New Orleans Stuff: March 2008 Archives

The "original" or "old" section of Metairie Cemetery has two parts. The first is the area that fronted Pontchartrain Blvd. (and the New Basin Canal, before the canal became an expressway), and the "race track," which still follows the pattern of the horse race track that occupied the property prior to the construction of the cemetery. The high-value locations in the cemetery were the plots visible from the street (and canal), and the "infield" of the racetrack. The inside street along the infield became known as "Millionaire's Row," because of the elaborate tombs built around the Army of Northern Virginia tumulus that occupies the western end of the infield itself. Of course, these tombs and memorials were all built between 1880 and 1900, so a person or family with the means to buy a modern-day "millionaire's" tomb couldn't fit in with the original ones. When the cemetery opened up the current main gate in the 1950s, they priced the plots near the gate and on that street according to its status as main entrance.

Al Copeland constructed the first tomb in this section a few years back for his family (and, as of today, himself). Others, such as Ruth Fertel (of Ruth's Chris Steak House fame), and Anne Rice (for her late husband, Stan), bought plots down the street a bit from Copeland, where they constructed lovely tombs worthy of the original Millionaire's Row. Just across from the Rice tomb is this one, for the Besthoff family.

The Besthoffs were the "B" in K&B Drugstores. Sidney Besthoff and his partner, Gustave Katz, opened their first store on Canal Street in 1905. The Katz family sold their interest to the Besthoffs in 1954, and the Besthoffs in turn sold the chain to RiteAid in 1997.

The current patriarch of the Besthoff clan, Sidney Besthoff, III, is well-known as a patron of the arts and a lover of sculpture. The Besthoffs financed the Sidney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden, in City Park, behind the New Orleans Museum of Art.

The elegant lines and classic design of the Besthoff tomb reflect the good classy reputation of Mr. Besthoff and his family. Each of the four columns is topped with a replica of "King Solomon's Crown." If you take the six-sided star you get from two interlocking triangles (the Star of David) and bend the corners upward, you get this style of pointed crown. There are no names engraved on the tomb as of this writing, so it's unclear if that means it is unused or if the family has chosen to not inscribe details.

Karen was asking about who would succeed SeeRay if he were to "retire."  The only time that mayoral succession has kicked in since the city charter was changed to create a mayor-council government was in 1961.  Then-mayor DeLesseps Story "Chep" Morrison was tapped by JFK to be Ambassador to the Organization of American States. 

The charter (and I find no references to this procedure changing since 1961) called for the council to choose between the two Councilmen-at-Large.  At that time, Schiro was elected Mayor by a vote of 5-1 (he abstained).  There was no special election; Schiro was "Interim Mayor" until the next election, when he ran and won.

So, were SeeRay to resign, the council would have to choose between Fielkow and Clarkson.  The winner would hold office until the 2009 election cycle.

The end of the St. Charles Ave. streetcar line, at S. Carrollton and S. Claiborne Avenues. This photo is from June, 2002.

Six more weeks to go, and the St. Charles line will be 100% operational. As of now, the line is only running the length of St. Charles, turning around at Riverbend. NORTA has announced that they expect to finish the upgrades and repairs to the line on S. Carrollton Ave. by May.

The intersection of S. Carrollton and S. Claiborne Avenues has been the location of the end of the St. Charles line since belt service was discontinued in 1951. It is a double-track terminal with a double-slip switch. Several bus lines terminate either in front of Palmer Park (like the bus on the left side of the photo), or on the neutral ground on S. Claiborne (to the right, just out of the photo). This intersection has long been a transit hub, dating back to 1915, when the Orleans-Kenner Railroad began operations.

The streetcars in the photo are Perley A. Thomas cars 940 and 961, both vintage 1923-24.

(clicky the image for a larger version)

Copeland family tomb, located at the "modern" entrance to Metairie Cemetery.

Al Copeland, of Popeyes Famous Fried Chicken, passed yesterday. Copeland was from Da Channel and later Arabi. His original chicken shop, "Chicken on the Run" opened in Arabi in 1971. That became Popeyes, and by 1977, he was franchising the concept.

Copeland also opened restaurants as well as fast-food chicken outlets, first Copeland's, which has expanded across the nation, then Straya, a short-lived "California-Creole" concept that had locations Uptown and in Metairie. The Straya locations were converted into "Copeland's Cheesecake Bistro" restaurants. In 1997, a hilarious public dust-up occurred between Copeland and author (and then-New Orleanian) Anne Rice. Rice publicly attacked Copeland's design and decor tastes, harshly criticizing the decor of the Straya's on St. Charles Avenue. Copeland sued Rice for defamation, but the suit was tossed out of court. Interestingly enough, Rice's late husband, Stan, is buried two blocks down from the Copeland tomb in Metairie.

The Copeland tomb is first on the left as you enter the main entrance of the cemetery. Prior to the filling-in of the New Basin Canal and the construction of the Pontchartrain Expressway (I-10), the entrance was located at the corner of Pontchartrain Blvd. and Metairie Road. The construction of an overpass at that intersection made it impractical for vehicular traffic to enter at that corner, so a new entrance was constructed two blocks up on Pontchartrain. The entrance is located just past the "racetrack" portion of the Cemetery.

Al Copeland was a true larger-than-life New Orleanian, and will be missed by many.

...that turns people into Teh Stoopit:

A 49-year-old New Orleans man pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court on Friday to charges of sending threatening e-mail messages late last year to a federal judge and Justice Department lawyers in Illinois. Michael F. Henry, who could get up to six years in prison when Judge Sarah Vance sentences him in June, has been involved in litigation with the Internal Revenue Service over its effort to make him pay $6 million in delinquent personal income taxes, money he says he doesn't owe.

I can't imagine this guy is dumb enough to make these threats over the phone, or to an AUSA's face, yet he'll e-mail them?

Liberty Place, August 25, 1963 (photographer unknown). A single Perley A. Thomas streetcar on the Canal line sits on the three-track layover, having just looped around the monument. This was the final step in the evolution of streetcar operations at the foot of Canal Street prior to the conversion of the Canal line to buses. The Liberty Monument was removed from the foot of Canal St. in the 1980s by the administration of Mayor Sydney Barthelemy, antcipating the development of a downtown casino. The three-track layover was re-constructed when the Riverfront line was expanded in 1997-98. Instead of the loop, however, the current configuartion in this area is a turn from the Canal tracks to Riverfront.

  (Liberty Place in 1906)

Prior to the erection of the Liberty Monument in 1891, the Canal trackage turned off onto N. Peters, S. Peters, Decatur, and Fulton Sts., with a simple semi-circle loop at the ferry landing. Because of of the construction of the monument and changes because of electrification, the city hired the engineering firm of Ford, Bacon & Davis to re-design the trackage from in front of the Custom House to the ferry landing. FB&D developed and constructed a huge terminal that was eight tracks wide at one point, all coming together to the loop you see in the photo above. As streetcar operations declined in the mid-20th century, the terminal tracks shrunk to the final three.

The Liberty Monument has been a sore subject in New Orleans for decades. The monument commerates the "Battle of Liberty Place," which occurred on September 14, 1874. Frustrated by the reconstruction government in New Orleans, The White League (a white supremacist organization similar to the Ku Klux Klan) attacked the police and supporters of the government in the French Quarter and at the foot of Canal. The Republican governor, William Pitt Kellogg, was forced to leave the city until he could marshal federal troops to return to the Quarter, push out the White League, and restore order. Kellogg was a career Republican politician from Vermont who was appointed by Lincoln to administer the Port of New Orleans after the war. When local (white) politicians took over control of city government in 1881, the locals named the area at the foot of Canal "Liberty Place." the obelisk followed in 1891. Originally, the monument was a commemoration of the White League's victory, and the names of the members of the League killed during the battle were carved on the obelisk. A parade was held annually on September 14 that ended at Liberty Place.

In 1934, two plaques were added to the monument, directly recognizing white supremacy in the city and state. It was these plaques that added insult to injury for black citizens of New Orleans. In 1974, Mayor Moon Landrieu (father of Senator Mary and Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu, and now an appellate court judge) ordered a brass plaque erected near the monument explaining that the "battle" was actually an insurrection led by white supremacists.

Mayor Ernest N. "Dutch" Morial tried to remove the obelisk outright in 1981, as part of the preparations for the 1984 World's Fair, but was blocked by the majority-white City Council. While the council would not let Morial remove the monument, they did authorize him to cover up the 1934 plaques. Even though the City Council agreed with Sydney Barthelemy in 1988 that the monument should go, allies of white supremacist and KKK leader David Duke sued City Hall in federal court. The racists argued that the city's action violated federal regulations concerning historic landmarks. Both sides worked out a consent decree, and Mayor Marc Morial (Dutch's son) took the Liberty Monument out of storage and returned it to a location near the Riverfront streetcar line, a block away from its original spot.

 

The current location of the monument, in-between Canal Place shopping center, the streetcar line, and the Aquarium of the Americas (background). Sen. Obama's campaign is certainly not the first time New Orleans has been forced to confront and debate the history of racism and race relations in this country. The Liberty Monument's strange tale shows that there are no absolutes in what is a very nuanced discussion. Even though many civil rights pioneers, white and black, wanted to throw the monument in the river, the feds forced New Orleans to strike a balance between historic preservation and working to end racism. Some reminders of where we are, where we came from, and why some like Rev. Wright have a right to be occasionally angry are a good thing.

NOLANotes tells a neat tale of how they respect the Lenten traditions at Liuzza's on Bienville that reminded me of a gathering on a Friday in Lent in the 1990s.  We were invited to a dedication of new facilities at the Port of St. Bernard down at the Kaiser Slip off of St. Bernard Highway.  There were a lot of political types there, including then-Senator John Breaux.  There was a lot of food and drink (it was a happy hour reception), but one of the things they ordered a lot of was cubed filet mignon served in hollowed-out loaves of round italian bread.  Of course, most of the guests were refusing the steak hors d'oeuvres when the servers offered them.  It got to the point where Msgr. Harry Thompson, S.J., who was at the time President of Jesuit High School, took the mic and offered the following prayer:

"Oh Father God,
Grant our wish.
Bless this meat,
And make it fish."

At which point, the filet mignon vanished in short order.  :-)

My first year of teaching began in August of 1980. I was 21 at the time (I have a November birthday), and taught juniors and seniors. That meant I was teaching boys and girls who were not that much younger than me. Because of this, I worked hard on creating a huge mental block so I would not be tempted to take advantage of the teacher-student relationship. Even if the girl is above the age of consent, as most of my students were, if you get caught, you never work again. And goddess help you if you hit on younger girls:

The Kenner Police Department says it charged an Isidore Newman School teacher with five counts of felony carnal knowledge of a juvenile. Kenner Police said a 16-year-old female accused Michael Lyons of having a sexual relationship with him. Investigators said Lyons was the teenage girl's former school teacher and tutor, and that the criminal activity happened on several occasions in Kenner last year.

Maybe it's because I follow local computer-related stories closer than others, but of all the places in the metro area to commit a sex crime, Kenner is the worst. KPD has a robust internet sex crimes unit, so no doubt it wasn't that difficult for that unit to parlay their success in that arena to reel in this guy. But it's not just one teacher this week:

Destrehan High School Band Director Byron Toups has been charged with molestation, indecent behavior and simple battery with students according to St. Charles Parish Sheriff Greg Champagne. According to a statement from police, Toups had sexual intercourse with a 16-year-old student at his home. In a separate incident, during the summer of 2007, police said Toups tried to kiss an unwilling 17-year-old student during Band Camp at Destrehan High School.

To me, this one is even more of a violation of trust than the Newman incident, because a band director spends a lot more time with students than the typical teacher. There's a simple moral to this story: Don't teach high school if you think you may not be able to resist banging your students. Hell hath no fury like a 16-year old scorned.

The New Basin Canal Monument, located in the neutral ground between West End Blvd. and Pontchartrain Blvd. in Lakeview, between Fillmore Ave. and Robt. E. Lee Blvd. This Celtic cross commemorates the work and sacrifices of the Irish laborers who built the canal. Here's the inscription:



The New Basin Canal was constructed in the 1830s to provide an additional water access to the city from the north. Prior to this time, boats on Lake Pontchartrain could approach the city via Bayou St. John and the Carondelet Canal, which terminated in a turning basin located, appropriately enough, on Basin Street in Faubourg Treme. The new canal terminated with a turning basin located near Rampart St. and Howard Ave., on the Uptown side of Canal St.

While this monument isn't in a cemetery, it is a memorial to the many men who gave their lives in the construction of the canal. In the 1830s, the path between Faubourg Ste. Marie and West End was nothing but mosquito-infested swamp. Hundreds of the laborers who worked on the Canal contracted yellow fever and died. The Irish were employed to build the canal because they were cheap labor. Slaves were expensive, and slave owners were not going to risk their investments on such a project. Better to let the Irish do it.

Many of those Irishmen are buried in St. Patrick's Cemetery at the head of Canal Street, two blocks away from the Canal they built.

Legislation was passed authorizing the closure of the New Basin Canal was passed in 1938, but World War II delayed the actual work, and the canal was filled in after the war. The Pontchartrain Expressway was constructed over the filled-in canal, running from Veterans Blvd. and West End Blvd. into town, eventually linking with the Crescent City Connection bridge when it was constructed in the late 1950s.

After the storm, the neutral ground between West End and Pontchartrain was used as a dumping area for the debris accumulated from the houses of Lakeview and Gentilly that were victims of the Federal Flood as they were gutted.  FEMA trash-hauling contractors would pick up the moldy drywall and other debris from in front of houses and dump it in the wide neutral ground.  By December of 2005, the hills of debris at this location, just a block from the monument above, reached heights well over 30 feet, and spanned several blocks.

Canal Street and St. Charles Avenue, looking lakebound, early 1880s. The church spire in the background on the right is Christ Church Episcopal, at Canal and Dauphine (the current location of the Maison Blanche Building-Ritz Carlton Hotel). The photographer is standing on the northern side of the big monument to Henry Clay in the middle of the intersection.

In the middle of the photo you can see three Stephenson single-ended "bobtail" streetcars. These cars were mule-powered (horses can't work for extended periods in the New Orleans summer). When they reached St. Charles Ave., the operators would turn them around on the turntable visible in the foreground. The man in shirtsleeves is most likely a street railway. working out of the little kisos to the left, behind the street vendor. That kiosk is a "starter house," where the employee working there would assist the operator in getting the mule and streetcar turned around for the outbound leg of the trip.

Four-track operations had already begun on Canal by this time.  The two outside tracks were used by the streetcar lines coming to Canal Street from the Central Business District and Uptown (left side) and the French Quarter/Faubourg Marigny (right side). ; The center tracks were used by the Canal and West End lines.

Since the mule-powered streetcars are in the photo, and Christ Church is still located on Canal, this dates this photo to somewhere between 1880-1883.

x-posted from my personal blog



I met Dedra Johnson at a book signing just before Christmas. Earl Higgins, Dedra, and I were signing our books at the Loyola University's bookstore. I'd been hearing about Sandrine's Letter to Tomorrow from friends, bloggers, and others for a coiuple of months. It's not the type of novel I usually read, but Dedra's a local author writing about New Orleans, good enough for me.

Sandrine may not be the type of character I usually get into, but I got into the novel nonetheless. It is a well-written story with lots of local color and a cast of characters who are very easy to love and/or hate, just like family members.

Sandrine Miller is a light-skinned black girl growing up in New Orleans' 7th Ward in the 1970s. Her parents never married. Her father is a physician who moved to Mississippi, and her mother lives next door to Sandrine's grandmother. Sandrine attends a Catholic elementary school near N. Broad St., and spends summers with her father and her paternal grandmother in Mississippi. The book tells the tale of Sandrine's life as she develops from a pre-teen to a young teenager, addressing the issues of not merely a black girl growing up, but a light-skinned girl who is ostracized by friends and family because she "looks white."

Sandrine's life is not an easy one. Her mother isn't much of a mother to her, since she sees too much of Sandrine's father in her. When Sandrine's father's-wife's-daughter (you'll see how this connects in the book), a girl several years younger than her, comes to live with Sandrine and her mother, she feels even further mistreated by her mother, because the darker-skinned girl receives better treatment. Dedra mixes teen anger with racial and sexual injustices in just the right amount to keep the pages turning, wanting to see what happens next and how Sandrine will deal with it.

Some say that Sandrine doesn't cover any new ground, that other authors have addressed these themes, but the local flavor of reading about New Orleans in the 1970s was enough to rope me in where authors like Maya Angelou didn't call to me half as much. Arkansas isn't New Orleans; I was just a few years older than Sandrine, and rode the bus through her neighborhood. Sandrine is Catholic and taught by nuns, and that experience triggers an almost Junigan-collective-unconscious thing when you see it on the written page. If you like New Orleans and you like coming-of-age stories, this one is a winner.

I'm going to offer some more thoughts below the fold. SPOILER WARNING - don't go there if you haven't read the book.