Art and Photography Blog: Photos of New Orleans Neighborhoods Part Thirteen: Uptown Off Carrollton Avenue

Photos of New Orleans Neighborhoods Part Thirteen: Uptown Off Carrollton Avenue

This is the thirteenth in a series of images of New Orleans neighborhoods taken in February 2010 the weekend before the Super Bowl victory and two weeks for Mardi Gras. I certainly did not have time to cover them all but this series will provide a glimpse of the city that I hope you will want to visit.

This unofficial area runs on either side of Carrollton running north from River Bend (see Part Twelve for River Bend. This area includes the East Carrollton neighborhood on the east side of Carrollton Ave, and the Leonidas area on the west side. Within the Leonidas neighborhood, there is the Oak Street shopping area with the Maple Leaf Bar for great live music and Jacques-Imo's for funky Creole cooking, as well as nearby Mat and Naddies’ s for modern Creole cooking. I lived on the other side of Carrollton after living in Riverbend (see at bottom for pictures and more description). My friends and I would go the Oak Street area to see the Saturday matinee at a theater that does exist now and spend our allowances as a toy store. You can click on any image to make it larger.

THe last three pictures above show the elementary school that I attended, The Lusher School, and two banners the school children created for the Super Bowl that were hanging on the school fence. The four before the school were in my immediate neighborhood. A friend lived in the purple house and we created a vast city in the dirt in the crawl space under the house. It was not purple then.

Below is the house we lived in in the late 1950s. It was my parents first house and was three stories. We lived in the middle floor and rented out the top and bottom floors. My parents said it was a raised bungalow. This meant it was originally two stories and was raised to add the bottom floor. We used to play baseball on the intersection shown below. The street signs embedded in the four sideway corners were the bases (see second base on the left). Passing cars stopped the game but traffic was not too heavy. The New Orleans Cemetery was a block away and this was another playground.

The first black and white picture shows the house at the corner of Jeannette and Lowerline when we lived there in the 1950s. It was white with grey front steps. The next one shows it pre-Katrina in the Spring of 2005. It had been painted a maroon color and the front steps were also painted maroon. The next three pictures show the house as it was being repaired after Katrina, as well as the destruction to the sidewalk in front. The last one shows it in 2010. It is now a bright yellow with white trim and they returned the front steps to grey which I think is much better. The owners restored it to its original condition and did not seem to make any exterior changes.

After really big rains, my friends and I played with our toy boats by the side of Lowerline Street as the poor drainage formed a lake next to the curb. Sometimes we would toss Cherry Bombs at the boats. These fireworks were illegal then but we got them at a shop on the Orleans Parish line without our parents knowledge. It was a shot gun house and the story was that they would move the fireworks to the Jefferson Parish end when the Orleans Parish police showed up and then the reverse when the Jefferson Parish police came. This might be a myth but the Cherry Bombs were real. One day the city decided to fix the drainage on the street. They sent a crew of seven armed with one pickaxe to take on the problem. Six supervised while one swung the axe. Fortunately, the lake returned after the next big rain.