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Sun, 06.26.1955

Pontchartrain Park (New Orleans, LA.) Opens

Real Estate Flyer

*Pontchartrain Park opened on this date in 1955.  This is one of the first Black suburban neighborhoods in America.  

Located in the New Orleans, LA. a subdistrict of the Gentilly District Area, its boundaries are Leon C. Simon Drive to the north, the Industrial Canal to the east, Dreux Avenue to the south, and Peoples Avenue to the west.  Pontchartrain Park was developed after World War II. It was one of the first suburban-style subdivisions developed by and for middle-class African Americans during the Jim Crow racial segregation in Louisiana.

It has been home to such prominent New Orleanians as mayors Ernest Morial and Marc Morial, political activist Philip M. Baptiste and district attorney Eddie Jordan, as well as nationally known figures such as Lisa P. Jackson, EPA Administrator under President Barack Obama, actor Wendell Pierce, and jazz musician Terrence Blanchard.  In the 1970s, urban renewal projects were undertaken with the federal New Town Program.

Pontchartrain Park flooded badly in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, taking on the water first from the overtopping of a section of floodwall of the Industrial Canal caused by storm surge channeled into the city from the MRGO Canal, then from major breaches sustained by floodwalls along the London Avenue Canal.  

New Poem Each Day

Poetry Corner

these hips are big hips they need space to move around in. they don't fit into little petty places. these hips are free hips. they don't like to be... HOMAGE TO MY HIPS by Lucille Clifton
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