Getting Lost in History Can Be Fascinating

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Submitted by: Haley Ashe

Hello all! Hope you all have enjoyed reading these adventures in field work as much as I have. Each research opportunity, restaurant visit, casual conversation, new blog post, etc allows all of us to learn something more about this unique city some of us are fortunate enough to call home. New Orleans is a jewel and myself and my fellow bloggers have been investigating this particular facet located at Canal Street and Carrollton Ave.

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Many of us have provided links and helpful photos pertaining to the development of the Lafitte Corridor. Not at an attempt of being redundant but more so out of importance, here are some more links and photos.

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http://www.bestofneworleans.com/blogofneworleans/archives/2011/12/14/sec-of-interior-gives-greenlight-to-lafitte-corridor-greenway

http://www.bestofneworleans.com/gambit/plans-for-the-lafitte-corridor-greenway-are-still-on-the-rocky-road-to-recovery/Content?oid=1620787

http://www.bestofneworleans.com/blogofneworleans/archives/2012/03/20/winn-dixie-breaks-ground-in-mid-city

http://www.urbanconservancy.org/projects/carondelet-basin-greenway

This development is very important to the area and has the potential to drastically change this historical neighborhood.  Interested in becoming a friend of the corridor? You can do it here: http://folc-nola.org/

This particular neighborhood has always been a microscopic example of the racial diversity of The Big Easy. Post Katrina census figures have changed slightly as far as residential make-up, but over all the figures are within similar ranges when you consider the fact that not all citizens have returned nor have all of the homes been rebuilt. Here is a comparison of the 2000 and 2010 census data. http://www.gnocdc.org/NeighborhoodData/4/MidCity/index.html

Mid-City gained its moniker from when it was literally the middle of the city in the late 19th century. Pre-contact natives had long settled the area along the natural levees of the river, avoiding the routine flooding of the lower lying areas we now inhabit today. Mid-City was fully developed by 1920 and had multiple public amenities such as public transportation (http://www.gonola.com/2011/03/16/nola-history-streetcars-the-early-years.html) , pools, parks, theaters, churches, schools, restaurants and more. In September 1926 what had begun to be known as Jesuit high school opened its doors on Banks St. and South Carrollton. (http://www.jesuitnola.org/about/about–6406.htm) Around this time as well across from what is now The Shamrock on N. Carrollton and Tulane was a stadium for our minor –> major league baseball team The Pelicans. http://nolalocal.com/new-orleans-pelicans/

Our old, beautifully decaying city has had many transformations and Mid-City has transformed right along with it. The area of Mid-City has seen many historical structures lost due to neglect and nature. Multiple city blocks along Canal Street have been leveled in the name of progression and corporate interests. Even when citizens have attempted to get involved (http://www.preservationdirectory.com/preservationblogs/ArticleDetail.aspx?id=806&catid=1) it is sometimes not enough. There are grants available through the government for citizens to preserve our city though. (http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2011/08/historic_mid-city_properties_e.html) There are also ways for concerned citizens to get involved in what is happening to their area. (http://www.npnnola.com/issues/view/8/master-planning-for-neighborhoods-in-new-orleans) What often happens is that “we” see what is going on in our city but feel we don’t have the time to devote to city meetings, or that a local government agent would not reply to a strongly worded correspondence. Because of this lack of incentive, many wonderful aspects of our city will be forever lost. I am actually alarmed at how few people are aware of the Greenway project. Claire and I have not spoken with the owners of Juan’s or Wit’s Inn yet, but I have spoken with some other Mid-City business owners, employees, residents and area visitors. Most of the individuals I have spoken with have perhaps noticed there are buildings being torn down. Aside from seeing construction, most are not aware of the future intentions of the area, which in turn has not made them aware of the future impact this project may have. While we all hope it will be positive, the past has shown that large-scale development such as this causes rent to rise and an influx of more affluent residents to move in. This is good for the businesses in the area, this is NOT good for the predominantly working-class, low-income and student aged residents calling this area home. (http://www.prcno.org/neighborhoods/brochures/MidCity.pdf) My hopes for the future is that businesses and residents alike will work together to preserve what makes  this area of the city special in it’s own right.

Our research of Juan’s Flying Burrito http://www.juansflyingburrito.com/

   1908 4724 S. Carrollton Ave Juans bldg

Has turned up some interesting information. Sanborn maps printed in 1898 did not contain any data for the area. I then realized that was because at that time it was only “Carrollton Ave.” and had not extended to Canal Street from Claiborne Ave. yet. However, in only 10 short years Carrollton had then developed into South and North Carrollton and was connecting to City Park. On the 1908 map what is now Juan’s was in existance. It wasn’t until the 1937 maps were we able to discern that Jaun’s had been for many years a Steam Cleaners. On the south side of the building was a movie and performance theater and on the north side of the building was a service station. An anticipated meeting with the owner and more Sanborn maps may shed light on the 60 years after it was a Cleaners.

Our research on Wit’s Inn (http://witsinn.com/) has also unearthed some interesting information as well.

   New+Orleans+1937 141 N Carrollton Wit’s Inn

Wit’s Inn is home to a former pool hall in the 1970s. According to Sanborn maps printed in 1908, the location already existed, although it wasn’t until 1937 that were we able to find a map actually labeling the location as a restaurant. Claire hopes to get to speak with the owner so we can see what his sentiments are on the Greenway project and perhaps give us some insight on the neighborhood and how the businesses and residents interact.

I hope you all have enjoyed reading this as much as I have had writing it! Until we meet again.

Testing the Waters on the RestRow Blog

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This seriously makes me feel as though I have been thrust upon a stage and told to sing a song I have never learned. This is my first blog for anything, ever, so please do not judge too harshly ladies and gentlemen of the classroom.

Hello all, I am Haley and I have teamed up with Claire to focus our part of the Restaurant Row project on Juan’s Flying Burrito, http://www.juansflyingburrito.com/ and Wit’s Inn, http://witsinn.com/. Juan’s is located @ 4724 S. Carrollton Ave. and Wit’s can be found @ 141 N. Carrollton Ave. on each side of Canal St.

In doing research for this first post, I have found lots of interesting information on the immediate Canal and Carrollton area. However, specific information on my buildings has been proving to be more difficult and time consuming. I had hoped to have all kinds of neat and interesting facts to share with you all. Claire and I have already gotten to do our first visit to Juan’s. It was quite fun and we got to speak with some of the staff, take photos, enjoy some of their wonderful quesadillas (I had the Luau, sub chicken for shrimp – to.die.for.!), and enjoy some of their in house margaritas. Juan’s has placed in the top 3 for multiple categories in Gambit Weekly’s Best of Lists for multiple years, Wit’s has even found its way into the press as well.

Pre-Katrina I was a resident of the area. I lived in a duplex at the corner of S. Bernadotte and Cleveland streets. Thinking back on it now, I wish I had been aware of what was to come. Although I did patron several of our assigned locales, I wish I had spent more time at the locations that did not return once the city began to revive its self.  I did find a good pre-Katrina website,  http://www.gnocdc.org/orleans/4/45/snapshot.html. Perhaps some of you have already seen it. I also found a city tour guide from around 1935! http://www.archive.org/stream/neworleanscity00writmiss/neworleanscity00writmiss_djvu.txt Some of the descriptions of city night life may be giggle inducing. I included it because it does mention a few Mid-City establishments plus it is an interesting read. Good luck to all and I look forward to seeing what all of our research produces! Till next time guys.

Blogosphere Realizations of a Noobie Blogger

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As some of you already know, an on-site (and online) exhibit at the Southern Food and Beverage Museum is going to accompany our Restaurant Row Recovery Project. We are working on the possibility of publications in scholarly journals as well. All of this seemed relatively standard for this type of project, but as to how blogging fit into this, I was clueless.

Rising Tide NOLA 5 New Media Conference Poster. Graphic Art by Greg Peters of Suspect Device (click the photo for a link to more of Greg's work)

On August 28th I discovered that we had at our disposal an entirely new media format for our project to tap into: blogging. I know this sounds odd since we have been blogging about our project for weeks now, but I never really understood the potential of such an avenue until I attended the 5th annual Rising Tide NOLA New Media Conference. Until that rainy Saturday I thought of our blog as simply a method of providing some chronological feedback on our progress, and as a possible source of topics for further exploration.

Prior to this project I was not a blogger. Until this conference I never truly understood the power, and access, blogging could provide. The new media conference (subtitled A Conference on the Future of New Orleans) changed that.

What I am somewhat familiar with is the jambalaya of emotions that go along with doing field work in New Orleans. Self doubt gets sautéed with shyness and preemptive humiliation to create the perfect discomfort food, and I had a feast before me. What did come as a surprise were the jitters I had about making our project public. The bloggers I met at the conference seemed immune to such thing. In fact, they actively strive to be public.

At this point in my life all of the conclusions and analysis of my previous work remained in a closed academic system, thus lessening potential shortfall fears. The final outcome resulted in grades in a grade book, some brief experiences and encounters with the public, and a new semester of classes. In other words, no harm, no foul. But this project is different; this project is not just for a grade. This project is for adding to the knowledge base of Anthropology, for shedding more light on the role restaurants play in New Orleans culture, and for contributing to the understanding of a New Orleans post Katrina neighborhood recovery. All of this sounds fantastic on paper (and in theory), but how can it become practical? How do we add our findings to the elusive knowledge base? How does our research, and academic fantasizing, make the way from bits of collected data to printed literature and disciplinary journals to public knowledge and discourse?

The bloggers and conference attendees– active and aware citizens – are providing us an alternative answer: new media. Part of the same media some the restaurants on our Row use to tell their own stories (a topic covered on this blog by David Beriss). Key note speaker Mac McClelland of MotherJones.com and author of For Us, Surrender Is Out Of The Question: A Story From Burma’s Never-Ending War, went so far as to say that the rise of “citizen journalist” was evidence that new media was a forerunner to pushing for cultural change and cultural awareness. I came away from this event in agreement.

Keynote spearker Mac McClelland. Photo by Bart "Editor B" Everson of b. rox (click the photo for a link to more of Editor B's work)

McClelland also spoke against the recent government, and BP, reports on the amount of oil still present in the Gulf. She argued the oil is not gone and that the seafood and restaurant industry are going to be reeling from this for a long time, a sentiment echoed by two of the restaurant owners I have interviewed. McClelland praised the blogging community of New Orleans for its dedication and passion for the city. The New Orleans blogosphere (and now us, the RRR team, to a lesser extent) are creating transparency and focus to a city in recovery.

Taking this one step further it is now apparent to me that new media can be tremendously useful for future academic recovery projects like this one. Gone are the days of the lonely anthropologist heading off to some far away exotic locale with a notebook and pencil. Technological advances like new media allow us to not only document our ongoing work, but also to achieve a level of transparency previously unattainable. Analysis and conclusions can be viewed as a process instead of an event. Consultation can come from a variety of far away sources, and perhaps most importantly, our study subjects can be involved like never before.

New media is a powerful tool. I am honored to have been invited to the conference, and am inspired to further utilize this avenue for my future anthropological and social justice work. I would like to say thank you to all those who continue to provide the community with an alternative voice.

Restaurant Criticism

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I wrote recently that I would not engage in any restaurant criticism here.  And I won’t.  But an essential part of our research is figuring out where the restaurants—past and present—of our restaurant row fit within the complex New Orleans culinary universe.  To that end, I have spent many hours lately digging around in old newspapers, magazines, guidebooks, newsletters, etc. to see how the restaurants have been evaluated over time.

Since the late 1960s, restaurant critics have played an important role in shaping discussions about restaurants and dining in New Orleans.  For this project, I am looking mostly at material about our neighborhood, written and published locally.  This is simply a way of making a very large amount of material more manageable.  For another project, I am also looking into restaurant writing about New Orleans more generally, including some of the early efforts to legitimize the genre and the way it has changed over time, as the idea of culture, useful criticism, careers and other factors have come into focus.

1973 Edition of The New Orleans Underground Gourmet

Many people in New Orleans would agree that Richard Collin, author of the “New Orleans Underground Gourmet” (1970, Simon and Schuster), was the city’s first real restaurant critic.  He was also a history professor at UNO, where his work in food writing was not terribly well respected, both because it was not really academic work and because it probably did not seem like appropriate behavior for a scholar.  UNO would look on such things differently today.  That said, there is a relatively clear relationship between art, film and literary criticism and scholarship in related fields, so that it does not seem unusual for professors to write analytic as well as critical pieces for both scholarly and popular publications.  The ties between academe and restaurant criticism are less obvious, at least from a disciplinary standpoint.  Especially for a historian such as Collin.

Collin stirred up quite a bit of controversy with his writing, in the various editions of “The New Orleans Underground Gourmet,” in his columns for New Orleans States-Item, and in a few other guidebooks about the city.  His reviews were subject to protest at a meeting of New Orleans restaurateurs in 1975, with accusations that he lacked objectivity and, worse, that his wife, Rima Collin (also a UNO professor), had a professional interest in seeing some restaurants better rated than others.  These kinds of accusations and debates go with the territory, as Frank Bruni, former New York Times restaurant critic, notes in his recent book “Born Round: The Secret History of a Full-Time Eater” (2009, Penguin). But the tone of the original confrontation with Collin seems to suggest that in the early 1970s, restaurateurs had not yet figured out how to make sense—and use—of restaurant writing.

However, it is also true that Collin, along with other critics in the early years of restaurant writing, did not hesitate to dole out cruel commentary on restaurants.  Although such commentary still exists, many restaurant writers in New Orleans tend these days to only write about restaurants they can say nice things about, ignoring the rest.  The reasons behind this are not entirely clear.  Perhaps they feel they can leave the harsh comments to blog writers, on-line discussion boards like Urban Spoon, Yelp, Chowhound, etc.  Collin, however, left us with some very amusing evaluations of restaurants in our neighborhood.  Some include restaurants that have since become veritable institutions in New Orleans, which suggests that despite restaurateurs fear, it is possible to survive and even thrive despite the critical barbs tossed out by food writers.  Here are a few pithy comments about defunct restaurants in our neighborhood:

On Hazel’s Po-Boy, 208 N. Carrollton (where Taqueria Guerrero Mexico is today): “Hazel’s serves cheap poor boys that lack distinction, as well as luncheon specials on paper plates.” (“The New Orleans Underground Gourmet,” 1973, p. 132.)

On Mid City Kitchen, 303 N. Carrollton (near the corner of Bienville and N. Carrollton, on the site of a defunct strip mall, unreconstructed since Katrina): “On some days this is one of the great places in town. On most days it isn’t.  Inconsistency mars the record of a brilliant Cajun burger, well seasoned hamburger poor boys, and excellent roast beef poor boys.  On the bad days you wouldn’t recognize them.” (“The New Orleans Restaurant Guide,” 1976, with Rima Collin, p. 165.)

All, of course, is not negative.  Collin waxed poetic about many restaurants.  In 1976, he wrote about Mandina’s “This is what good old New Orleans neighborhood restaurants once looked like.  Mandina’s still does.  A joy to look at and a joy to eat in.” (“The New Orleans Restaurant Guide,” 1976, with Rima Collin, p. 108).

Some evaluations change over time.  But one that stays remarkably consistent is Brocato’s, which Collin and every other critic I have come across has proclaimed magical.  He writes that the cannoli “may well be the cheapest miracle in the world.” (“The New Orleans Restaurant Guide,” 1976, with Rima Collin, p. 72.)  And despite my promise not to engage in any criticism myself, I will admit that I believe that this is still true, 34 years later.

Much can be learned from looking at the way restaurant writing has shaped our restaurants and our way of thinking about restaurants.  Please let us know of any memories you have about restaurant writing, encounters with critics or ideas about how it should be done.  Who are you favorite (and least favorite) critics?  Tell us about them.


Carrollton Avenue’s Transformation

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This is a photo of Carrollton's 3600 block circa 1950. Although it was taken several blocks from our research area, it is important to note that the same fate has befallen this strip of businesses as has happened on "the row" - they have since been replaced by 5 Happiness Restaurant.

When I explained to Arthur that part of my project was to map out a history of the neighborhood, he launched into a vividly detailed description of what “the row” looked like when the Brocato family moved there in 1979. The only other food establishments on the street at the time were Venezia (still standing) and Hazel’s Po-Boy’s, an establishment since closed. The Red Door Bar was also around back then, and according to Arthur its clientele isn’t as rough and tumble as it was in the old days. Everything changes with time. The rest of the street was filled with businesses that were functional for the neighborhood. On one side, (Brocato’s side) stood Fashion Forward, David’s Beauty Salon, Johnson’s Hardware, and a used car dealership where Kjean’s now stands. Across the street was Ace’s Pool hall (now Wit’s Inn), a washing machine repair center (now Doson’s), and a sign painting business. A bit further down the road towards City Park was Chaubaud’s Marine, Music City, and a tire repair shop. There was also a small market nearby where neighborhood residents could grocery shop. The building where Brocato’s itself now resides was three different bakeries beginning in the 1920’s.

It seems as though this strip of Carrollton was a sort of one-stop-shop for daily errands. When I asked Arthur what he thought of the neighborhood now in comparison to what it was back then, he told me that things have definitely changed, but he isn’t sure whether or not they’ve changed for the better. He explained that as far as a restaurant boom is concerned, he felt that “the row” had reached it’s peak right before Katrina. Restaurants in general on Carrollton Avenue have come back strong post-K, but Arthur isn’t sure that that’s best for everybody’s business. On one hand, he reasons, variety can bring people to the neighborhood more regularly to eat, but on the other, there might reach a point where there are too many establishments vying for a set group of clientele. Judging by the line out the door on a summer Friday night, I don’t think that Brocato’s has much to worry about. Nevertheless, it is fun to reminisce about spending a productive afternoon in the 70‘s on Carrollton where one could park the car and walk to get one’s hair cut, pick out a new outfit, break for a classic Italian lunch and possibly wind down by playing some pool.

Arthur’s mixed feelings about the numerous food establishments got me wondering what other residents of New Orleans and specifically Mid City think about the changes to the area. If you can recall what Carrollton was like prior to its present incarnation, please feel free to chime in and comment! I’d love to hear what pieces of history our residents have to offer.

This is the intersection of Carrollton and Esplanade circa 1950. Bayou St. John is to the viewer's left and City Park is to the right.

Photos: Upper- courtesy of  www.old-new-orleans.com Lower: courtesy of www.neworleanscitypark.com

I Did Not Miss My Calling as an Archivist

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I went to the District Civil Court to trace the chain of property owners for several of the restaurants in our project.   Seth Gray had told me about his trip to the Conveyance District (the branch of the DCC that houses the property archives of a certain time period) – his account of his research not only sounded wildly successful, but like something that I could do too.   He had sold me on the romance of digging through title archives in a stuffy silent room of the Court House so, armed with a pen and no real idea what I was doing, I set off.

After greeting me, the office receptionist plugged the addresses of my restaurants into the archive computer and rattled off instructions for what I needed to do next, utilizing a vocabulary and acronyms mostly unknown to me.  She must have sensed I had not followed her completely (possibly the vacant expression on my face – a result of my confusion and increasing light-headedness from not eating that morning) so she took a moment to write down all of the stats she had just looked up on my properties and told me to head to the fifth floor. On the fifth floor, an archivist was called over to assist me.  He, like the woman downstairs, began talking to me in archive speak.  My first reaction was to nod knowingly at what he was telling me about districts and notaries, etc., so as not to give myself away as an absolute research novice, but I reconsidered, realizing that would not be effective if I actually wanted to learn something.

The archivist set me up with five or so gigantic metal bound books of property title changes.  By set up, I mean I had these books in front of me on a long table where I could bend over awkwardly to read them .  For whatever reason, chairs were not made available for this type of research, but Seth was right about how excellent these documents are – they list births, deaths, divorces, and aliases of all parties involved.  They even list the previous spouses of all title vendors and vendees.  The information seemed too personal to be public domain.  I wanted to photograph some pages and handwritten property notes, but wasn’t sure if photography was permitted.  Rather than asking a researcher, like a normal person, I tried to capture the footage sneakily. Not so sneakily as it turned out, when I was unable to turn my camera to silent so that my every button push was accompanied by a chime .  I was like a really bad, boring spy.  Needless to say, my photographs from that day are not top-notch.  I am currently in the process of compiling title tracks for each of the restaurants I will be researching and have vowed to be more collected and adult-like the next time I return to the Civil District Court to complete these traces.