Truly, I promise to post on the houses that we visited on the Holiday Home Tour in the Garden District in New Orleans. During our walk, Grandpère and I found much that attracted our attention, besides the houses. The picture above shows one of the many remaining brick sidewalks in the Garden District, the sidewalks which gave my knees grief. The stretch shown is in good condition, but not all the sidewalks are as even and smooth.
The photo shows an old drain which was commonly used with the brick sidewalks. As far as we could tell, the drain appeared to be made of clay.
We don't know what the object in the picture is. One was situated in all four corners of the street. Originally the poles stood upright, as one of them still did, but others had sunk quite a bit, and, as you see, this one lists to the side. Were they some kind of hitching post?
UPDATE: My brother-in-law writes of the object in the photo:
June...they are called traffic bollards. These were installed in the 19th
century to keep horses/buggies in line. See examples at Wiki.
I saved the best for last - the lovely blue and white tiles with the names of the streets. When I was growing up the tiles marked the streets in all older parts of the city, but as work was done on sidewalks and sewers, the tiles were removed and not replaced. I'm told that the city is restoring the tiles, but the work is not moving as quickly as New Orleanians would like.
I think the posts are to keep vehicles from cutting the corner - tears out the undercarriage. We had horse rings in our sidewalks in Portland when I was growing up - a great thing for our imaginary steeds. here
ReplyDeleteAlbuquerque has the post things at some intersections of old Rt 66 in the Nob Hill area -- they are new. I think they look like chess pawns about to take on life -- something out of "Alice" perhaps -- be afraid, be very afraid.
ReplyDeleteAnn, Susankay, that would make sense. Hitting one of the posts would rip up a car, all right. It would seem that in NO, they were placed a long time ago. Perhaps it's due to sinking and to overlay in street repairs that some of them appear lower than others.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking they would also keep horse drawn vehicles from cutting across
ReplyDeleteI remembered the bricks, but I had forgotten the street names embedded at the corners. Thanks for the memory!
ReplyDeleteYours is a city I have never walked and I've always wanted to visit there. That post might have been a hitching post - I really don't know if that's true, but it sure sounds good! Thanks for sharing all these small pieces of New Orleans, Mimi.
ReplyDeleteRick, I took so much for granted as a child and as a young person and expected things to stay the same. How naive of me.
ReplyDeleteCiss, the Garden District is a wonderful place to walk in NO. I hope that you get to visit some time.