE/?p=138
Proposed Facade Improvements at Shell
At tonight’s FSJNA meeting, Mr. Keith Marrero presented proposals for facade improvements at the Shell gas station at the corner of Esplanade and Moss. Mr. Marrero indicated that the station and pumps will remain but a 1500 square foot retail space will be added that will be leased out to an as-yet unknown entity.
Shown above and below are the examples of what the owners are considering for facade improvements on the building at the corner of Esplanade and Moss.
Magical Mystery Tour
photo by Charlie London
Lilies on Moss Street.
Every Wednesday at FSJNAdotORG the Magical Mystery Tour features a photo in or around Faubourg St. John. Do you have a photo of interest? Please send it to info@fsjna.org so it can be another stop on the Magical Mystery Tour.
1260 Moss Street
article and photo used with permission of the Preservation Resource Center
photo by Ian Cockburn
The home of Sara & Mark Landrieu
By MaryNell Nolan-Wheatley
“WHAT MAKES THIS HOUSE is all the windows,” noted Sara Landrieu, owner of the one-bedroom shotgun house situated on Bayou St. John. Indeed, the abundant fenestration expands the walls of the charmingly diminutive house.
The rhythmic frequency of windows and glass-paned doors connects the interior spaces with the exterior views, but it is Sara and Mark Landrieu’s aesthetic that distinguishes the house. Their design instinct and attention to detail during a 2008 renovation revealed much of the historic structure hidden by earlier additions and modifications.
The shotgun home was originally built on the neighboring property at the corner of Desoto and Moss streets between 1883 and 1895 but by 1908 owner Daniel Moriarty had moved the house to its current location. The property changed hands once more before it was sold to Otto John Rees at the outset of World War II. His son, Otto Albert Rees, who lived there until his marriage in 1955, remembers rearing chickens in the backyard. After Otto Rees’ death in 1974, the family rented out the property before selling it to the Landrieus in 2008.
Sara, an interior decorator, led the renovation and interior design of the historic home. A garage attached to the south façade concealed a bead board side gallery with several of its original support posts intact. Mark, concerned about the narrowness of the space, suggested expanding the width of the side gallery along the kitchen’s exterior. Sheer curtains add shade as well as movement to this picturesque space.
Inside, the Landrieus removed a wall that originally divided the front space into two rooms and added a small guest bedroom with skirted tub, a design that predates the more common claw-foot version. The removal of a dropped ceiling in the bedroom (which had been converted into a kitchen) and the linoleum flooring uncovered original wood floors and ceilings. A bookcase attached to the wall in the current kitchen hid a brick chimney. Other treasures uncovered on-site include a porcelain kitchen sink, a seed bin that Sara incorporated within a bookcase in the bedroom and three glass etchings found in the attic, now framed in the front room. All of the art on display was created by artists who reside within a mile of the house.
Click here to view the original article as printed in the March, 2012 issue of Preservation in Print. Article and photo used with permission of the Preservation Resource Center.
Doesn’t this house sound great? You can see more of this house and many more during the Preservation Resource Center’s Shotgun Tour of Faubourg St. John homes on Saturday, March 31st from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The headquarters for the PRC’s Shotgun Tour of Faubourg St. John will be at the PITOT HOUSE at 1440 Moss Street on Bayou St. John.
The tour is just…
$16 for PRC and Louisiana Landmarks Society members
$20 for non-members
$10 each for groups of 10 or more
All tickets are $25 at the Pitot House on the day of the tour so get your tickets early!
Ticketholders will receive discounts from area businesses including Bayou Beer Garden, Cafe Degas, CC’s Coffee House, Cork & Bottle Wine Shop, Fair Grinds Coffee House, Liuzza’s by the Track, Lux Day Spa, Pal’s Lounge, and Swirl Wine Bar & Market.
For more information call (504) 581-7032 or visit prcno.org
SPONSORS of the PRC Home Tour
Abry Brothers, Inc.
Cork & Bottle Wine Shop
Louisiana Landmarks Society
Mothership Foundation
Parkway Bakery & Tavern
Soprano’s Meat Market
Stafford Tile
Uptown Insurance Agency
Tour Headquarters: PITOT HOUSE
Built in 1799, the Pitot House is one of the oldest Creole country house buildings in New Orleans. It is traditional stucco-covered, brick-between-post construction with a double hipped roof and wide galleries. The house is named for James Pitot, the first mayor of incorporated New Orleans, who lived here from 1810 -1819.
Now open for tours and special events, the house was restored in 1960 by the Louisiana Landmarks Society, which uses the building as its headquarters.
Shotgun House ticket holders will have the opportunity to visit the historic Pitot House.
1450 Moss Street
article and photo used with permission of the Preservation Resource Center
Photo by Ian Cockburn
The home of Daniel Samuels and Dr. Nona Epstein
by Valorie Hart
Research by Valorie Hart and Sharon McManis
WHERE ARCHITECT DANIEL SAMUELS and his wife Dr. Nona Epstein saw the potential of the circa 1912 raised shotgun on the banks of the bayou, their family and friends saw rot, unfortunate facade proportions and an outdated floor plan.
Despite protests that they were crazy, the Samuels bought the house in 1992. The renovation was major — 40 percent of the sills and 60 percent of the floor joists were replaced, but with the expertise and skill of contractors such as Abry Brothers, Inc., the Samuels transformed the dilapidated shotgun into a warm family home.
Other improvements during the initial renovation included replacing the pediment and columns, moving the front door to the side gallery and redoing the facade with more Neo-Classical and refined architectural details. The Samuels also raised the house two feet in the hopes of, someday, building additional living space on the ground floor. These changes led the house to visually “grow up” to match the grandiose stature of its neighbors. Beyond that, the family lived in the house much the way a family in 1921 had, making the most of the great room proportions, high ceilings, cypress floors, pocket doors in every room, claw-foot bathtub, and, of course, that view of
Bayou St. John.
After returning from Austin, Texas following Hurricane Katrina, the Samuels immediately obtained permits to complete their ground floor addition, which includes a stair hall, two bedrooms, a bathroom, laundry room, windows on all sides and eight-foot ceilings that diminish any feeling of being in a basement addition.
Upstairs, the master bedroom utilizes the original front door as an entrance to a porch overlooking the bayou. The Neo-Classical porch railings, designed by Samuels, were fabricated by Ironworks Service. The stair hall that divides the master bedroom and office from the living space is an amazing aerie with tall windows and striking modern iron and cable stair banisters.
The elegant living/dining room has a set of original bay windows overlooking the side gallery and a decidedly Southwest-style fireplace that Samuels clad in plaster over brick. The house is eco-friendly with bamboo floors used in the new addition and Marmoleum floors, a type of sustainable linoleum, in the kitchen. Windows have been liberally added so that every room has a view of the bayou, while providing extra light to the house.
Click here to view the original article as printed in the March, 2012 issue of Preservation in Print. Article and photo used with permission of the Preservation Resource Center.
Doesn’t this house sound great? You can see more of this house and many more during the Preservation Resource Center’s Shotgun Tour of Faubourg St. John homes on Saturday, March 31st from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The headquarters for the PRC’s Shotgun Tour of Faubourg St. John will be at the PITOT HOUSE at 1440 Moss Street on Bayou St. John.
The tour is just…
$16 for PRC and Louisiana Landmarks Society members
$20 for non-members
$10 each for groups of 10 or more
All tickets are $25 at the Pitot House on the day of the tour so get your tickets early!
Ticketholders will receive discounts from area businesses including Bayou Beer Garden, Cafe Degas, CC’s Coffee House, Cork & Bottle Wine Shop, Fair Grinds Coffee House, Liuzza’s by the Track, Lux Day Spa, Pal’s Lounge, and Swirl Wine Bar & Market.
For more information call (504) 581-7032 or visit prcno.org
SPONSORS of the PRC Home Tour
Abry Brothers, Inc.
Cork & Bottle Wine Shop
Louisiana Landmarks Society
Mothership Foundation
Parkway Bakery & Tavern
Soprano’s Meat Market
Stafford Tile
Uptown Insurance Agency
Tour Headquarters: PITOT HOUSE
Built in 1799, the Pitot House is one of the oldest Creole country house buildings in New Orleans. It is traditional stucco-covered, brick-between-post construction with a double hipped roof and wide galleries. The house is named for James Pitot, the first mayor of incorporated New Orleans, who lived here from 1810 -1819.
Now open for tours and special events, the house was restored in 1960 by the Louisiana Landmarks Society, which uses the building as its headquarters.
Shotgun House ticket holders will have the opportunity to visit the historic Pitot House.
FISHday FRY
Feb 24 | Mar 2 | Mar 9
Our Lady of the Rosary Church will be hosting
their famous fish fry for 3 Fridays this year.
Tonight from 5 pm to 8 pm. and the next two Fridays.
*Look for the big dome on
the bayou at 3368 Moss Street on beautiful Bayou
St. John. Fish, Shrimp and FUN too!*
Pitot House EVENTS
photos by Charlie London
Join the Louisiana Landmarks Society for a unique Vino on the Bayou experience!
June 8
5:30 – 7:30 PM
1440 Moss Street | New Orleans
March 16
March 31
PRC Shotgun House Tour
Headquarters: The Pitot House10 AM – 4 PM
April 20
Vino on the Bayou, 5:30 – 7:30 PM
May 18
Vino on the Bayou, 5:30 – 7:30 PM
June 8
Vino on the Bayou, 5:30 – 7:30 PM