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Canal Street was originally supposed to have been a 50-foot-wide canal linking the Mississippi River to Lake Pontchartrain and flanked by two roadways.
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Hey Blake,
Could you shed some light on the origin of the name of New Orleans' Canal Street? Was the street actually once a "canal/great ditch" that was covered over, or was it named Canal because it was located next to this ditch?
Richard O'Donnell
Dear Richard,
Our world-famous Canal Street was named after a canal that was never dug, even though it was designated by an act of Congress.
On March 3, 1807, an act was passed which read in part that "the Commons adjacent to the said city and within 600 yards from the fortification of the same are hereby recognized and confirmed." The act that made the commons a part of New Orleans also provided that "the city shall convey gratuitously for the public benefit ... as much of the said commons as shall be necessary to continue the Canal of Carondelet from the present basin to the Mississippi, and shall not dispose of, for the purpose of building thereon, any lot within 60 feet of the space reserved for a canal, which shall forever remain open as a public highway."
Three years later, surveyor Jacques Tanesse subdivided the commons. The plan called for a 50-foot-wide canal with 60-foot-wide roadways. There would finally be a navigable route all the way from the Mississippi River to Lake Pontchartrain.
The first half of the waterway had already been completed under the governorship of Carondelet in the 1790s. Also known as the Old Basin Canal, the Carondelet Canal connected the city with Bayou St. John and the lake. Its turning basin was back of Rampart at St. Louis Street. All that was necessary was to dig another canal from the turning basin of the old one. So Congress chartered the Orleans Navigation Company that actually planned to dig a 51-foot canal.
When new maps were produced, they showed the projected canal. Soon the roadways on either side were being called "Canal Street." Also, while waiting for the canal to be dug, folks on both sides began calling the median strip between the roadways the "neutral ground," the neutral territory that separated the French in the Vieux Carre from the Americans in the Faubourg St. Mary. Since that time, the center of every two-lane street in town has been called the "neutral ground," a term used in no other American city.
However, the years went by, and the company went broke. By 1852, the site was turned over to the city, and the ambitious plan was abandoned. But Canal Street was still legally entitled to remain a street 171 feet wide -- America's widest business thoroughfare.
Hey Blake,
Someone told me that the remains of two World War II veterans are buried in City Park under a parking lot near the tennis courts. The way I heard it, the men were originally buried in the park in an oak grove, with two monuments marking the gravesites. When the parking lot was installed, the trees were razed and the monuments removed, replaced by brass plaques in another area of City Park. I'm told that the veterans' remains were not moved -- just paved over. Is this true? If not, where are the bodies today?
A Regular Reader
Dear Reader,
No, my friend, it is not true. No World War II veterans have been buried in City Park, not legally anyway. How do these stories get started?
However, there are several monuments to World War I veterans. One is located on City Park Avenue near the McDonogh Oak. The tall obelisk-like structure has at the top the insignias of the four branches of the military. On one side are the words, "In memory of our comrades who made the supreme sacrifice." The other side bears the inscription, "To you from failing hands we throw the torch; be yours to hold it high!"
Also, on Victory Drive in front of the entrance to the Pavilion of the Two Sisters are three small stone and brass markers. Each is in memory of young soldiers -- Thomas A. Gragard, Donald Bradburn, Walter and Wallace Cox -- who were killed in action in 1918, the last year of World War I.
