Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Fall 2007 - (Page 37)

I Black Men of Labor second-line parade, 2006 n a city of historic neighborhoods, Faubourg Tremé stands as one of the oldest. Established nearly 200 years ago in 1810, Tremé residents have included persons of wealth and those held in bondage, tradesmen, musicians and artisans, Civil Rights pioneers, authors and newspaper publishers. Spanish and French settlers, immigrants, and expatriates from Haiti and Cuba were also in the mix. As New Orleans spread from the original riverside colonial port northward toward Lake Pontchartrain, Tremé absorbed ancient African rhythms as home to the old Congo Plains, a gathering place for slaves on Sundays that later became Congo Square. According to Roulhac Toledano and Mary Louise Christovich in their book New Orleans Architecture Volume VI: Faubourg Tremé and the Bayou Road, “A roster of the names of musicians who played in New Orleans’ Dixieland, brass, and jazz bands between 1880 and 1915 indicates that well over half lived in the Creole suburbs, primarily Faubourg Tremé.” Tremé occupies a unique corner in American racial history. Toledano and Christovich wrote, “From the time of Faubourg Tremé’s earliest settlement to its urbanization, free people of color played a predominant role within the entire geographical area Eighty percent of the lots between Dumaine and St. Bernard, N. Rampart and N. Broad were owned by people of mixed heritage one or more times since the Spanish Colonial period.” In the mélange that was Tremé, ornate townhouses, ten different styles of Creole cottages, villas with stately center halls, trusty shotgun houses, former slave quarters, and benevolent society halls provided the context for lasting contributions to art, music, culture and politics of the downtown Creole city. By virtue of its location, inhabitants, and history, Tremé produced a legacy that was culturally diverse, colorful, and rhythmic. Diagonal to its sister faubourg, Marigny, at Esplanade and North Rampart, Tremé stands adjacent to the French Quarter and within walking distance to the Mississippi River, the St. Louis cemeteries, and Canal Street. Though often beset by neglect, government-sanctioned demolition, and vandalism, Tremé has survived numerous storms, the slavery era, the Civil War, and subsequent social upheaval. Tremé stands as an unmarked monument to the plasterers, bricklayers, lathers, and other specialty tradesmen and their expertise in keeping the weather-beaten city afloat for the last two centuries. On a spring-like March weekend in New Orleans in 2007, pockets of this old neighborhood seemed a garden in bloom in the midst of desolation. The bustle of post-Katrina rebuilding competed with a gaggle of birds chirping above the rooftops. On Governor Nicholls Street, sawdust wafting Fall 2007/LOUISIANA ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES 37 PHOTO BY CHERYL GERBER

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Fall 2007

Contents Friends & Letters Editor’s Column Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Big Charity: A History of New Orleans’ Public Hospital Historic New Orleans Collection Making Groceries: A History of New Orleans Markets New Orleans’ Faubourg Tremé: Rooted in Tradition Jazz Notes Louisiana Association of Museums Chinatown New Orleans Louisiana Foodways A Question of Secession Louisiana Architecture Louisiana State Museum The Unnatural History of Cypress Parish Terra Incognita Bookstand Sound Advice Forum

Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Fall 2007

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