TulaneLSU's Top 10 nighttime signs on Veterans Memorial Boulevard

Dearest of Friends,

Veterans Memorial Boulevard is one of the great thoroughfares of America. When a keen observer walks or travels along its beautiful, often water-lined path he might find it incredulous to know that just 70 years ago these Kenner and Metairie miracle miles, 9.9 in total, were no more than post-cypress marsh.

1952 was the year planning and naming of what was expected to be the primary residential corridor through Metairie and Kenner began.What was previously worthless, sometimes terra sub aqua at the back of the long linear plantation tracts called arpents, owned by such men as John Macarty, Labarre, and Masan, was about to become a hot commodity.

The Times Picayune’s Classified section, oh how I miss reading the classified ads, in 1953 were filled with property investment advertisements. Lots just off Veterans went for $200 to $1000. I was surprised to learn that, initially at least, lots were more expensive the farther west into Kenner one went. Twain’s advice to “buy land; God’s not making any more of it” seems apt, as this land value has outpaced inflation ten to twenty fold.

There were many factors leading to the boom along Veterans. Outsiders are quick to posit a correlation between Metairie and Kenner’s growth and public school integration. While this factor played a role with some, as you can see the vestiges of that racism among NOLA posters even on this board, it was not the primary nor the first factor for most.

New Orleans, perhaps more than any other American city, had geographic limiting factors. To the south was the Mississippi; to the west humps of the Mississippi; to the east Lake Borgne and the Gulf; to the north swamps and Lake Pontchartrain. As population increased, land was not, at that time, open to development. This scarcity produced perhaps our greatest inheritance: a dense and compact urban footprint. Without it, New Orleans would not be New Orleans.

The lower middle and middle class, though, did not so perceive this tight juxtaposition in dingy shotgun homes as charm, as some today might. It’s one thing to choose to live in such an environment and another altogether to be forced into this life. When mechanical pumps drained the northern Jefferson Parish marsh, a new life was possible. The first of the four lakefront Jefferson pumps, Station #1, was finished in 1927 two blocks west of Bonnabel Blvd. It joined Orleans Pump #6 at the outlet of what is now known as the 17th St Canal in draining the marsh at a rate of a million gallons per minute. My family, of course, had no need or desire to move to Metairie. Prytania always afforded us space, security, and supremacy.

The Veterans corridor is now quite an ironic place. Most of its inhabitants say they are against big government and government interference in business and personal affairs. Yet many of their very homes and neighborhoods are a product of vast government programs, none less important than the G.I. Bill, without which Metairie and Kenner might still be piddling swamp towns. Veterans from World War II and the Korean War qualified for low interest mortgages through this G.I. Bill and could finally own a decent place just five miles from downtown.

To get downtown, the worker bees and their children, the boomers, needed a new transit system. The federal government began work in 1959 on this system, with Interstate 10. It largely paralleled Veterans. In the process, the government trampled personal property rights, forcing the purchase of homes along the now non-existent Socrates Street in Old Metairie. So much for the parish’s namesake,Thomas Jefferson, and his thoughts on property. I-10 would create fierce divisions that exist today. Is the land north of it and east of Bonnabel Old Metairie? The fact that Big Lee’s poorly appointed house sold for $325K should settle that matter.

Veterans Highway was the first New Orleans Metro road to break the constraints of natural geography. No other road in the metro region was as long or as straight. One might try to argue for Airline Highway, but its path through the Metro was dictated by the high ground near the River. For 200 years, the roads of New Orleans were dictated by natural geography. Like Airline, the streets followed high ground, almost always starting near the River and slowly moving northward. As such, they often ran into one another, creating intersections at acute angles. The closest thing to a straightaway in the city itself is Elysian Fields, but it is only half as long as Veterans and for most of its history was even shorter.

This new land and this new highway were to be orderly and show man’s dominion over nature. Just as the linear and efficient Bonnabel Canal replaced the meandering, serpentine, inefficient Tchoupitoulas, Labarre, and Indian Bayous in draining northeastern Jefferson Parish, Veterans Highway would bring a new dawn to New Orleans.

For its first 17 years, Veterans was known as a highway. In 1969, local vernacular changed and people began calling it Veterans Boulevard. The name gained traction and today you are just as likely to hear one call it boulevard as highway. When the new owners of the old Houston’s Restaurant (1982-2015) choose to name their restaurant after this street, they did not choose “The Highway.” I wish they had, as highways carry a negative perception in America. I hope to redeem highways in American thought, as they remind me of the bonnie banks of Loch Lomond.

Most of Veterans flooded in Hurricane Katrina. The damage, though, was minimal, enabling it to serve as the commercial hub for the entire Metro area in late 2005 through 2010. Residents of Lakeview, Mid-City, Gentilly, and New Orleans East needed Veterans and its stores to rebuild. Chris Rose incorrectly attributed the commercial center of the city during this time to the “Isle of Denial” between St. Charles Ave. and the River. That area was fine and dandy if you needed a Sucre’ macaroon or a Whole Foods burger, the best in the city, but it wasn’t responsible for the city’s recovery. I often argue that if Veterans Blvd. suffered the same damage that Harrison Ave. did, New Orleans would be little more than the “Sliver by the River” today.

Property values likewise rose, as Veterans rose in its economic prowess. This has led to the decline of locally owned businesses along Veterans and a rise in clean-cut, soulless national companies replacing them. Veterans is experiencing a transformation. I can think of no such example more penetrating than the loss of Taco Tico, whose sign was lost in Hurricane Isaac. I may know its whereabouts.