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This Southern Colonial mansion was built in 1908
by businessman William T. Jay and now serves as
the home for Tulane University's president.
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Photo by Ian Morrison
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Hey Blake, Tell
me about the big white house on St. Charles Avenue and Audubon Place -- Sam the
Banana Man's house. It is said that he started the United Fruit Company and left
the house to Tulane University. Also, who lives in all the homes on Audubon Place?
Were all those big houses built in the 1800s and passed down?
Mike Marino
Dear Mike,
The big white house at 2 Audubon Place was built by William T. Jay in 1908.
Jay, a cotton broker and vice president of Union Lumber Company of Madisonville,
built the magnificent Southern Colonial house for a whopping $15,000. Because
the developers required that the house face Audubon Place and Jay wanted it
to face St. Charles Avenue, the home has two major entrances. In 1917, he sold
his mansion to produce importer Samuel Zemurray for $60,000.
Zemurray, also known as Sam the Banana Man,
was born in 1877 in Bessarabia. With no formal education, he immigrated to New
York in 1892, and for a time peddled bananas in Alabama. In 1900 he shrewdly
entered a partnership to buy a steamer to transport Honduran bananas. Eventually,
as president and driving force of the United Fruit Company, Zemurray was extremely
successful and contributed more than $1 million to Tulane University. He also
founded child guidance and mental health clinics in New Orleans. In recognition
for his outstanding community service, he received the 1938 Times-Picayune
Loving Cup. Zemurray died in 1961, and in 1965 his widow donated the house to
Tulane University for use as the president's residence.
Audubon Place is our city's second residential
park. The lots originally sold for about $5,000, and the first one was purchased
in 1894. There were 28 lots for sale, and the developers stipulated, among other
things, that each house must cost more than $7,000 and must face Audubon Place
Park, the neutral ground. Deeds called for a meeting of the property owners
in 1900 to "decide whether the said Audubon Place Park and Places shall be dedicated
to public use." Since the street has remained private, we know what they decided.
All of the houses on Audubon Place were built
between 1894 and 1927, and 20 of the 26 were built in the 20th century. Some
of the original houses were ravaged by fire, and on the site stand the replacements.
While some of the houses stayed in the family longer than others, every one
of them has been sold at least once to an outsider.
Hey Blake,
I was wondering who Oretha Castle Haley is. Since they changed the name of part
of Dryades Street, who is this woman in New Orleans?
A Reader
Dear Reader,
Oretha Castle, born on July 22, 1939, in Oakland, Tenn., was a student at Southern
University in New Orleans during the turbulent 1960s. She had moved with her
parents in 1947 to New Orleans and graduated from Joseph S. Clark High School.
While a student at SUNO, she became involved
in the Dryades Street Boycott in 1960 as she and many others fought the valiant
struggle for civil rights. She also helped organize the Canal Street boycotts
of that same year.
Along with Rudy Lombard and Jerome Smith,
Oretha Castle formed a New Orleans chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality
(CORE). She eventually became the head of this organization, and in 1967 married
Richard Haley, a fellow CORE member.
Mrs. Haley's parents were very supportive
of her efforts and those of her sister Doris Jean and offered their home as
headquarters for the work of CORE activists.
Later, Mrs. Haley continued to help the African-American
community in her capacity as deputy administrator at Charity Hospital, where
she worked for better heath care. While she was there, she helped organize the
New Orleans Sickle Cell Anemia Foundation.
Always the activist, Mrs. Haley directed the
1972 political campaign that helped Dorothy Mae Taylor become the first African-American
woman legislator in Louisiana.
After winning many battles for civil rights,
on Oct. 10, 1987, Oretha Castle Haley lost a personal battle with cancer. After
a lengthy illness, she died at the age of 48 and was buried in Providence Memorial
Park
