What was New Orleans like in the late Twenties?

What was New Orleans like in the late Twenties? 

There were huge palm trees, over 4 stories tall, in the neutral grounds (medians) of the city's avenues. In fact, there were palm trees nearly everywhere in the city, indicating probably a warmer climate back then. Summers were very hot, and mosquitoes were everywhere. There was NO AIR-CONDITIONING! People sat on their front porches to keep cool - and they sat there rocking in rocking chairs until ten o'clock pm!

All of the houses were made of wood, usually cypress or southern pine, and were painted white, most with dark green trim. Roofs were made of slate shingles that lasted a lifetime - and took almost that long to pay off!   In country houses in Westwego, or in "da Parish" (Jefferson) cisterns could still be found, to gather rain water. A few cisterns could still be found in the city itself, but with city plumbing, purified water was available with the turn of a tap. Fences were made of wood beams with horizontal and vertical interwoven wires, and back yard fences were wide, horizontal cypress wood boards

Everywhere, there were brick sidewalks, instead of concrete ones. The city's main avenues were well-paved,some with cobblestones and others with concrete. But as for the side streets were another matter. Some were "paved" with a tar-gravel mixture, which needed to be re-tarred every few years, but was usually left to get in a deplorable state before the city would send out a crew to re-lay the tar and gravel. On a very hot summer day, children playing in the streets got their feet stained with the stick, black stuff, and it burned the soles of their feet, too! Some side streets were "paved" with shells - quarter-sized clam shells were routinely dredged up from the bottom of Lake Pontchartrain, and used as paving. Still others were dirt roads which turned to mud with the smallest rainstorm, bogging down wagons and cars, which is why the streetcar was in its heyday back then.

Streetcars were eveywhere! This was the heyday of the trolley. There were gasoline buses, but the main mode of transportation was electrially-powered. Trolley wires filled the air overhead, alreaddy clogged with utility cables. Tracks ran even where roads were simply paths. The streetcars even ran out into the country, offering service akin to today's intercity bus lines. The trolley was the vehicle of choice for going out on a date, since they ran to the city's parks and recreation areas. Streetcars were also occasionally used for funerals, and cemeteries were the final destination for streetcar routes for that reason. On All Saints' Day (November 1) the cars were packed with families going to the cemeteries to place flowers on loved-ones' graves.  

The streetcar lines bore interesting and unique names, such as: DESIRE, CEMETERIES, MAGAZINE, TCHOUPITOULAS, VILLERE, and NAPOLEON, to name a few. Streetcars appeared in a period of major transition in transportation: between the time of the horse and buggy, and the later age of the automobile. 

Of course there were automobiles in the 1920's, but most people could not afford a car, and there was no such thing as school buses. Children WALKED to school, even if it was a mile away, and they did so EVERY DAYThey walked also instead of spending the 5¢ for carfare - money that was badly needed back at home. Gasoline stations were not very abundant, and were called "oil stations."

Along the streets there were utility poles upon which there were strung wires - lots of wires - for streetcar lines, electricity, telephone, and telegraph. Atop the poles there was no ground wire yet. My grandfather, who worked for Consumers Electric, proposed string wires atop the utility poles, as a guard against lightning strikes. They laughed at him, saying it would be too costly. Costlier still was the damage done during nearly every thunderstorm, when usually several poles were hit and severely damaged - requiring expensive labor and new electrical equipment, to say nothing of lost revenue from customers who now had no "electric" - as it was called back then. 

Streets were lit by incandescent light bulbs, and street lights were to be found only on corners. 

Back then, the city of New Orleans was very compartmentalized, divided into dozens of neighborhoods (earlier called faubourgs or false cities, after the French tradition.) Ethnicity played a very important role in the division of neighborhoods: The Irish Channel and many others defined themselves by the national origin of their residents. There survived until the very laast days of the Twentieth Centure, TWO Catholic churches, located across the street from each other! One served the Irish, and the other served the Germans, and stain glass windows with German inscriptions bore witness to who the church's main parishioners were. 

The city had many of Italians, the overwhelming majority of which were from Sicily. In the Twenties, and even much later, there could be seen horse-drawn wagons with Sicillian fruit vendors, etc selling their wares, calling out loudly - many in song - as they passed through the neighborhood. In those days, there were no supermarkets. Provisions, meats. fruits, and vegetables, were purchased daily  groceries, located on nearly every corner of every neighborhood, and usually run by Sicilians. French bread was baked daily and available everywhere, many of the bakers being Germans or Italians.   

The air could often be smoky, due to lots of factories (yes, there were factories in New Orleans). Steam locomotive and steamboat soot, as well as from smoke from household chimneys dirtied the air. But at night, millions of stars were visible due to a lack of light pollution. Most of the city's residents were working-class factory employee.

 If you got sick, a variety of tonics and concoctions could be procured at a druggist's, who mixed ingredients using a mortar an pestle. The truth was, however, those who came down with serious ailments usually died. 

 Entertainment was radio, ball games, playing in the street, and Vaudeville - but motion pictures were the most popular, even thought they were silent, in black & white, spotty and jerky. It was was the Roaring Twenties, and there was music everywhere, but no alcohol ANYWHERE. 

FRENCH could still be heard here and there, but mostly the old folks spoke it. It was going out os style, as English was the language common to most residents now. 

New Orleans had expressions unique to the city: One musician greeted a fellow musician with: "Wheryyat?" simply meaning where are you playing tonight? In addressing a stranger, the word "Cap" was used, because of the plethora of seagoing ships and steamboats, whose captains, numbering in the thousands, found New Orleans a great place to live. There was good, there was bad, and everything in between in old New Orleans, but all in all it was the Queen City of the South in its day.