March 24, 2008
Feature Photo - Copeland Family Tomb, Metairie Cemetery
(clicky the image for a larger version)
Copeland family tomb, located at the "modern" entrance to Metairie Cemetery.
Al Copeland, of Popeyes Famous Fried Chicken, passed yesterday. Copeland was from Da Channel and later Arabi. His original chicken shop, "Chicken on the Run" opened in Arabi in 1971. That became Popeyes, and by 1977, he was franchising the concept.
Copeland also opened restaurants as well as fast-food chicken outlets, first Copeland's, which has expanded across the nation, then Straya, a short-lived "California-Creole" concept that had locations Uptown and in Metairie. The Straya locations were converted into "Copeland's Cheesecake Bistro" restaurants. In 1997, a hilarious public dust-up occurred between Copeland and author (and then-New Orleanian) Anne Rice. Rice publicly attacked Copeland's design and decor tastes, harshly criticizing the decor of the Straya's on St. Charles Avenue. Copeland sued Rice for defamation, but the suit was tossed out of court. Interestingly enough, Rice's late husband, Stan, is buried two blocks down from the Copeland tomb in Metairie.
The Copeland tomb is first on the left as you enter the main entrance of the cemetery. Prior to the filling-in of the New Basin Canal and the construction of the Pontchartrain Expressway (I-10), the entrance was located at the corner of Pontchartrain Blvd. and Metairie Road. The construction of an overpass at that intersection made it impractical for vehicular traffic to enter at that corner, so a new entrance was constructed two blocks up on Pontchartrain. The entrance is located just past the "racetrack" portion of the Cemetery.
Al Copeland was a true larger-than-life New Orleanian, and will be missed by many.
Posted by Mysticknyght at 12:40 PM | Comments (0)
March 17, 2008
Feature Photo: New Basin Canal Monument
The New Basin Canal Monument, located in the neutral ground between West End Ave. and Pontchartrain Blvd. in Lakeview, between Fillmore Ave. and Robt. E. Lee Blvd. This Celtic cross commemorates the work and sacrifices of the Irish laborers who built the canal. Here's the inscription:
The New Basin Canal was constructed in the 1830s to provide an additional water access to the city from the north. Prior to this time, boats on Lake Pontchartrain could approach the city via Bayou St. John and the Carondelet Canal, which terminated in a turning basin located, appropriately enough, on Basin Street in Faubourg Treme. The new canal terminated with a turning basin located near Rampart St. and Howard Ave., on the Uptown side of Canal St.
While this monument isn't in a cemetery, it is a memorial to the many men who gave their lives in the construction of the canal. In the 1830s, the path between Faubourg Ste. Marie and West End was nothing but mosquito-infested swamp. Hundreds of the laborers who worked on the Canal contracted yellow fever and died. The Irish were employed to build the canal because they were cheap labor. Slaves were expensive, and slave owners were not going to risk their investments on such a project. Better to let the Irish do it.
Many of those Irishmen are buried in St. Patrick's Cemetery at the head of Canal Street, two blocks away from the Canal they built.
Legislation was passed authorizing the closure of the New Basin Canal was passed in 1938, but World War II delayed the actual work, and the canal was filled in after the war. The Pontchartrain Expressway was constructed over the filled-in canal, running from Veterans Blvd. and West End Blvd. into town, eventually linking with the Crescent City Connection bridge when it was constructed in the late 1950s.
Posted by Mysticknyght at 8:17 AM | Comments (0)
March 3, 2008
Feature Photo: St. Joseph Cemetery
Sisters of Mercy community tomb in St. Joseph's Cemetery.
St. Joseph's is located at Washington and Loyola Avenues, in Central City. It's NOT a good neighborhood for sightseeing, keep that in mind and exercise Urban Common Sense.
In New Orleans, the families that own plots in Catholic cemeteries tend to follow ethnic lines. The Creoles in the St. Louis cemeteries, the Irish in the three St. Patrick cemeteries, the Italians in St. Vincent de Paul, and the Germans in St. Joseph. St. Joseph's was opened in 1854, founded by the German Orphan Asylum Association. In 1857, St. Mary's Assumption parish on Constance and Josephine decided to build a huge new church. They dismantled the old, wood-frame church (that's really just a chapel in size), and moved it, board by board, to St. Joseph Cemetery, where it was used as a burial chapel. In the 1990s, author Anne Rice bought the old Redemptorist residence on Prytania and Third Streets in the Garden District. The people of the Garden District had been going to Mass there for decades. Not wanting to simply re-join St. Mary's Parish, the Garden District's Catholics received permission to relocate the burial chapel to an empty lot on Jackson Avenue, between Prytania and St. Charles. So, now there are once again three churches in the same physical parish, just like the 19th Century. St. Mary's is the main parish church now. It was originally for the Germans. St. Alphonsus across the street on Constance was for the Irish community. The French had a small chapel on Jackson that burned in the 1880s that served the very small Garden District Creole community.
The tomb in the photo is typical of "society" tombs throughout the city. This one is for an order of nuns, the Sisters of Mercy.
Posted by Mysticknyght at 8:49 PM | Comments (0)