(Narrator #1) New Orleans in the 50's.

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( 1950's news reel music ) The whole nation was feeling invincible in the 1950's.

It had saved the world.

And then there was this feeling now of "Let's grow, let's get big."

And, "We can be whatever we want to be," so there was a good feeling.

Morrison will be the person who defines the Fifties in New Orleans.

(Angus Lind) Well New Orleans in the '50's, to me, was exciting.

I thought the adventures of going down to Canal Street, standing in line at a first-run theater, I thought that was wonderful.

I can remember going down and shopping with my aunts.

They always dressed to the nines to go downtown.

♪ (Jacquelyn Clarkson) So they created the idea that every child in this city would have an opportunity to get off the streets.

Whether it be through football, whether it be baseball, or whether it be ballet or light opera or piano or jazz, and what a city to do it in.

(Ronnie Virgets) I think New Orleans in the '50's was just on, probably just on the threshold of becoming Americanized a little bit more in the sense of growing suburbs.

There was still the small town part of New Orleans and there was still the part where, "Hey, we're different," and we liked it, you know.

I'm Peggy Scott Laborde.

In a country still invigorated by having won World War II, the 1950's was a decade filled with energy.

For New Orleanians, that meant the expansion of new neighborhoods, and the decline of others, new buildings along with the demise of some old ones whose historic significance today would have saved them.

There was also a social energy fostering a civil rights movement that was overdue.

And there are nostalgic moments.

A favorite place to eat, something we enjoy doing just for fun.

The baby boom was BOOMING, and just as with so many things in New Orleans, the memories are uniquely our own.

♪ ♪ ♪ (Peggy Scott Laborde) The reliance on radio as the primary entertainment and news medium, soon gave way to television.

WDSU signed on the air in 1947, and a little over a decade later WWL and WVUE became part of the scene.

WYES, then referred to as the Educational channel, began as Channel 8 and later switched to 12 on the dial.

There was a little playmate of mine named Dinky, I remember that.

Poor, poor boy.

Anyway, uh his family was the first one on the block that I knew of that ever got a television set.

But sometimes we would actually go in there and turn the TV on and it'd be nothing but a test pattern on.

But anyway, we would sit and watch the test pattern for a while, waiting for whatever would come on.

A lot of the early uh performers are people who came from radio 'cause they were professional talkers.

And Henry Dupre came over from the WWL radio.

And he hosted the very popular program called the "Dawn Busters."

Radio stations would have these big variety type shows.

And that's what the "Dawn Busters" was, was a kind of show where you had like a studio band and you'd do news and you'd bring in celebrities, you'd do celebrity interviews, you'd have live performers.

And so he was known as the host of the "Dawnbusters" who made the transition into television.

Hello, mona mi Placide Vidac Hello there Dupre, how's tricks wit you eh?

Pretty good thank you.

How are you this morning?

Alright, yesterday I sure worked hard though.

I was helped out by Fidel Falgout PS there all day.

He sure was busy.

Oh wait, what does PS stand for?

Psychiatrist.

Psychiatrist.

( laughing ) Man the patients was comin in one behind the other.

How were you helping him out?

I was changing the sheets for him on the couch.

Oh yeah.

( laughing ) (Peggy Scott Laborde) Dupre donned a sailor's cap when WWL-TV launched a kiddie show.

(Errol Laborde) I was on "Popeye and Pals."

And what you do is you just sit and you know the kids and they'd interview you, and they'd give your name, and then they'd show, they'd show cartoons.

What I remember the most about that is it was sponsored by Dickie's Potato Chips.

And it had these Dickie's, bags of Dickie's Potato Chips just uh um stapled to the back wall.

Before the show started, this technician would come and actually spray the bags so they wouldn't shine as much.

But you'd pretty much just sit and give your name, and then you'd watch the cartoons.

(Peggy Scott Laborde) For much of the '50's, folks who owned a TV began to feel as if the Channel 6 personalities were part of their family.

Mel Leavitt was a versatile on-air presence at WDSU with his award-winning documentaries and Mardi Gras parade coverage from atop the station's balcony overlooking Royal Street.

(Mel Leavitt Announcing) The parade is paused momentarily.

Of course this is nothing, this delay to the pauses and delays in past days, when there was no mechanized equipment.

On the contrary, mules drew the parade and mules of course being somewhat bulky animals would decide suddenly to stage a sit down strike.

When they did, the parade was at a pause an quite often it took 30, 45 minutes to the critters started again.

(Peggy Scott Laborde) But sports was his first love.

(Ronnie Virgets) Early on, on Saturdays they would actually do the featured race from the Fairgrounds.

I don't know technically how they did it.

In those days cameras were not light weight either.

They were like big monstrosities.

But I mean I thought it was fantastic even then in the early to middle '50's, uh, to be seeing something live like that uh was, was pretty special.

(Peggy Scott Laborde) During the '50's WDSU's Terri Flettrich began a long career, first as children's show host Mrs. Muffin.

When I was a little boy, on my seventh birthday I went on Terri Flettrich's show.

And you'd bring your birthday cake out there and there were other little kids celebrating their birthday.

Do you know I remember she was very pretty.

I was impressed.

She was.

(Peggy Scott Laborde) Flettrich became the longtime host of Midday, a weekday in-studio program featuring local news.

It became must see TV.

Hi may I wish you a perfectly beautiful day... (Peggy Scott Laborde) Making his debut in 1959 on WWL-TV, the mad scientist Morgus the Magnificent appeared on Saturday night.

( disenchanted voice ) Greetings.

Its time to join the master.

Morgus the magnificent.

Oh.

a huh huh.

Hello uh, hello my dear followers of the fantastic.

Once again my genius shall be put to a test before the entire scientific world.

(Angus Lind) He came on WWL at 10:30 and I like to tell people that the city came to a stop.

It is hard to believe that the city came to a stop to watch some guy dressed up in a bad wig and crooked teeth and an old filthy lab coat, running around with a side-kick that had a, you know, a hood over his head named Chopsley.

And you know, they were showing all these grade B, C, D science-fiction movies.

I mean, there hasn't ever been another show on TV where you waited for the commercial, you wanted to see the commercial break.

You didn't want to see the movie.

Every experiment ended in a failure.

But it was hilarious.

You were afraid of that stuff but now when you get older you say, "Why was I afraid of this?

♪ (Peggy Scott Laborde) If there was one person in New Orleans who epitomized that post-War "Can Do" optimism, it was DeLesseps Story Morrison, known to most folks as "Chep."

In 1946, this New Roads, Louisiana born lawyer and state legislator with old New Orleans family ties, was elected mayor of New Orleans as part of a campaign to "sweep out" what was considered old political machine politics during a period when city services had begun to falter.

Morrison had his own political base, and this Bronze Star winner and colonel who had gained a lot of administrative experience overseas during World War II, was a sought after fresh face.

(Angus Lind) Chep Morrison was a very dapper, well-spoken, handsome man.

To me, he looked like a movie star, you know, slick back.

He had the great name, Chep.

And if you knew his first name was DeLesseps, so New Orleans.

You know such a New Orleans name.

(Peggy Scott Laborde) Jimmy Fitzmorris, a longtime friend of Morrison's, served on the City Council during much of the time Morrison was Mayor.

We had people on the council who didn't necessarily agree with everything that Chep did, but that did not affect his relationship with them.

And he had a great way of expressing himself.

He was a great salesman.

That was one of his greatest assets.

And in government, whether it'd be then or today, salesmanship is extremely important.

And, and you have to be believable.

He probably built one of the best political teams that we have had in this state in a long, long time.

Even if you were opposed to Chep, you still loved Chep.

He defeated Maestri who was part of the organization known as the Old Regulars.

One he was just a better image.

He was just this young guy who was in his thirties.

He was somebody who had fought in the war and so I mean he was just part of the new New Orleans.

But Morrison built his own, his own organization called the Crescent City Democratic Association which was patterned after the old machines.

He had war captains and precinct lieutenants.

He would run his own candidates and so he was really an anti-machine machine and over the years the CCDA became the powerful organization.

(Peggy Scott Laborde) Returning World War II veterans easily identified with Morrison.

My father was very much uh a supporter of Morrison after he came out of the war.

My father was actually even a part of a little organization called "Veterans for Morrison" and they made recordings campaigning for him.

And so he was really regarded as a heroic figure.

So for a long time he was the only mayor I knew you know.

I thought maybe it was a lifetime job or I thought he was gonna be maybe like King 'cause I believe he got re-elected four times or something.

(Peggy Scott Laborde) During the mid-1950's, Morrison and other like-minded citizens initiated a reorganization of local government.

A pivotal moment during the Morrison years and actually a major, major moment in New Orleans politics came in 1954.

Uh, Morrison was in his second term and there was a real movement to create a home rule charter.

And there were times when Huey Long was governor or especially when Earl Long was governor, if they were at odds with the city administration they would essentially fire the mayor or fire key people or change laws.

But by the '50's, people were saying this isn't the way that you should govern that cities need more autonomy.

So there was this part of this movement to give cities more home rule.

(Peggy Scott Laborde) Along with that autonomy came a restructuring of the city council.

(Errol Laborde) Prior to that New Orleans had a commission council where you had the mayor and then you had a group of commissioners who were elected but you had a commissioner who was a head of a different area of service.

And so you weren't necessarily getting an expert in charge of these things, you were getting somebody who won an election.

With the '54 Home Rule Charter, they created a council which was a seven member council with five districts and two at large.

And then the mayor was allowed to appoint a chief administrative officer who ran the departments.

(Peggy Scott Laborde) The transition of the old form of government to the new took place on May 1, 1954, the same day the new Union Station Terminal was dedicated.

It was a great day.

It was a great day.

We uh had the dedication to the terminal about 11 o'clock in the morning and officially opened up the Union Passenger Terminal.

And then we went on over to Gallier Hall, and we had the installation, inauguration of the new form of government, the new mayor.

(Peggy Scott Laborde) On each inauguration day with the Mayor and City Council, there was a tradition.

Mr. Haspel, Haspel Clothing Company was headquartered here.

At each inauguration they would give us a suit, a white suit.

We all wore white suits.

And if you didn't have a Haspel white suit on, you were not in style.

And so each of us accepted this from Mr. Haspel with no strings attached because we couldn't do anything for Mr. Haspel, but we loved his white suits.

(Peggy Scott Laborde) Morrison became known nationally, and was the recipient of the Fiorello LaGuardia Award, bestowed upon an American mayor who exemplified good government efforts.

Actually may I say that the award should go to the fine citizens of the city of New Orleans who have worked during these past years unceasingly for the cause of better government in our city.

As a matter of fact, the mayor of the city is only one member of the team, no more than the quarterback, of that particular team for progress.

(Peggy Scott Laborde) During his administration, the Mayor looked "south of the border" to spur economic development.

(Jimmy Fitzmorris) The gateway to the Americas if you look on a map and you look at New Orleans, and then you look at South and Central America, there's only one logical conclusion that you could come to, New Orleans is the gateway to the Americas.

And many years ago, particularly during Chep's term, we would make many trips down into Central and South America.

You have no idea of the number of people who sent their children to Loyola, Tulane, Dominican, and Sacred Heart.

(Peggy Scott Laborde) Accompanying Morrison on these trips would be his wife Corinne.

(Jimmy Fitzmorris) She was a great asset I think to our city.

I was on several trips with both she and Chep down to Central America, both great ambassadors.

She could speak Spanish also.

And as a result of that communicating with people in their own language always made a big difference.

I don't think she really loved politics that much.

But sometimes you have to love politics if your husband loves it and you're in the middle of it.

But Corinne was an asset to Chep and was a great first lady of our city.

♪ (Peggy Scott Laborde) For the Morrison administration, progress in 1950's New Orleans was often gauged by visible accomplishments.

In the mid-Fifties the Morrison administration moved to consolidate railroad activity and train overpasses were constructed.

Stations hosting specific lines became obsolete.

Lost to the wrecking ball in 1954 was the Southern Railway Station on Canal Street at Basin Street.

It had been designed by the firm of nationally known Chicago architect Daniel Burnham.

That was right by Krauss, The Southern uh Terminal.

And as I remembered it was gray and majestic looking and arched.

I just remember going in there just a couple of times as a kid, not so much to catch a train but just because we were downtown and it's a place you'd go and look around.

And there's something exciting about train stations because there's so much activity, you see people coming and going.

And back then when people traveled, they dressed up.

And they'd see these trains, and these trains were like these magic tools that would be hurling people to other lands.

(Jacquelyn Clarkson) You saw everybody you knew.

Whether you were going to Bay St. Louis to the summer home or whether you were going to Chicago or whether you were going to New York.

And everyone had houses on the gulf coast that I knew.

But I can remember going over with my grandmother and all of my, my sisters and my sister and brothers and cousins and we'd go for the summer, for like a whole month of the summer.

And my daddy and my uncles would arrive on the train on Friday afternoon.

And we'd go meet him at the train station.

And then you know they'd come home by train and we'd travel by car.

I mean it was just part of the everyday life.

(Peggy Scott Laborde) Reflective of Mayor Morrison's ongoing campaign to position New Orleans as a "Gateway to the Americas" in trade and cultural exchange, built on the site of the demolished Southern Railway Station was Simon Bolivar plaza, in recognition of the Latin American military hero.

At the foot of Canal Street, the terminal for the Louisville and Nashville (L&N) train line stood alongside the Algiers Ferry building.

Part of the opening sequence to the movie version of the Tennessee Williams play "A Streetcar Named Desire" was actually filmed at the station.

( traffic sounds ) ( traffic sounds ) (Edwin Lombard) It was an adventure.

When the ferry landed you were at the L&N Railroad Station.

I mean trains, we had some relatives who worked on the train, Pullman porters.

And this was a busy place.

And then when you got down to the end of the ramp, it was Canal and Front where there were barrooms and this is where the longshoremen hired up.

And on Friday nights half the longshoremen never got home because they were on Canal and Front Street and they cashed their checks and they either gambled or drank all night.

So you'd see a lot of families, a lot of wives down there at the barrooms getting their longshoremen out of the bars but Canal and Front was live.

(Peggy Scott Laborde) The Morrison administration's plan to consolidate rail meant that there would be one central structure, Union Station, replacing a smaller terminal of the same name.

Built in 1892 for primarily the Illinois Central line, it was the only train station in the country designed by nationally acclaimed architect Louis Sullivan.

It was torn down in 1954 to make way for a building that was larger and considered more "contemporary" in design.

( 1950's news reel music ) (Announcer) At the new $16 million union passenger Terminal, first event in a double header civic celebration in New Orleans, dedication ceremonies, terminal committee chairman E.S.

Pennebaker is one of the speakers, then with six year old Corinne Ann Morrison, daughter of Mayor Morrison, the station's christening.

Instead of champagne, the bottle contains waters from the extremities of passenger rail lines that begin at the terminal, the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, the Great Lakes, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio and Rio Grande Rivers.

Then Corinne Ann joins her mother, father and brother in the second memorable event, a pre-Inauguration parade for her famous Daddy, Mayor Morrison, elected under the Crescent City's first Home Rule charter.

A longtime advocate of the Union Station project, Mayor Morrison begins a third term on one of the great days in New Orleans history.

(Peggy Scott Laborde) By the late 1950's it was high time for a new airport terminal and additional concourses at Moisant Field, today called Louis Armstrong International Airport.

Commercial service had begun after World War II, and Moisant, named after a pioneer aviator, quickly became one of the largest commercial airports in the country.

My dad was fascinated with airplanes and uh we went out there and it was just like a Sunday outing.

We just drove, but we weren't going any place.

We weren't meeting anybody.

We just drove out there and hung out and watched the planes come in.

"Ooh.

There comes a plane."

You know?

(Peggy Scott Laborde) By the late 1950's the automobile ruled.

A federal highway project initiated a construction boom that included the Interstate system.

Also during this time was the construction of an engineering marvel, the almost 24 mile Causeway over Lake Pontchartrain, linking Jefferson Parish with the Northshore.

(Angus Lind) The first ride over the Causeway was like "Wow!

This is something."

It was spectacular.

I recall it being a little scary because we were over water that long.

We're seeing all the things are falling into place for the suburban boom.

We're seeing expanded housing.

We're seeing under the Eisenhower administration his pushing for the interstate system and once the interstate system comes into play then you're going to really see rapid growth into the suburbs.

You're seeing the beginning of the Civil Rights struggle which is going to have a lot of influence on peoples' attitudes in terms of housing, especially when it comes to schooling.

And so the things are coming into play for the 1950's which will really trigger the suburban boom.

(Ronnie Virgets) This would have been about 1952 and we decided to move to Metairie.

It was Manson Street and right there by St. Christopher Church.

They went back a couple of blocks and there was our house and uh at the time our house was practically the last one on the block and beyond us was, you know for a ten-year-old kid it was like, whoa!

Wilds, you know, wild rabbits running around and stuff so uh we only stayed a year but I liked it very much.

(Peggy Scott Laborde) The rise in popularity of the car and busses signaled the death knell for many New Orleans streetcar lines.

By the end of the '50's, what was once 200 miles of track comprising over 20 lines had dwindled to two, St. Charles Avenue and Canal Street.

The end of the '50's also saw the removal of signs on public transportation that relegated black patrons to the rear.

My mother's neighbor was white.

Sometimes, they would ride to town together.

And they would talk together at the bus stop, get on the bus.

One would sit in the white section, one would sit in the black section.

And they were talking to each other across the screen.

And I don't even know if they realized how ridiculous that was.

But I guess they had done it so long.

They had accommodated it and made those adjustments for so long that it really didn't make much of a difference.

I was a little bit young, and of course it did affect me.

(Peggy Scott Laborde) The signs were removed in 1958.

In a state where segregation had historically been the norm, trying to hold on to both the white and black constituency would prove challenging for Morrison during his years as Mayor, and in his attempts to run for governor.

Mayor Morrison was somewhat of a hero in the black community.

Uh, I can remember distinctly the picture that John McKeithen beat him with in North Louisiana was a picture of Mayor Morrison and Morris Jeff dedicating the Fox Pool.

And there was this picture that was circulated all through North Louisiana saying that Mayor Morrison was a, you know, what kind of lover he was with this picture of this black man dedicating this pool for black kids in Algiers.

So Morrison was somewhat of a progressive that people thought at that time, and probably rightfully so, was not a hater.

He didn't come across as a hater.

He was somebody you could trust and somebody that was being fair with the black community.

That was the opinion.

Mayor Morrison was almost a saint in my house in the '40's and 1950's.

I later changed my views somewhat about Mayor Morrison but my parents were staunch Morrison supporters.

Morrison never indicated that he was for integration.

But for so many blacks they believed that he really was for integration, that he couldn't say that he was integration because he would lose white support.

(Peggy Scott Laborde) During the '50's, putting a pedal to the metal around New Orleans turned out to be an extremely popular pastime for teenagers.

(Jimmy Anselmo) I remember they'd have some drag races on Morrison Road.

A lot of the teenagers would go there and watch the drag, you know it was illegal but I didn't enter my car.

My car wasn't a fast car but I would go watch those and then the police would come, everybody would scatter all over the place.

I witnessed drag races on Canal Boulevard.

People would say to me, "But you went to Newman."

But let me just say this, drag racing was popular whether you went to Newman or any other school that you might think would not be conducive to drag racing.

I mean, Newman had its share of greasers there too.

And for the most part, it was harmless fun.

Believe it or not, late at night, there were races around Audubon Park.

(Peggy Scott Laborde) There was a race of a different kind to build a bridge across the Mississippi River, at New Orleans.

It opened in 1958.

This engineering feat was even worthy of postcard status!

When constructed, the steel truss cantilever bridge was one of the longest in the world.

Oh, I remember when it opened.

I remember also that my cousin had the first wreck on the bridge.

He wrecked his new Lincoln Continental.

I think he had a little bit too much to drink.

So he had the honor of being the first wreck on the Greater New Orleans Bridge, yes.

(Peggy Scott Laborde) A year earlier, a new Civic Center had been constructed, since city government had outgrown Gallier Hall.

Opening Day was memorable.

(Jacquelyn Clarkson) I remember going with my mother.

What I remember most about it is all those flags of the many countries.

It was over a hundred.

As they, they paraded the flags out and as every flag went up they called the country, there was someone there to represent that country.

And I was so impressed even though I was an adult, I was still almost like a child overwhelmed with the fact that our city was that international.

That was Chep Morrison.

There was this idea of let's just build and let's be modern.

And there were some major projects, and I'm not saying that they weren't warranted but the whole construction of the Civic Center Complex where you built a modern City Hall and the modern library and modern court buildings.

Now today, people look back at it and I don't think very many people admire the architecture that City Hall, especially when you looked that it replaced the beautiful designed building, like Gallier Hall.

There wasn't what you'd call a real sensitivity to preservation in the 1950's.

(Peggy Scott Laborde) Within the Home Rule charter, future mayoral terms were now limited to two.

Ultimately, Morrison served for almost 15 years.

Not everything during Morrison's years as mayor went smoothly.

Well there was gambling.

It wasn't legal but it wasn't enforced either.

And so gambling was, a lot of gambling behind, behind the scenes.

Uh, Jefferson Parish was fairly wide open.

In New Orleans, DeLesseps Morrison, for all of the image he had as a reformer, that in retrospect he was criticized that his administration just sort of seemed to kind of turn its eye from gambling.

There were bookie operations.

There were casino operations and it finally took I think maybe when the Kefauver hearings came down to New Orleans and started looking at organized crime and that activity was uh was attention drawn to it.

(Peggy Scott Laborde) In 1951 a special U.S. Senate Committee to investigate organized crime led by Senator Estes Kefauver held hearings in New Orleans.

Yet another issue for Morrison was the New Orleans police department, in which corruption had been overlooked for many years.

Progress was made in 1960 with the appointment of Joseph Giarrusso as police chief.

The next year the Mayor left during his final term to accept an appointment from President John F. Kennedy as U.S.

Ambassador to the Washington DC based Organization of American States, promoting economic cooperation among countries in the Western Hemisphere.

While out of office he continued working in economic development in Latin America.

After almost three years he moved on to gear up for yet another run for governor, his fourth.

In 1964 he died in Mexico in a plane crash with his nine-year old son Randy.

Chep had the ability of smiling even though he might be crying, he was smiling.

I never saw him cry too many times in all of my life, but I did see him smile 99 and a half percent of the time.

♪ (Peggy Scott Laborde) After World War II, under the GI bill, returning veterans could get loans to buy newly constructed homes, paving the way to the suburbs.

In New Orleans it also fostered a suburban style of life within city limits.

Neighborhoods such as Lakeview started to develop in the early 1900's, but it was the 1950's when they really began to blossom.

When I was just about two or three years old, uh my parents had bought a little wooden-framed house in Lakeview.

It was on General Haig Street right by the railroad tracks.

There were wooden-frame houses.

And they were all young families with kids.

And it was really part of that post-war building boom so you had families in nothing really fancy about the houses.

There were two bedrooms and one bathroom, but they were just part of this uh, this post-war growth and so there were always a lot of little kids on the block who were all the same age to play with.

I grew up in uh what's now called Mid-City.

You know in those days everything had more of a ward identification.

So I was either, either in the Third Ward, which is on one side of Canal Street, or in the Fourth Ward, which was on the other.

We moved around a fair amount, I tell people now I think my mother was in search of the perfect sixty-dollar a month rental property and we kept moving around.

Lakeview, even though it's not far, it's the next step up, it was sort of the next social step up, that Lakeview was kind of people who had begun to arrive if you would, who had a certain amount of prosperity.

(Peggy Scott Laborde) Adjacent to many of these newly built homes were alleys.

You'd have these blocks that, they were back-to-back with each other and in the middle was, was an alley.

And each house had a garage in back and so I remember that uh you know when my dad would come back from work he'd turn down the alley and then he would park in the garage.

Sometimes I'd be playing in the yard.

But the alleys were filled with shells, with the clam shells, which were so common in New Orleans.

And they caused a rumble.

You could hear a car coming just from sort of like the rumble of rolling on the shells so in a sense it was one way to tell that Dad was home.

(Peggy Scott Laborde) In the new neighborhoods, a Mini-main Street would often emerge.

For Lakeview it was Harrison Avenue.

Developing much of the area and the neighborhood was Robert E. Smith.

He even donated a parcel of land for a branch of the public library.

(Errol Laborde) The center of Lakeview then as it is now was Harrison Avenue.

I know a real rite of passage for me was the time I, I was first able to ride my bike to Harrison Avenue.

I mean that was like going to New York.

Harrison Avenue was the economic and cultural center of Lakeview.

(Peggy Scott Laborde) Neighborhood movie theatres dotted the city.

On Harrison Avenue there were The Beacon and Lakeview Theatres.

And there was a lady at The Beacon, people still talk about this today who are still trying to find this lady, with this beehive hairdo who was known for being very, very strict with the kids.

At the Lakeview it seemed like it was a little bit less discipline but a lot of Saturday afternoons where we spent there.

(Peggy Scott Laborde) Also part of Lakeview was the West End section on Lake Pontchartrain, with its cluster of restaurants that specialized in seafood.

(Errol Laborde) Fitzgerald's was probably the most famous of them.

Fitzgerald's had this great sign out in front with the fish, with the blinking fish.

Back in the days when Catholics were not allowed to eat meat on Friday, they were just an extra big business.

(Peggy Scott Laborde) During an era when the concept of separate but equal still prevailed, a group of citizens, including longtime Morrison supporters and philanthropists Edgar and Edith Stern realized a need for a suburban style subdivision targeted at the emerging black middle class.

They urged the Mayor to support the development of an almost 200 acre swath of land near Lake Pontchartrain.

Pontchartrain Park probably was perceived as a step up.

Uh, you had achieved middle class status, people who had five-figure incomes, that means you're making ten thousand dollars or more, or something like that, postal workers or people who worked for the federal government, a lot of school teachers, a few of the black professionals, the dentists, the doctors, the lawyers.

Dutch Morial, for example, lived there.

(Deacon John) They had a golf course and a community center.

All of the playgrounds.

It was like brand new.

Some of my classmates, had moved to Pontchartrain Park.

But my family was like lower middle class.

So we couldn't afford to move anywhere.

We were just lucky to be living in my Aunt Julia's house so, in a shotgun double.

(Peggy Scott Laborde) In 1954, Inez Green and her family moved to Pontchartrain Park.

They were among its earliest residents.

Her children were pleased with their new neighborhood.

They did, or a lot of their friends would tell them about, "Y'all ain't got no movie back here, what y'all do?"

"We got the parks, we got the playground."

"We got three playgrounds."

They go over there and play put-put at the golf course.

They go over there and play tennis or they stay home.

Or they go over there, and they play football or go play basketball.

(Peggy Scott Laborde) Mrs. Green soon discovered that her children had forged close friendships with other kids in the neighborhood.

You go look for them, they're sitting under Mr. Villavaso's tree two doors from me.

Across the street under the Charles Allen tree.

Or they in the backyard playing ball or something like that.

And our children are close.

They call themselves "the park brothers and sisters."

It was a beautiful place to raise children.

We only met Pontchartrain Park guys when we got to high school.

And they were cocky because that was the new neighborhood.

You know, "I live in the Park," was their saying.

♪ (Peggy Scott Laborde) In addition to the evolution of new neighborhoods, during the 1950's there were amusement parks along Lake Pontchartrain.

Pontchartrain Beach featured a manmade beach that allowed for sunbathing and swimming along with a midway full of rides, the Zephyr roller coaster being the most famous.

Before integration, Lincoln Beach gave the black community a place for amusement rides and music performances as well as access to the lake.

But if you just wanted to put a toe in the water, the seawall was the most convenient spot to catch a breeze along the lake.

More in the dress-up mode?

The place to go for a special occasion or just a night out was the Blue Room supper club at the Roosevelt Hotel.

I think I was like about uh ten years old, eleven years old and I had a uh, had a sport coat.

I remember when you'd go there they'd let the little kids sit up front.

They'd have some chairs up front to see the show that was going on there.

(Peggy Scott Laborde) A house orchestra provided dance music and backed the stars that appeared.

For many years, WWL radio featured a national broadcast from the nightclub.

I remember when we would be on vacations and traveling uh that my father always carried, he had a trunk that had a little radio, a plug-in radio that he would put in the truck and we would go to a motel and he'd plug in his radio and at the given time he'd tune in to WWL which is of course right by the 9 because it's 870.

And no matter where we were he'd be so excited, say, "Hey look!

Listen!

You know it's from the Roosevelt."

(Radio Announcer) The Blue Room.

You'll say it's magnificent presents the music of Leon Kelner.

( Leon Kelner music ) (Peggy Scott Laborde) Bourbon Street was also a popular night time destination.

The 1950's was the heyday of exotic dancers, such as Evangeline the Oyster Girl, and the red headed bombshell Blaze Starr, famous for her on-stage performance and her off-stage romance with Louisiana governor Earl Long.

Jimmy Anselmo and a friend discovered to their delight that some Bourbon Street clubs often looked the other way to boost business.

(Jimmy Anselmo) We were lured into a strip club and we only had enough for uh, for one drink a piece.

So we sat at the stage where there was a bar.

You'd sit at the stage.

And we sat there and we sipped one drink a piece for about three hours.

We made sure we saw every stripper that came.

And the waitress kept coming by and saying, "Would y'all like another drink?"

and we'd say, "No, we're fine."

We're sipping on the drink, and we were just talking about how, you know, we were fifteen years old.

But that wasn't the only time I saw a strip show.

And I remember the stripper, Alouette, I think that was her name, with tassels.

So I had a lot of stories to tell back at school.

(Peggy Scott Laborde) Music acts were also an essential part of the Bourbon Street scene.

(Jacquelyn Clarkson) You go to Famous Door you heard the best music in the world on Bourbon Street, but I can still remember Al Hirt when he first started as a young, as a youngster.

He was in high school when he first started playing.

And so, it was all of the greats had some time on Bourbon Street.

(Peggy Scott Laborde) The street for shopping in the 1950's was Canal Street, historically New Orleans' main thoroughfare.

(Jacquelyn Clarkson) My sister and I would dress up in fancy little dresses, little straw hats and white gloves and little straw purses.

You could ride the ferry and our grandmother would meet us on the other side of the river.

You can still feel the excitement when you think, when you talk about it.

And again my grandmother, we'd go to D.H. Holmes for lunch, of course.

And then we'd shop.

And you'd shop at places like D.H. Holmes, Gus Mayer, Godchaux's, Maison Blanche, and um you know, then go to my grandmother's house, which was in the French Quarter.

The shopping trip I most remember was my grandmother would take me and my cousin, a little boy cousin maybe a year younger than me or so, and it was around back to school time and she would take us to Krauss'.

And, and basically as I remember it, it seemed to be like underwear time.

I don't know why.

I wasn't particularly well dressed at least on the surface, but I had lots of underwear.

(Deacon John) I bought my first guitar at a pawn shop on Canal Street.

It was called Abe's Pawn Shop.

My oldest sister took me down there.

And I went down to Werlein's and bought myself a lot of method books and taught myself how to read and how to uh play all those chords that I heard on the uh recordings.

(Edwin Lombard) I had aunts that worked at Godchaux's and Goldring's.

I'd catch the ferry, just walk up and down Canal Street.

You know we could go to the Palace Theatre.

And even at the Orpheum you could go upstairs.

There was a K&B right on the corner of Canal Street right by Maison Blanche building.

You could get some K&B ice cream and I'd do that.

(Ronnie Virgets) We'd go to the Saenger and the Orpheum were the two I remember obviously the most vividly.

And the Loew's State, also.

One of the things I kind of remember it often places actually advertised in neon "Air conditioned" or "air cooled even."

♪ (Peggy Scott Laborde) During the 1950's, The Pelicans, New Orleans' minor league baseball team, was nearing the end of an over 40 year run, much of that time spent at the corner of South Carrollton and Tulane Avenues.

(Ronnie Virgets) Pelican Stadium was great, and we got to know a lot of the players by name.

Some of the players uh, uh I think were even from New Orleans originally, you know, there was a real affiliation with them.

I remember going to Pelican Stadium.

Uh I was a school safety patrol boy.

And uh one of the rewards we would get to go to a baseball game.

Blacks were seated along the third base side which really were very good seats.

And it was outside of Pelican Stadium that I met Jackie Robinson and got his autograph.

(Peggy Scott Laborde) Pelican Stadium's location proved advantageous to some LSU and Tulane football fans.

(Angus Lind) You would hear the train going by, you know, during games.

There was a substation there.

That's where we caught trains to go to Baton Rouge to see Tulane and LSU play.

Cause we would drive to Pel Stadium and park there and you could catch the train there.

And the train stopped alongside of Tiger Stadium.

And of course, the trains were just rolling cocktail hours all the way up there.

(Peggy Scott Laborde) By the late 50's, Pelican Stadium's location became more valuable for another use.

(Errol Laborde) When the movement came to demolish Pelican Stadium, and that was part of this whole idea for let's build this new Fountainebleau Motel, part of the new Tulane Avenue, that Morrison very much wanted to keep the Pelican franchise in New Orleans, even though minor league baseball at the time was really dying.

And so, he used a lot of his leverage to get the Pelicans games moved to City Park Stadium.

But for those two years because actually my Dad worked for the park, I got to be batboy for the Pelicans, uh which was a thrill.

I got to wear a Pelican uniform and the Pelicans had the old Yankee uniforms so I got, you know, to wear one of those.

(Peggy Scott Laborde) For New Orleans baseball fans there was the added pleasure of being able to see some major league pre-season games.

(Errol Laborde) They brought in the Boston Red Sox and the Cleveland Indians.

So there I was ball boy for the Red Sox, I'm kind of sitting outside the dugout cause I don't dare sit inside the dugout with the Boston Red Sox.

And Ted Williams, who was pretty much of a loner, he was sitting alongside the fence, he was working on this bat and he was trying to, I think, get the handle just right and I think he wanted to carve it a little bit.

And he turned to me and he said, "Hey kid, you got a knife?"

And I just stun.

Here it is Ted Williams asking me for a knife, I didn't have one!

I mean, how humiliating could that be?

I just kind of stammered, "N-N-N-N." I was just so ashamed.

I mean I was just like the resolve.

I said, "From now on, I'm gonna carry a knife for the rest of my life," which of course I never did.

(Peggy Scott Laborde) If ever there's a collective statewide 1950's sports memory, it was what occurred Halloween night in 1959.

(Radio Announcer) Billy Cannon watches it bounce, he takes it on his own 11, he comes back on field to 15.

(Peggy Scott Laborde) Having already become national champs the year before, Louisiana State University, LSU, was trying to repeat success.

On that fateful night in Tiger Stadium, Billy Cannon won the game for LSU against Ole Miss with his historic 89 yard run.

I was expecting one of my children at that time and uh, jumped up and down so much it's amazing I didn't deliver in the stadium.

But that was phenomenal.

And um, that captured a lot of, of uh what I think the coaches at that time were trying to emphasis of what you could do with young people by giving them a dream.

(Peggy Scott Laborde) By the 1950's the New Orleans Recreation Department, NORD, was well established.

Children had an array of sports and cultural activities to choose from within a program that became a national model.

At the helm was longtime high school football coach Johnny Brechtel.

(Jacquelyn Clarkson) My father's job was Executive Director of NORD instead of Director.

And the reason being is Lester Lautenschlaeger served as Director a dollar a year.

After Daddy and Lester and Chep created NORD and legislatively made it a part of this city.

And Chep committed to giving it a huge percentage of the budget.

Lester committed to matching it dollar for dollar with private money, and Daddy committed to bringing the best of the athletic and cultural world aboard to run it.

My father went and got you know Morris Jeff, Sr.

He got uh Gernon Brown, Tad Gormley, and any who's who in the coaching world.

People like Lelia Haller, prima ballerina, who taught ballet in the gymnasiums.

We had light opera.

People like Norman Treigle.

They were phenomenal people and all.

Well some went to the, they all, several went to the New York opera.

The children of this city had the finest of recreation in the athletic and cultural worlds possible.

(Peggy Scott Laborde) In addition to opera, there was also a theatre program that eventually found a home in the basement of Gallier Hall.

NORD had plenty of options for youngsters engaged in sports activities.

I played baseball and uh had swimming lessons in NORD parks.

So, I was very much involved in NORD programs during the summer.

I think I played baseball maybe three or four years at NORD parks.

(Peggy Scott Laborde) Among the numerous activities sponsored by NORD was a soap box derby.

You were supposed to build this vehicle yourself as I remember it.

It was not supposed to be any adult help on the thing.

I think that was the rule.

But I think it was a rule more uh not well observed.

I think everybody's dad ended up doing something.

They were little things without motors you know, and they had little steering wheels.

They were I think patterned after the actual Indy 500 cars at the time.

♪ (Peggy Scott Laborde) For teenagers with actual cars, places that had curb service were especially popular.

You might have brought a girl and uh there might have been, and I remember this expression for some reason, you might be in the car "throwing a loving."

That's what they, a certain amount of uh necking or spooning or whatever.

Sometimes you had a date and you more or less went there, less for the physical activity as to be see and be seen.

(Peggy Scott Laborde) In addition to Rockery, the Lenfant's parking lot was another preferred spot for teens.

Uptown there was Delicate Jerry's on South Carrollton Avenue.

(Jimmy Anselmo) Delicate Jerry was my uncle.

His name was Jerry Anselmo.

And, of course, we being related to my uncle we'd go there quite often.

And uh, he had a good restaurant there and I'd always tell my friends, "That's my uncle's restaurant, Delicate Jerry."

And they'd call him that 'cause he was a very overweight man.

I think he weighed about 500 pounds.

So delicate meant he's delicate.

(Peggy Scott Laborde) There was nothing fancy about Larry and Katz, a local bar whose owners were no nonsense.

What I remember about Larry and Katz was there were a lot of beer boxes to sit on and we sat mostly on beer boxes.

And I also remember that there were guns behind the counter in open display, and that was kind of a warning that we don't want any trouble in here.

I think New Orleans is the only city where uh people like dumps and dives, you know.

They can go there after a Mardi Gras ball in tuxedos and you know, cause they want to drink cheap, that's why, cheap.

♪ ( Fats Domino's "Blueberry Hill" ) ♪ (Peggy Scott Laborde) While New Orleans has long been known for its jazz heritage, by the '50's it had its own twist on rhythm and blues and rock and roll.

Cosimo Matassa recorded such up and coming musicians as Little Richard, Clarence "Frogman" Henry, Fats Domino, and Dave Bartholomew, to name just a few.

Bartholomew recalls Matassa's kindness in those early days.

Cosimo was the one that gave me my chance at life.

Cosimo was one of them looked after me when I was sick.

Cosimo was there when I needed some furniture for my mother and never knew me before.

Where you live at?

"Pick out what you want."

His Daddy had a furniture store.

(Peggy Scott Laborde) Bartholomew's partnership with Fats Domino produced more than forty hits for Imperial Records.

I would say that Fats and I were very happy with what actually happened because, we were very, very successful in making other people happy.

Well we had our downfalls, but I think we all came out smiling pretty good.

When Buzz and I were living on Tulane Campus, where we you know, where we went to school at Tulane, lived in World War II barracks buildings and thought we were living in palaces and having children and going to school, and our very first Fats Domino concert was at the Loyola field house.

It was 1956.

And he introduced "Blueberry Hill".

I still have the tickets.

(Peggy Scott Laborde) Many New Orleans musicians considered it an honor to play at the Dew Drop Inn, including Bartholomew.

What they had there, entertainment of all sorts.

First class, black, and everybody wanted to go there and be at the Dew Drop.

(Edwin Lombard) The Dew Drop was a club where black musicians could play.

That's where Sam Cooke played, Jackie Wilson played and all of the entertainers that couldn't play anywhere else, they played at The Dew Drop Inn.

It was owned by Frank Painia.

It was the major spot to hear black entertainment in the '40's, '50's and the '60's, early '60's.

Anybody who was anybody played at The Dew Drop Inn.

Bobby Womack and all the artists came through Dew Drop.

(Peggy Scott Laborde) Both black and white teenagers often took their musical cues from local disc jockeys.

Among the most prominent, WJMR's Poppa Stoppa.

Of the three men who used that moniker over the years, Clarence Hayman's stint began in 1953.

He had a very noteworthy uh theme song.

It was called "Dig It."

(Clarence Hayman announcing) We spell it P-O-P-P-A S-T-O-P-P-A.

The Poppa Stoppa show little baby.

Sometimes at night, if I could sneak a little radio into my bedroom, I want to say at midnight, so I'd have to turn it on like very low and listen, there was a guy named Jack the Cat.

(Jack the Cat announcing) Jack the Cat here.

Things get fine fro 6 till 9 in Jack the Catsville.

Come on board.

You're welcome.

He also had a very distinctive kind of little intro kind of music.

And I think later on he had married a woman, and she became Jacquelyn the Kitten.

Alright, and they'd come on and do little cat noises and things like that.

His name actually was Ken Elliot.

(Peggy Scott Laborde) Vernon Winslow was truly a pioneer of New Orleans airwaves.

Winslow, an art professor at Dillard University, was initially hired by a radio station to teach white announcers how to sound black.

Backed by a sponsor, Jax Beer, in 1950 he signed on as "Dr. Daddy O," also on WWEZ.

Dave Bartholomew recorded a tune promoting the locally made brew.

♪ Hey everybody lets jump and jive, ♪ ♪ stop acting dead cause we're alive, and drink Jax beer, ♪ ♪ drink Jax beer, good Jax beer, good Jax beer, ♪ ♪ hello mellow Jax, best beer in town.

♪ (Peggy Scott Laborde) WNOE and WTIX also kept teens current with national trends, but all the while playing the local tunes.

And many of those tunes were played at local dances.

And most of the dances I went to were either at Valencia, which was a club on Valence Street which I had to join, or F&M Patio Bar.

Back then, a lot of times, people call it Fump & Mannie's because that's what F&M's stood for.

And uh they had mostly, I recall, summer dances there, you know, with Deacon John and Irma Thomas.

Uh and again, that's end of the 50's so um not earlier than that, as I recall.

But uh that was just a big hall.

I mean, there wasn't anything to it.

(Deacon John) The drummer at the time, his name was Al Miller.

He came up with the Deacon John moniker.

And he said, "Let's call him Deacon John."

And uh I said, "Man well, please don't call me Deacon John."

I said, "People will think we got a gospel group" "and they won't give us any gigs."

"We won't be able to get our records played on the radio."

And so once they stuck me with the name, I couldn't get rid of it.

I tried to get rid of it at one point in my career, and one of the club owners told me said, "Well if I don't say Deacon John's playing here tonight," "nobody gonna know you here."

( laughing ) I said duh, well uh you know, I guess there's nothing I can do about it now.

And I remember when my, my son, who is now um 35, when he was a senior in high school at Newman, he uh, he came home one day and he said, "Dad, we got this great band that's going to play for our graduation."

I said, "Oh, who would that be?"

He said, "Well, it's this guy Deacon John.

Have you heard of him?"

"Deacon John and the Ivories?"

I said, "Yeah, I've heard of him," I said, "He played at my graduation from Newman."

You know, I could not believe it.

So, but he's such a, just like Irma.

I mean, they're such a great part of this city.

♪ Why I spend a lonely night dreaming of a song.

♪ So what else links present day New Orleans with the 1950's?

Even though rail travel activity isn't what it used to be, the New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal is still home to three Amtrak passenger lines.

And now Greyhound Bus lines.

Illegal in the '50's, today New Orleans has casino style gaming at Harrah's, along with slot machines at the Fair Grounds Race Course.

While the New Orleans Pelicans are no more, there's the Zephyr's triple A franchise that fills summer evenings for baseball fans.

And now, instead of on Tulane Avenue in New Orleans, up the road on Airline Drive in Metairie.

Nonstop commercial air service between New Orleans and Central America didn't last, but cruise boats make the trip across the Gulf of Mexico weekly.

Both Lakeview and Pontchartrain Park were badly damaged by the Hurricane Katrina levee breaks, but are making a comeback.

And yes, somewhere around town, Deacon John is still performing and sounding better than ever.

When I organized my first band I was well, we had about six, seven different uniforms.

So one night we we're wearing blue coats and the next night yellow then red and green, and plaid and checkers we had you know like music for all occasions.

We even had Bermuda shorts, matching Bermuda shorts with the leggings and the shirts to go with it, so that was more like casual engagements.

We had Hawaiian shirts were popular then.

So we wore those as sort of a uniform pattern too.

But most of the bands that I knew, this was the way we went on the job you know dressed up.

As a youngster who partied earlier than he should have, I would, I was not a Regal drinker.

Probably Dixie was my favorite.

Jax was, you know, my second favorite.

But uh that's what kids drank back then.

In my fraternity house we turned the Pepsi machine into a beer machine.

And you know for a quarter you could get your choice of the local beers that came flying down the chute.

(Narrator #1) New Orleans in the 50's.

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