Vieux Carré Commission History
The 1920's
Soon after World War I, signs of a rekindling interest in the quarter appeared. WilliamRatcliffe Irby inaugurated the private philanthropic approach to preservation in New Orleans by restoring several important buildings including his own residence, the Seignouret House (520 Royal); donating the Banque de la Louisiane (417 Royal) and the French Opera House to Tulane University; and giving the Lower Pontalba building, two houses near the Cabildo, and an endowment fund to the Louisiana State Museum. Despite the efforts of Nathaniel Curtis of Tulane University's School of Architecture to save the St. Louis Hotel, the old structure was demolished in 1916. Then in 1919 an event occurred which, in the opinion of writer Robert Tallant, marked a turning point in the public apathy toward the quarter. That catalytic event was a fire that razed the old French Opera House, which for over fifty years had served as the Creoles' cultural and social mecca. As a result of its destruction, a second generation of institutions formed in the quarter in an effort to fill the void left by the loss of the Opera House. Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carré (1919), the Arts and Crafts Club (1921) and Le Petit Salon (1924) numbered among these new Quarter groups.
Artists, writers and other intellectuals settled in the quarter's neighborhoods during the early 1920s. This sensually pleasant and socially tolerant place provided the art colony with an easy timelessness, raw material to feed creativity, and, above all, camaraderie. Architect-silversmith William Spratling wrote about those days: "There were casual parties with wonderful conversation and with plenty of grand, or later to be grand, people."{5} The celebrated Sherwood Anderson and the as yet uncelebrated William Faulkner--along with locals such as Lyle Saxon, John McClure, Conrad Albrizio, Roark Bradford, Alberta Kinsey, Enrique Alferez and William Woodward--formed the core of a Bohemian group. The presence of these artists and writers stimulated a cultural renaissance of a sort in the quarter, and their adopted neighborhood inspired their work. For example, Faulkner's stay in the quarter nurtured his sense of the continuing presence of the past in the present. The author perhaps was still picturing the Cabildo from his Pirate's Alley flat when he described the mythical Yoknapatawpha County jailhouse: "And so, being older than all, it had seen all: the mutation and the change; and, in that sense, had recorded them...the panorama not only of the town but of its days and years until a century and better had been accomplished...from a halting place: to a community: to a settlement: to a village: to a town."{6}
This art colony of the twenties focused attention on the quarter and included members who, like Faulkner, possessed a deep historical sense. Lyle Saxon's articles published in the New Orleans Item stirred up public concern over the deteriorating condition of historic structures. The preservation movement gained momentum in the 1920s with the unsuccessful effort of artists Ellsworth and William Woodward to save an eighteenth-century cottage at 1040 Chartres Street, just across from the Ursulines Convent.
A new atmosphere gradually emerged in the quarter. In the words of architectural historian Bernard Lemann, "Little by little a new context, daring but socially acceptable, was created by certain cultural or fashionable developments."{7} Individuals bought old buildings, to repair and clean them up for use as studios, apartments or residences. Architect Richard Koch was a prime mover in these early restorations. In 1922 Le Petit Theatre hired the young architect to substantially alter an old building on St. Peter Street for its theater, but Koch convinced the group to build a new building on a neighboring lot and to leave the old structure intact. Armstrong and Koch's innovative design for the theater, which marked the first attempt to fashion a new building to blend with the quarter's old structures, was praised by preservationist Elizebeth Werlein as a modern building "so harmonious with its surroundings that it is difficult to believe that it has not been standing for a century."{8} During the 1920s Koch also restored an 1838 building for Le Petit Salon (620 St. Peter) and the Garnier House (718 St. Peter, today Pat O'Brien's) for Chicagoan O.M. Burgess. Around the same time Mrs. I.I. Lemann bought and repaired Madame John's Legacy, an important, late eighteenth-century house at 632 Dumaine. Within a few short years, the quarter had acquired a new ambience of fashionability.
The push for the legal mechanisms to protect the quarter came out of this mixture of Bohemianism and fashionableness that evolved during the 1920s. The local preservation movement was led by those who had sufficient political and social clout to pressure City Hall into passing a 1925 ordinance which created the first commission. This short-lived commission, which met only sporadically between 1925 and 1930, served only an advisory role to the Mayor. It included such prominent early preservationists as Ross Breazeale, Mrs. Charles Wogan, Mrs. Emilie Godchaux, Dr. Rene D'Aunoy, Mrs. Neal Leach, William Spratling and Richard Koch. Their main concerns seemed to be zoning in the Quarter, development of the river-fronting property across from Jackson Square, the removal of no longer in service street car tracks in parts of the quarter, and saving the deteriorating Cabildo and Napoleon House. There is little evidence, however, that the city government heeded the commission's advice. In fact, during this time the City's zoning consultant urged the development of a cultural center in the Congo Square area, a plan which called for the demolition of ten blocks between North Rampart and Dauphine Streets.
In 1926 a private preservation group (the Vieux Carré Association) formed, restored the old Absinthe House (238 Bourbon), and unsuccessfully pushed for a comprehensive zoning ordinance. Recognizing the need for stronger controls and methods, the photographer Arnold Genthe wrote in his Impressions of Old New Orleans (1926), "Unless a body of architects is given official authority to direct and supervise all restorations and repairs, the future of the representative architecture of Old New Orleans cannot be considered safe."{9}
The 30's
{5} William Spratling and William Faulkner, Sherwood Anderson and Other Famous Creoles (New Orleans, 1926), p. 12.
{6} William Faulkner, Requem For a Nun (), p.
{7} Bernard Lemann, The Vieux CarréA General Statement (New Orleans: School of Architecture, Tulane University, 1966), p. 26.
{8} Transcript of radio talk by Elizebeth Werlien, circa 1938, courtesy of Mrs. Hodding Carter.
{9} Arnold Genthe, Impressions of Old New Orleans (New York, 1926), p. 3233.