re: What was Baton Rouge like in the 1970s?

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Like Baton Rouge in the 1990s, but smaller.

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Definitely a LOT smaller but I would say you would've found BR unrecognizable in contrast with what it is like today. Whoever said the vibe was heading towards that of Austin is partially correct. BR had a strong "college town" feel and LSU was the hub of a much larger part of the overall "vibe". I would say the majority here would have considered BR lifestyle as that of a town, not a city.

I remember the day they removed the saw horses blocking the opening of I-10 at College Drive and was one of the first to drive the distance to Prairieville where it once came to an end. Perkins was still gravel past Seigen.. Essen was just being widened from a single lane with virtually no commercial or business property. Not sure what went up first but I remember Ch 33 building, that had just begun broadcast, still surrounded in uncleared land. ...and this finally gave us 3 TV stations. Cable didn't get here until very late 70's and cable was simply a few extra mainstream broadcasts from Chicago, Atlanta, and a couple of early cable based ventures ... so until early 70's we had 2 TV stations only until midnight... nothing until the local morning shows began. IIRC except for bars, BR did not yet have any businesses or stores open past 9 or 10pm. I'd have to think a while about when BR first had 24 hr options. By t mid 70's BR was still essentially motionless on a weekday after midnight. On a weekday night in late 60's, we'd sneak out and ride our bikes to a breakfast diner on Perkins called the Dobbs House. We's ride the center line on Highland, down Lee Dr., then down Perkins without ever seeing a car. First half of the 70's wasn't much different.

Florida Blvd and Airline were the only real thoroughfares in BR with stretches of restaurants, nightclubs, car dealerships, department stores. Most of BR's best restaurants were still on Airline, a few on Florida, maybe 3-4 more spread around elsewhere. Downtown was slowly becoming a ghost town.

To illustrate how different NR was, imagine doing this and being the only ones to do it. Me and four friends rented the entire Abadie Buillding's top floor... in the first block of Third St... right across the street from where Happy's (was?)..one or two doors down from where Stroube's is now. We rented it for seven years from early 70's until about 1978-9 as a place just to hang out, jam, drink, crash, etc. We had the entire top floor of a prime downtown building that spanned 1/2 the block spanning to the back of the buildings (now Tsunami and Captial City Grill) that faced Lafayette St. Our floor had seven large office suites, windows overlooking Third St. below, a long, very wide, L shaped hall, (all with 20' ceilings) that led to a stairway to the rooftop. We had our own private downtown rooftop deck at night with a great view of the river. downtown BR was becoming a ghot town but There were still offices downtown during the day. But, at night we almost had downtown BR to ourselves. I mention this to show how different BR was in the 70's. We never could understand why nobody else did this. It cost the five us a whopping $175 a month, total... $35 each and we got our money's worth times over. Downtown was so abandoned that the agency that rented to us never even bothered to see what we were doing for the entire 7 years... and we did some major re-arranging of rooms, walls, doors, etc... no one cared.

BR had a well defined boundary between North and South "types"... but then, the difference that determined the stereotyped ideas was not racial... but rather, south B.R had the "long hairs, mainstream, and preppy".. .(In 1970, south BR high schools were Lee, U-High, Broadmoor, Catholic, and Baton Rouge High. *Tara opened in early 70's... North BR had what was called the "greasers", Istrouma, Woodlawn, Glen Oaks... which seemed like the tail end of the 50's lifestyle..The Fonz, greased back hairdos, blue collar culture). The 1970 US Census lists the entire population of EBR Parish at 385,000...with 81,000 listed as African American.