New Orleans Architecture: Faubourg Tremé and the Bayou Road

by Roulhac Toledano, Mary Louise Christovich

Focuses on the Bayou Road, which was lined with the country seats and residences of the city’s earliest settlers.

240 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1980

About the author

Roulhac B. Toledano

Reviews

[Vicky Hunt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Forever Isn't Long Enough in Tremé

This is a detailed guidebook to the architecture of Tremé; in terms of people, transportation, life, work, play, worship, and the buildings that facilitated it all. It is filled with descriptions, photos, and sketches of the life of this remarkable section of New Orleans. The formal name of the neighborhood is Faubourg Tremé, but usually it is still referred to as simply Tremé. It is the birthplace of Jazz and gets its name from the slave owner whose plantation was eventually turned into a neighborhood for 'free persons of colour' in New Orleans. And, it has a vibrant present, as well as a remarkable history.

It is a rather large sized paperback of more than 200 pages (mislabeled by Goodreads.) I picked it up on my trip to NOLA Summer 2020 and have been fascinated with it. It gives the stories of important landmarks and buildings. One major project was the Carondelet Canal.

"One of the main routes of travel from New Orleans to the east and north was by small boat through the canal to Bayou St John to Lake Pontchartrain and, via steamer, to Mobile. Thus, a drainage convenience became the navigable Carondelet Canal, later to be known as the Old Basin Canal."

After about a century and a half, the railroad was established alongside the canal and eventually the canal was deemed unnavigable. It was filled in to make Lafitte Street. This made the multilingual inscription on the hospital beside the canal a bit ironic.

"The Baron de Carondelet, Governor General
Having planned executed and perfected
Almost without expense this Canal, The Council in the name of the inhabitants
As a testimony of the public gratitude,
Has decreed that it shall forever
Bear the name of the
Canal of Carondelet."

One of my favorite houses written about in detail was the Benachi-Torre House. The wide galleries span the first and second floors. The four sets of double, square columns across the front seem to bring a bit of the southern plantation style into the eclectic creole architecture, but with a beauty unmatched elsewhere in the country. The gothic cast-iron fence around it (as well as trimming the galleries,) and the fountain, placed between the front gate and the entrance to the house are shaded by many large trees. It is one of the more beautiful mansions of New Orleans. I'm adding a link to a video I found of it on Youtube, but the photo in the book is gorgeous!

New Orleans Benachi-Torre House on Youtube (see 0:14)

The book leaves out nothing. It details Tremé's important buildings. Personally, I would have never thought to build a prison near the market, but there it was. The prison followed the French and Spanish building traditions. The neutral ground between the prison and the Tremé Market was planted in sycamore trees. The prison's two towers were complemented by the Market tower, which straddled Basin Street. The prison was demolished in 1895 and replaced with a City Pumping Station building, which introduced a twentieth century, Spanish Revival type in public buildings.
There is also the Sänger Théâtre, one of the first massive onsite concrete building projects. From the old forts, to the Pleasure Palaces of the early 20th Century in 'Storyville' it reads like a story unfolding across the centuries of NOLA.

One facet of the book I enjoyed reading immensely was the sections detailing race relations and the lives of the "Free Persons of Color" living in Tremé. Slaves had to be allowed to rest on Sunday. If they worked, they had to be paid fifty cents. From Congo Square to the big brass bands and Jazz, to the French Code Noir, to the criminal records about specific individuals. Tremé himself was arrested for shooting Alejo, a slave belonging to another man, and gravely wounding him. He was tried and sentenced to five years on October 20, 1787, which he served before being released.

"The French Code Noir of 1724 specifically forbade interracial marriage, and the unions of those of disparate blood could neither be legalized nor sanctified."

Listen to Louis Armstrong play the Basin Street Blues on Youtube

Three monuments to Latin American heroes are erected along Basin Street, between Canal Street and the Municipal Auditorium. A twelve foot Simon Bolivar of cast granite was gifted by Venezuela in 1957. Benito Juarez was a Bronze gift from Mexico in 1965. A bronze General Francisco Morazon was gifted in 1966 from Honduras and El Salvador.

"Unobserved by members of the City Planning Commission was the fact that the area, which had appeared to them a slum, was in reality a living history of the city, reflecting one and three-quarter centuries, Hundreds of the brick-between-post Creole cottages and center-hall, side-gable houses had been designed, built, owned, and lived in by the prosperous free black community of the first half of the nineteenth century... Archival drawings, auction notices, building contracts, and old photographs indicate that more brick structures and historic buildings of quantity were demolished by this urban renewal project than remain on any similar number of squares in the area beyond N. Rampart . One of the important creole buildings demolished was the birthplace of the black poet Rodolphe Desdunes and numerous historic homes of black nineteenth- and twentieth-century musicians. House-types and styles, like those considered worthy of National Register status in the Vieux Carré, were razed, along with 150 years of history. By 1965 the city funded relocation for inhabitants of the former City Commons, many of whom were descendants of early settlers."

I mentioned the beautiful mansions earlier. But, what did the free persons of color live in in the poorer sections of Tremé? There were six basic house types used all over the neighborhood, including creole cottages, one-level side hall, two-level side-hall, center-Hall, villa, and shotgun houses. But, it was the creole cottage itself seen more often than the others. And, there were several varieties, including galleried, common wall, two-bay, three-bay, and the full two-story Creole house, some galleried.

"The standard form is the four-bay Creole cottage, with openings evenly spaced across the façade, and four rooms within, of equal or similar size, two across the front and two across the back. Two chimneys providing four interior fireplaces frequently are placed between double dormers, one in front and one in the rear roof slopes. To the rear there is usually a gallery up to 10 ft wide with cabinets (small rooms.)
A kitchen may have been set across the rear of the lot parallel to the main house or placed to midway, producing a courtyard between the house and kitchen."

This book is a great resource for those wanting to know more about the buildings and people of Tremé. An Architectural Inventory is included that features photos and details of the neighborhood.