Dear Barbara,
Canal Boulevard does have a very wide neutral
ground, but there was never a canal there, only a drainage ditch. However,
we did
have two really
important canals, and one "almost" canal.
The first major canal was dug at the order of Gov. Francoise-Louis Hector, Baron de Carondelet et Noyelles, in 1796 and connected the outskirts of New Orleans with Bayou St. John and Lake Pontchartrain. Its turning basin was back of Rampart at St. Louis Street. The canal also served as a drainage ditch, but it was eventually allowed to fill up. It became serviceable again in 1805 when the New Orleans Navigation Company was hired to clean it up, enlarge it, and maintain it. This canal was filled in between 1927 and 1938.
The canal I believe you are referring to had its beginning in 1831 when a rival company composed of Uptown American merchants and promoters proposed to construct an even better canal. The Legislature passed an act incorporating the New Canal and Banking Company. With a capital of $4 million and many desperate immigrants -- mostly Irish -- they bought land and began to dig a canal six feet deep, 60 feet wide, and six miles long that ran from Lake Pontchartrain between what is now West End Boulevard and Pontchartrain Boulevard, veered left and ended at a turning basin near what is now Union Passenger Terminal.
After about six years and many thousands of lives lost to yellow fever, malaria, cholera, occupational hazards, and exhaustion, the New Basin Canal was completed at a cost of $1,226,070. It served as a busy waterway for almost 100 years.
Filling and paving of this canal began in 1937 and was completed in 1950. If you drive down either West End or Pontchartrain boulevards you can see the monument -- a Celtic cross -- dedicated in 1990 to commemorate the Irish who died digging this canal.
New Orleans almost had the "super canal" it
always wanted. On March 3, 1807, an act of Congress was passed which provided
for
the continuation of the Carondelet
Canal from its basin at the back of Rampart to the Mississippi River. The
act also stipulated that no building should be constructed within 60 feet
of the
space set aside for the canal, and the land should be forever open as a public
highway.
The plan called for a 50-foot-wide canal
with 60-foot-wide roadways. While waiting for the canal to be dug, people
began calling the
roadways on either
side of the proposed waterway "Canal Street," and the median strip between them was the "neutral ground," the
territory that separated the French in the Vieux Carre from the Americans
in the Faubourg St. Mary.
Congress chartered the New Orleans Navigation Company to dig the canal, but after about 40 years the plan was abandoned when the company went broke. By 1852 the site was turned over to the city, but Canal Street was still legally entitled to remain a street just over 170 feet wide. Today it is still the widest main drag in the United States.
Hey Blake,
I'm reading
Huey Long by T. Harry Williams. He says that Huey's home in New Orleans was
on Audubon Avenue. I always thought it was on Newcomb Boulevard.
Do you know the exact address?
Bill Hemeter
