New Orleans Public Service, Inc. (NOPSI) began the push to discontinue the Canal Streetcar in 1960.
Canal Street buses
This 1959 photo of Canal Street confused me for a moment. My friend Keith Evans posted it in his Facebook group, “N.O.L.A. – New Orleans Long Ago,” with just the title, “1959.” I thought, no, there are buses in the neutral ground, and that would be post-1964. I said as much in the group. Pop replied that he dated the image by the ad for the movie, “Ben Hur,” which came out in 1959.
So, I looked at that neutral ground a bit closer. It’s so clean! When buses ran in the “Canal Street Zone,” the roadway was streaked with rubber from tires and oil that leaked from the buses. The area in this photo is spotless! So, it’s just too clean to be normal.
Closing the streetcar line
By 1951, NOPSI discontinued streetcar service on all but the St. Charles and Canal lines. They stopped “belt service” on St. Charles and Tulane. Tulane switched to trolley bus service. Instead of running the belt, St. Charles terminated at S. Claiborne and Carrollton Avenues, as it does to this day. That meant the Canal streetcars were next up on the chopping block.
It wasn’t hard to convince Canal riders to switch to buses. If you lived in Lakeview and commuted into the CBD, you rode a bus to Canal Street and City Park Avenue. From there, the streetcar took you down Canal. NOPSI’s strategy was to operate two bus lines from the lakefront into town. One would use West End and Pontchartrain Boulevards, the other Canal Boulevard. Instead of turning around at City Park Avenue, however, they would continue down Canal Street. This offered riders a direct ride to work during the week, shopping on Saturday. No transfer!
Not only would buses make it an easier trip, they were air-conditioned. That was a big deal for men wearing coat and tie and women wearing stockings to work. Rainy day? You were safe until you got to Baronne or Carondelet Street.
Canal Street zone
With no streetcars in the CBD, buses would travel in the Canal neutral ground. After Claiborne Avenue, they would move into the regular auto traffic lanes. This meant commuters avoided cars while downtown. NOPSI airbrushed the streetcars out of several photos from 1959-1960, inserting buses in their place. I have a couple of these images in my book, New Orleans: The Canal Streetcar Line. This one was new to me.
Red streetcars
Streetcar service on Canal Street returned in 2004. The 2000-series Von Dullen cars featured a smoother ride and…wait for it…air conditioning! Riders coming in from Lakeview have to transfer from the bus, like they did prior to 1964, but hey, streetcars are always more fun.
The house at Bourbon and St. Philip Streets is part of the Jean Lafitte legend.
Jean Lafitte Blacksmith House
via THNOC, this 1960s rendering by “Nick, D.” of the Jean Lafitte Blacksmith House offers a magical view of a popular Vieux Carré bar. While there is no record of the house being owned by the Lafitte brothers, it’s part of their legends and stories.
The image
THNOC’s record for the image:
Grisaille rendering of the Jean Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop Bourbon Street at Saint Philip in the French Quarter. Shows single-story house with single chimney, two dormers, curved hipped roof and brique-entre-poteaux construction with four French doors having louvered shutters. Shows a coach lamp at left, a streetlamp at right, and a crescent moon in the sky at upper left.
It’s a writing prompt.
Meeting place
The house was purported to be where the Lafittes met with local ship captains and businessmen. The privateers needed to sell the goods they smuggled into Louisiana, and legitimate business owners were not going to invite the brothers into their homes. So, operating out of a house a bit further downriver made sense from the current bar’s website:
Between 1772 and 1791, the property is believed to have been used by the Lafitte Brothers, Jean and Pierre as a New Orleans base for their Barataria smuggling operation. The legend is based on the fact that the property was owned by the family of Simon Duroche a.k.a. Castillon and the wily privateer Captain Rene Beluche. Castillon was a rather record-shy adventurer and entrepreneur. Captain Beluche commanded his ship “Spy” in Lafitte’s Baratarian fleet. Although the owners of the property, Jean Baptiste Dominica Joly LaPorte probably lived on the premises, it is within reason that the Lafittes could have used the place as city base for negotiations with potential buyers of their goods.
From smuggler’s base to tourist watering hole!
Walking Tour
My version of the Friends of the Cabildo French Quarter Walking Tour goes past Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop. We walk from Jackson Square, through the French Market, then up to Ursulines and Bourbon Streets. So, we talk about the house became one of the oldest gay bars in the US in 1933. An ownership change in 1953 forced the gay bar to move to the other end of that block of Bourbon. Now the original bar is now “Cafe Lafitte in Exile,” located at Bourbon and Dumaine Streets.
The West End was an escape from the city and heat from the 1850s.
The West End
This was originally presented to the West End Kiwanis Club. So much fun talking to hard-working volunteer groups! This one was fun, so it’s part two of our series on the Lakefront.
West End Park, 1940s. The entertainment district had been cleared in favor of green space. The Southern Yacht Club marina and Municipal Yacht Harbor aren’t there yet.
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St. Claude Avenue was the main street of the Marigny/Bywater/Ninth Ward.
Kaufman’s on St. Claude
This 1961 photo of the Kaufman’s Department Store on St. Claude Avenue illustrates the retail climate in New Orleans in the early 1960s.
“I’m going shopping downtown!” what what your grandma (shoot, your great-grandma these days) would say, as she put on her hat and gloves that matched a nice dress. Off she went, catching the bus, then a streetcar, exiting on Canal Street. The world was hers, as she walked from Krauss to Godchaux’s to Maison Blanche, stopping for lunch at Holmes. She returned home in time to get dinner started, knowing that the stores would deliver her purchases the next day.
That routine changed for a lot of women by the 1960s. Women entered the workforce during World War II, covering essential jobs. In the new Orleans area, the Cold War and the “Space Race” created jobs for women. Additionally, the city’s footprint grew out more, with younger couples buying houses in Gentilly and further out in the Ninth Ward. Families who lived further away from the Central Business District were less interested in a longer ride on public transit. Car culture dominated.
Suburban growth
Local retail saw this coming in the 1950s. Maison Blanche opened stores in Gentilly and Mid-City, but it was Kaufman’s that truly embraced the suburbs. Charles Kaufman & Co. operated in the Dryades Market corridor from the 1880s. The store boasted of easy accessibility, with three major streetcar lines passing by. While the Dryades corridor would never surpass Canal Street, many New Orleanians, particularly Black locals, recognized the value of the area. The company leveraged that popularity, opening satellite stores in Gentilly (Paris Avenue), Lakeview (Harrison Avenue), and two in Jefferson Parish.
Our photo this week is of the Kaufman’s store at 2135 St. Claude Avenue, corner Elysian Fields Avenue. Here’s the caption from THNOC:
View of business at 2135 St. Claude. A billboard advertising “Pan-American Life Insurance Company 50th Anniversary” sits atop building. Commissioned by Latter and Blum.
This Franck-Bertacci Studios photo is undated, but the billboard establishes the date. Pan-American Life Insurance was founded in 1911, making its fiftieth anniversary 1961. The St. Claude streetcar is long gone. Riders wait for the bus, as the corner of Elysian Fields and St. Claude was a transfer point. The bus stop sign on the right is for the Elysian Fields line.
Kaufman’s, along with other stores in the Dryades corridor, encountered push-back from the Black community during the Civil Rights movement of the early 1960s. That push-back led to Kaufman’s closing the flagship store in 1961. In spite of that tension, the outlying stores continued with success until the popularity of shopping malls overtook them.
In the 1960s, Canal Street buses changed downtown.
Canal Street buses
From: 1965: NOPSI photo of a GM GMC TDH5303 bus. It’s running on the Canal-Lakeshore line, outbound, passing through the 1000 block of Canal Street. This photo dates to about a year after the conversion of Canal to bus service. The vintage-1923 arch roof streetcars ceased operation on Canal in May of 1964.
Cemeteries, Lake Vista, Lakeshore
So much can be said about the buses on Canal, and there are a few other items to be unpacked on this image. Let’s focus on the three Canal bus lines, post-streetcar. I rode those lines in both directions for the five years I attended Brother Martin High School in Gentilly. While my dad, who worked at the University of New Orleans, drove me to school in the morning, I rode public transit home. NOPSI provided two basic routes west from Gentilly. The Broad Street line ran from out in Da East, then Gentilly Blvd. The line turned onto Broad Street, just after passing Dillard University, continuing all the way to Lowerline, uptown. The other option using Gentilly Blvd. was the Carrollton line. Both of these lines crossed Canal. So, we would hop off and catch one of the three Canal lines to City Park Avenue. We caught the Veterans bus from there.
Lakeview
Then there was the second route, through Lakeview. We took the Cartier line from Mirabeau and Elysian Fields to Spanish Fort. The Cartier line started at Franklin and Mirabeau. It was, for all intents and purposes, a school bus route, passing by several elementary schools, F. W. Gregory Junior High, and John F. Kennedy Senior High. So at Spanish Fort, we transferred to the Canal (Lake Vista via Canal Blvd.) That line began its inbound run there. We’d ride Lake Vista to Toussaint and Canal Blvd. While the bus turned inbound on Canal Blvd., we got off and transferred to the line from this photo, Canal (Lakeshore via Pontchartrain Blvd.)
The Canal Lakeshore bus ran outbound on West End, turned right on Toussaint, then left on Canal Blvd. It terminated at the lake. For its outbound run, the line returned to Toussaint and went down Pontchartrain Blvd. So, we caught the inbound Lakeshore and rode it to Veterans, where we would pick up the Veterans.
Suburban transition
Cor Jesu and St. Aloysius High Schools didn’t have a lot of boys from Metairie attending the schools. As suburban expansion grew, the combined Brother Martin High appealed to a number of Crusader and Kingsmen families who moved out to Metairie. We kids from #themetrys were still a minority of the student body, back in the 70s. As the transition grew (now, most Crusaders live in Metairie and Kenner), the school offered school bus service, so families didn’t have to rely on less-reliable public buses.
To continued…
We’ll have more to say about this image in a couple of other posts. Thanks to Aaron Handy, III, for sharing this image to one of the bus fan groups on Facebook and triggering my memories!
The St. Aloysius ring 1969 marked 100 years of educating young men in New Orleans.
St. Aloysius Ring 1969
St. Aloysius High School presented rings to their final class, 1969, in the fall of their senior year. The Brothers of the Sacred Heart announced the closure of the school the previous summer. The campus at Esplanade Avenue and N. Rampart Street would close after graduation in May, 1969. The institute combined the student bodies of St. Aloysius and Cor Jesu High School, forming Brother Martin High. The BMHS Class of 1970 received the first class rings of the combined school in the fall of 1969. With fond memories of the legacy schools, those underclassmen of 1969 carried on at the expanded campus on Elysian Fields.
The Legacy
1937 Senior Ring, courtesy Mr. Tommy Longmire
As we mentioned in our article on the 1936 ring, the original colors of St. Aloysius High School were purple and gold, and the mascot was the “Panthers” The Sacred Heart encrusting on the 1936 ring gave way to the Aloysius “A” the following year, for the class of 1937. The stone was still purple. When Brother Hernandez approved the name/color changes, the stone became red.
The Ring
The Class of 1969 ring followed the pattern for the school’s class rings since the change of mascot and colors in the 1930s. The school’s final class ring sported one major change. Instead of the text surrounding the stone saying “SAINT ALOYSIUS HIGH SCHOOL,” the 1969 ring replaced the bottom text with “100 YEARS” to mark a century of tradition in New Orleans.
The left side of the ring presents the bust of a Crusader. the knight wears chain mail armor, with a coronet of nobility on his head. He stands in front of two crossed swords. The class year appears above him.
The right side displays an image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. A scroll above the image says, “Amateur Cor Jesu.” The date, 1869, marks the year St. Aloysius opened, on Barracks and Chartres Streets in the French Quarter.
A word from your sponsor
We hope you’ve enjoyed this series on the senior rings. While NOLA History Guy is not affiliated with Brother Martin High School, I am a 1976 graduate of the school. My book, Brothers of the Sacred Heart in New Orleans, traces the history of St. Aloysius, Cor Jesu, and Brother Martin from 1869 to 2010. Here’s the back-cover blurb:
When New Orleanians ask “Where did you go to school?” they aren’t asking what university you attended but what high school. That tells a native a lot about you. For over 150 years, the Brothers of the Sacred Heart have educated the young men of New Orleans, giving them the opportunity to answer the question proudly by replying St. Stanislaus, St. Aloysius, Cor Jesu, or Brother Martin. Images of America: Brothers of the Sacred Heart in New Orleans showcases photographs, illustrations, and maps tracing the role of the institute in making New Orleans a vibrant and dynamic city, able to overcome even the worst of adversity. From their roots in the French Quarter, moving to Faubourg Marigny, and finally settling in Gentilly, the Brothers of the Sacred Heart continue to make a major contribution to metro New Orleans and Southeast Louisiana.
The book is available at all the usual suspects — the link here clicks through to Amazon. If you buy (or have already purchased) the book, feel free to contact me (edward@ebranley.com), and I’ll be happy to inscribe your copy.
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