by nolahistoryguy | Apr 6, 2021 | 1900s - 1910s, Lakefront, West End
Southern Yacht Club still stands at the entrance to the New Canal.
Southern Yacht Club
Postcard from the Detroit Publishing Company of the Southern Yacht Club on Lake Pontchartrain. The club stands at the entrance to the New Canal. A local photographer shot this between 1900 and 1909. They sold the photo to the publisher, who colorized it and published it as a postcard.
New Canal
The New Canal connected Lake Pontchartrain with the Central Business District for over a century. Locals refer to the canal as the “New Basin Canal,” distinguishing it from the Carondelet Canal. Creole businessmen financed the Carondelet Canal. They built it in 1795. While Canal Street was supposed to have a canal running its length, competing business interests changed the plans. The Creoles living in the Vieux Carre weren’t interested in helping the Anglo-Irish in Faubourg Ste. Marie. They built their canal just north of the Vieux Carre.
The Anglo-Irish responded in the 1830s by building the New Canal. Its basin stood on S. Rampart Street. The canal ran from there to the lake. So, by the 1840s, the city had two navigation canals. Eventually, the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal (Industrial Canal) rendered both of the older canals obsolete.
West End
Southern Yacht Club anchored the West End entertainment district. Roads and railroad service linked West End to the city proper. Beginning in the 1850s, entrepreneurs built hotels and restaurants at West End. While the Southern Yacht Club was the largest sailing club on the lakefront, a number of other sailing and rowing clubs established themselves along the New Canal.
This photo shows the New Canal outlet to the lake. This section of the canal is all that remains. The city filled in the rest of the canal in the late 1940s. So, with the canal gone, the city built the Pontchartrain Expressway. This highway followed the canal’s path, from what is now Veterans Blvd to downtown. This enabled Lakeview residents to easily commute by car into the CBD.
by nolahistoryguy | Jan 25, 2021 | Gentilly, Lakefront, West End
Maison Blanche Swimsuits 1956 for Memorial Day sale.
Maison Blanche Swimsuits 1956
Swimsuits and other summer wear filled up almost an entire page of the Times-Picayune on 31-May-1956. Cotton swimsuits for $5.50, and in stock after Memorial Day? Whoa. Sixty-four years later, women stress over buying a swimsuit in January.
Summering in the late 1950s
Many New Orleans families packed up and headed to the Mississippi Gulf Coast in June. School’s out, and the heat rolled in. Central air-conditioning wasn’t nearly what it is now. So, Mom and the kids left town. Literally. Dad worked, of course, joining the family Friday night.
Folks who didn’t have the means to buy or rent a summer home, or a fishing camp down the bayou, managed with day trips. The Elysian Fields bus transported generations to Pontchartrain Beach for a day of sun and swim. Others chose the West End bus, for picnics at the park. Black families rode out to Lincoln Beach, on Hayne Blvd., in New Orleans East. Others chose the shelters maintained by the Orleans Parish Levee Board along the lake. Shelter No. 3, by the old Coast Guard station, featured a roped-off swimming area. Lifeguards manned watch stations there, by the entrance of Bayou St. John. Whichever escape the family desired, the right clothes were essential.
MB Stores
By 1956, Maison Blanche operated three stores. The Canal Street store always served as the flagship and corporate headquarters. The buyers chose lots of clothing for deeper discounts as summer approached. The stockrooms on the second floor emptied, filling the displays on the first floor. They buyers sent stock and brand lists to the art department. Messengers delivered ads to the paper.
Those buyers factored in stock levels of certain items for these sales. Not only did they consider shoppers on Canal Street, but folks in Mid-City and Gentilly. MB operated the store at S. Carrollton and Tulane, serving Mid-City and the growing Metairie subdivisions. In Gentilly, the store at Frenchmen and Gentilly Blvd. offered a closer alternative than Canal Street to families out there.
The Ad
The block-font “Maison Blanche” logo at the bottom of the page served as the “standard” for MB at the time. The top “MB” varied, depending on the artist.
by nolahistoryguy | Aug 3, 2016 | Early 20th Century, Featured, History, West End
Day trippin to West End
West End was very active in the early 1900s, right up to the great Hurricane of 1915 (hurricanes weren’t named at that time). The last piece of Pontchartrain Boulevard, the road on the western side of the New Basin Canal, was a toll road, the toll receipts used for road upkeep. The West End Streetcar line traveled on the east side of the canal, parallel to West End Boulevard (just out of the frame here, on the right).
Messages – windows to the past
The message on the postcard says:
I did not get a chance to send the thread sooner, but I did not get a chance to go out. Mama is very bad off. There will be another consultation today. Ed (?)/Eda (?) is here, & Ernest is leaving Sunday. Lariern left Wed and came to see us Tuesday. Love to all. (illegible) soon, Bertice.
The postcard is typical of the period, a black-and-white photo that is then hand-colored and printed. It’s interesting that Bertice wrote her message on the bottom of the front. Perhaps she was afraid that the recipient would admire the photo and not read anything on the back?
The choice of scenes for this card is also interesting. She’s conveying what appears to be bad news about “mama”, yet the postcard is of a part of town usually associated with happy experiences. West End was a big day-trip destination at the time. Of course, I’m probably reading too much into this. It’s more likely that Miss Bertice grabbed an inexpensive card at the drugstore to send a quick note, not giving much thought to the image on it. I hope mama’s consultation went OK!
Image courtesy of the Louisiana Research Collection (LaRC) at Tulane. If you’re on Facebook, you want to follow their page. They post some cool stuff, and it’s fun to look at the stories behind what they share.
Lake House Hotel, 1860s
Be sure to check out the latest episode of NOLA History Guy Podcast, which presents the history of West End as a day-trip destination for New Orleanians looking to escape from the heat and humidity of city life.
by nolahistoryguy | Jul 16, 2016 | Early 20th Century, Lakefront, Podcasts, Spanish Fort, West End
Podcast 006 – Day trips out to West End and Spanish Fort, by train or streetcar. Beating the summer heat is an ongoing challenge in New Orleans!
“The Coney Island of the South” – Spanish Fort
Download the Pod
Introduction
Welcome to NOLA History Guy Podcast! We’re back, talking about our hot New Orleans summers with an edition we call Beating the Summer Heat in Old New Orleans
Hot summers in New Orleans are certainly not a new phenomenon. Staying cool in the Summer months has been a challenge since the French and Spanish explorers came Louisiana and the Gulf Coast. These days, we run from our air-conditioned homes to our air-conditioned cars to our air-conditioned offices, then back again in the evening.
Now, think about doing that at a time when there was no air-conditioning! Every work day, riding the streetcar or a bus to the office, and home again. Older homes were designed to maximize air flow, and electrification provided power for fans in any rooms in the house. Still, it got hot. You know how that goes, when the a/c is broken and you have to rely on ceiling fans!
The men who went off to work had to deal with the same heat and humidity as the women, but they were on the move more. Mom was stuck at home with the kids. Day in, day out, doing the housework, cooking the meals, supervising the kids, Mom needed an escape!
The easiest escape route for mom and the kids, sometimes even dad, if he could take a day off, was on the streetcar, heading out to the Lakefront. There were two popular escape destinations, West End and Spanish Fort. We’ll talk about the attractions at both, and how folks got out to Lake Pontchartrain.
1860 – 1880 – Summer Heat at West End
Lake House Hotel, 1860s
1880 – 1900
West End Resorts, 1892 (Charles Franck photo)
1900 – 1920
West End Lighthouse, 1910 (courtesy NOPL)
Entrance to the West End Garden, 1911 (Charles Durkee photo)
1912 Postcard of West End
Mugnier Photo (stereo), bridge connecting New Basin Canal with West End Amusement pavillions, 1900s
Spanish Fort
Confederate Submarine at Over the Rhine at Spanish Fort, 1895 (Mugnier photo)
Casino at Spanish Fort New Orleans, 1890s
Barney & Smith motorized streetcar pulling dummy cars, 1911
Spanish Fort Casino, 1890s (Mugnier Photo)
Spanish Fort midway, 1900s (Franck photo)
End of the Spanish Fort Streetcar line, at the bathhouse, 1912 (Franck photo)
Swimmers at Spanish Fort, 1900s (Franck photo)
by nolahistoryguy | Mar 25, 2016 | Food and Drink, Neighborhoods, Uncategorized, West End
Fitzgerald’s Restaurant at West End, New Orleans, 1995 (Edward Branley photo)
The craziest day at West End was always Good Friday! After the solemn aspects of Good Friday were observed, many New Orleans families headed out to West End for seafood. Strictly speaking, it wasn’t exactly as solemn as perhaps the Church wanted, but the food was good. Two of the popular restaurants were Brunings (top) and Fitzgerald’s. Both of these photos are from 1995. My family always preferred Brunings; their whole stuffed flounder is still the standard by which that dish is judged.
The Bucktown Bridge, connecting Orpheum Street in Metairie to West End in New Orleans, 1995 (Edward Branley photo)
We would come from the Metairie side of West End, crossing the old Bucktown Bridge, which, alas, ATNM, between storms and the enhanced flood protection/controls on the 17th Street Canal.
Hurricanes during the 1990s all but obliterated the restaurants, bars, and nightclubs at West End. Even before Katrina, it was impossible for the property owners to re-build, because of wind and flood issues. No insurance company would underwrite reconstruction or new development.
West End for dining and entertainment is a thing of the past, but many folks still have fond memories of fun evenings looking out on the water.
by nolahistoryguy | Feb 12, 2016 | Early 20th Century, Food and Drink, Neighborhoods, West End
Dinner at West End
Bird’s eye view of Mannessier’s and West End Restaurant at West End, New Orleans, Louisiana. (LSM Collection, in the Public Domain)
Fridays in Lent usually bring out all the memories of going to Bruning’s, Fitzgerald’s, and other seafood places out at West End. Here’s a photo from an earlier vintage of West End, 1892. The restaurant on the left is Mannessier’s, on the right, West End Restaurant.
Mannessier’s Pavilion at West End, 1900s. (NOPL collection in the Public Domain)
Mannessier’s Restaurant was owned/operated by the same family that owned Mannessier’s Confectionary at 705 Royal Street, in the French Quarter. They opened the West End location in the late 1880s. They added a pavilion to the property in 1899, which was taken down in 1911.
At this time, West End was more of a day trip from downtown/uptown. You made your way to Canal Street and took the West End streetcar line out to the lakefront.
(h/t WebsitesNewOrleans.com for the pavilion photo)
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