New Orleans City Planning Commission
Planning District Six
One of the newer areas of New Orleans, Gentilly shares a similar history and neighborhood quality with the Lakeview Planning District. District Six plays an important part in the future of New Orleans as home to four institutions of higher education and the University of New Orleans Research and Technology Park. Residents appreciate the area's predominately residential land use and convenient access to other parts of the city. The major land use issues in Gentilly concern the decline of commercial activity throughout the district and the effect of Industrial Canal activity on nearby residential neighborhoods. Additional concerns are the impacts that may be posed by a proposed expansion of the Lakefront Airport or new causeway span linking the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain to Elysian Fields. Gentilly residents desire future development that includes high quality retail, grocery stores, and full-service restaurants, along with general improvement in the level of existing commercial activity.Gentilly
Section I: Boundaries
District Six includes the area bounded by the Industrial Canal on the east, Gentilly Boulevard (U.S. Highway 90), Interstate 610 and Harrison Avenue on the south, St. Bernard Avenue and Bayou St. John on the west, and Lake Pontchartrain on the north. The district is comprised of eight neighborhoods: Lake Terrace/Lake Oaks (2B), Filmore (2C), St. Anthony (3A), Milneburg (3B), Pontchartrain Park (3C), Dillard (3D), Gentilly Terrace (3E), and Gentilly Woods (3F). (See the map which faces page 130.)
Section II: Development History
The District's highest ground, the Bayou Savage ridge, was the site of the first residential development, Gentilly Terrace. Mathurin Dreux, a militia officer who came to New Orleans with Bienville, acquired sizeable property on this ridge in 1727 and established a very successful plantation that remained in the family for over two generations. The ridge's high ground had long provided access into New Orleans from the east; however, regular flooding limited development until the early 1900s. Most development of Gentilly Terrace (bounded by Gentilly Boulevard, Dreux, Peoples and St. Roch Avenues) occurred after 1935. Today the Terrace retains the distinctive features of its original development: larger lots, each house site on a small hill, California-style cottages with arched windows and wrought iron trim, and some Cape Cod cottages.
Much of the remaining area of the Planning District was held by Alexander Milne, a Scottish footman who arrived in America just before 1776 and acquired his fortune from first a hardware business and later brick making. Although he believed New Orleans would grow toward the lake, little was possible until the Pontchartrain Railroad became a reality in 1831. The railroad connected Lake Pontchartrain to the Vieux Carré, (along present-day Elysian Fields Avenue) and developed Milneburg Port at its terminus. While the port handled cargo from Mobile, the surrounding land soon became a resort area, initially with the Lake House tavern and Washington Hotel. Three bathhouses, other hotels and restaurants, camps, and saloons soon followed. Eventually, the name Milneburg connoted a resort area rather than an industrial port.
The port declined during the Civil War with the suspension of trade with Mobile, Alabama. In 1870, the port declined further when it lost much of its cargo to the New Orleans, Mobile and Chattanooga Railroad. The area evolved into an entertainment district, as the city's passenger train, the Smoky Mary, began carrying more middle-class visitors to the resort. Entertainment included jazz, with Sidney Bechet, Louis Armstrong and Danny Barker performing. Milneburg closed in 1930 after the development of a seawall that displaced several buildings in the resort. The site became the Pontchartrain Beach Amusement Park and the surrounding reclaimed land for the Lake Terrace/Lake Oaks neighborhood.
Except for Milneburg and scattered development around the ridge along Bayou Sauvage (Gentilly), there was little growth above the ridge until the 1940s. In 1924 the State authorized Colonel Marcel Garsaud as Chief Engineer of the Orleans Levee Board to prepare an improvement plan to drain the swampy areas and provide flood protection for the Lakefront. Without an adopted plan, basic pumping and draining improvements began in 1926. Garsaud's plan was deemed overly ambitious, with little opportunity of supporting itself. In 1928 the State adopted a compromise plan that provided for a public parks area between the lake and a lakefront drive, recreational features, and residential development with a portion fronting on the water. At the same time the State approved legislative changes enabling the Levee Board to undertake the financing and development. By 1930 the seawall, filled area, and beaches with parks had been completed.
Over the next 35 years several residences were developed within the filled area. These neighborhoods were developed with deed restrictions imposed by the Levee Board. Lake Terrace, opened in 1953, contained 440 residential lots and 93 acres of park space in the area bounded by Lake Pontchartrain, London Avenue Canal, Robert E. Lee Boulevard and Bayou St. John. In 1964 the last development was completed, Lake Oaks, in the area bounded by Elysian Fields, Music Street and New York Street. Located along a more traditional linear street pattern, Lake Oaks' 290 home sites were on smaller lots, and the neighborhood included a park area near Lakeshore Drive.
Two other developments in the northern part of the district near the lakefront include the former Pontchartrain Beach Amusement Park (which included a small part of the earlier Milneburg resort area), and the University of New Orleans (UNO). Built around 1938, the 60-acre amusement park also included the lighthouse that had been located offshore. The park, a regional attraction for more than four decades, closed in the early 1980s. Formerly a U.S. Navy Air Station, the UNO site was acquired in 1956 under a 99-year lease. After renovation of existing buildings, classes were offered in 1958. The school, then named the Louisiana State University of New Orleans, became a full four-year university in 1961. An additional 150 acres was leased from the Levee Board in 1964. A decade later the name of the school changed to University of New Orleans. Its complex includes the Kieffer UNO Lakefront Arena that opened in 1983. The arena is considered mid-size, offering seating for up to 10,000, filling a major gap in the city's range of concert facilities. With a current enrollment of 16,000, UNO continues to grow, with several specialized and technologically advanced institutes added in the past decade, such as the Waste Management and Research Center and the Gulf Coast Region Maritime Technology Center, with the National Biodynamics Lab and UNO/Avondale Maritime Center in Avondale. Its new research park will host the U. S. Navy's Information Technology Center, the Center for Energy Resources Management, and the Louisiana Office of Public Health Central Laboratory.
The Dillard neighborhood (bounded by Mirabeau Avenue, Elysian Fields Avenue, Benefit Street, Paris Avenue, and Pratt Drive) experienced only sporadic development before 1920, including a railway way station at the intersection of Gentilly Boulevard and Elysian Fields, where the railroad to Milneburg crossed Bayou Sauvage on the Darcantel plantation. Dillard University was chartered in 1930 as a merger of Straight College and New Orleans University. During the 1940s professional African-Americans settled in an area adjacent to Dillard, known as "Sugar Hill." Once characterized by huge oak trees from Gentilly to Benefit Street, the neighborhood suffered a fate similar to the Claiborne Avenue area when construction of I-610 crossed through the middle of Sugar Hill and demolished the oak trees and many houses.
During the 1930s the area saw development of the St. Anthony and Filmore neighborhoods. The Pontchartrain Boulevard Subdivision was chartered in 1931, encompassing the area south of Robert E. Lee Boulevard (then Hibernia) and east of St. Anthony. Each residence was to be of a minimum value, with covenants and restrictions that did not expire until January 1, 1976. Most of the development in the St. Anthony neighborhood consisted of two- family homes. Over the next decade three subdivisions were undertaken west of St. Anthony: Mirabeau Gardens, Filmore Gardens, and Burbank Gardens. Most of the St. Anthony area had been developed by 1965.
In the 1940s and 50s development of the Filmore area west of Mirabeau Gardens, included Bancroft Park, Bayou Vista, and the Parkchester Garden Apartment Complex, in the area from Mandolin to Mirabeau and Duplessis to Paris Avenue. By the 1970s the Parkchester apartments had declined to the extent that they were demolished, and HUD acquired title to the sixty-acre site. Other major residential development during this same period included Oak Park, Oak Park Gardens and Legion Oaks, all generally north of Mirabeau Avenue between Paris and Bayou St. John. Vista Park, between Filmore and Robert E. Lee, was originally seen as a part of the Mirabeau Gardens subdivision but was not developed until 1955.
The Gentilly Woods and Pontchartrain Park developments were among the last developed in this Planning District. Gentilly Woods, in the area of an old Indian portage, is characterized by curving streets, with only Congress Drive and Press Drive intersecting the major arterial of Chef Menteur Highway. The Gentilly Woods Shopping Center, on Chef Menteur, accompanied the residential development and has since suffered the loss of many stores as the Lake Forest Plaza Shopping Center opened in New Orleans East.
Pontchartrain Park, generally bounded by Leon C. Simon Drive, Peoples Canal, Dwyer Canal, and the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal, was developed between about 1951 and 1955. Like Gentilly Woods, this neighborhood had limited access points to Chef Menteur and, later, to Leon C. Simon. On the interior, it is characterized by curvilinear streets but with a 200-acre park that includes a golf course, clubhouse, stadium, playgrounds and tennis courts.
The other major development in Gentilly includes Southern University in New Orleans (SUNO), on a 17-acre site at 6400 Press Drive. It opened in 1959 and quickly became a fully accredited four-year school. SUNO has now expanded to include a north campus across Leon C. Simon, adjacent to the U. S. Navy and Marine Reserve Training site.
Section III: Population
The following tables provide demographic statistics on the population residing within the planning district as well as the total population of the city of New Orleans. The statistics provide information on each area for 1980, 1990, 1997 and 2002.