VOL. 38

No. 216

FOR

OR YEARS the South has been our region of romance. Both before and after the Civil War we of the North and West have looked to the South as a country separate and distinct. While one with us part of the great Unionit has still had a separateness and aloofness that made it "different." Yet I have always felt that that aloofness or difference was more apparent than real. I was assured that in essential spirit there was no great difference between the two sections of the country. Human life might manifest itself outwardly in slightly different ways, but the spirit of the leaders of the South was, in the main, the same as that of the leaders of the North. So in dealing with the problems of municipal art and government I fully determined some years ago to study, as far as possible, the growth and develop ment in certain southern cities, that I might show how they have kept pace with the growing demand for democratic art in city life, and nowhere could this better be shown than in New Orleans and Galveston as seaports, and Houston and San Antonio as inland cities. To these four cities, then, these articles will

be confined, beginning with New Orleans. As is well known, New Orleans is near the mouth of the Mississippi River. This great river, draining its vast areas, naturally brings down an incredible amount of mud and silt in solution in its waters. As these reach the gulf level they flow more and more slowly, thus allowing the deposit of the sediment that a

rapid stream will carry along. The result is that at the mouth of the Mississippi is a vast mud plain, deposited during the centuries, and slowly but surely pushing itself out further and further into the Gulf. The city is built upon a portion of this river-built mud-plain about eighty miles from the Gulf. is not absolutely flat, but almost so, the level being from about a foot below the normal low-water Gulf level to fifteen feet above. The average level is from three to five feet above Gulf level.

It

The river is substantially at Gulf level at normal flow of low water. It is subject to varying increase from Gulf level to fully twenty feet above it at high tide.

These conditions demanded in the earliest days of New Orleans' history

the creation of levees to keep out the flood at the varying stages of high tide. The first settlers raised a bank on the river front before their houses and extended it in the shape of a rude parallelogram completely around that portion of their property they wished to protect. This principle has been followed ever since, until the modern city and state, taking hold of the problem in the modern method of thoroughness, has constructed levees for hundreds of miles,-levees that are becoming more stable, extensive and secure each year. Slowly the federal government has seen that it was its duty to engage largely in this work. The Mississippi River is the outlet of the flood waters of twenty-seven states, and it seems scarcely fair that the one state and city which happen to be near its mouth should be at the mercy of these flood waters or required perforce to protect themselves from their devas

tating power. This levee work is undoubtedly federal government work in the truest sense and should be under its absolute control and done at its expense.

At the boundary line between New Orleans and Jefferson parishes (as the counties are termed) the levee is some sixteen or eighteen feet high above the surrounding country.

In the commercial heart of the city. the levees exist just as distinctly as in the outlying districts of the river's course, yet they are not so evident, as, little by little, the streets parallel and leading to the river have been filled in to the level of the levee. Trade conditions demanded this, for it would have been impracticable to unload vessels over a levee down to a street level ten or a dozen feet below.

As is well know the streets of the business portion of New Orleans are exceedingly narrow and inconvenient. This is the legacy of the old French and Spanish

days, when, for purposes of safety against the floods and the attacks of foes, it was necessary to huddle the houses together as closely as possible.

But the visitor who rides out beyond the business and poorer portion of New Orleans will be surprised to find a number of wide and well-kept streets and avenues, lined on either side with beautiful residences embowered in a wealth of shade trees that even southern California cannot surpass. In the heart of the city, too, he finds Canal street, a wide, broad business street, and at intervals of about a mile there is a similar wide street. In the center of all these streets is what is called the "neutral strip," -a parkway of grass and shade trees in which the street-car tracks are laid, thus leaving each side of the street for horse and automobile traffic.

Here and there these neutral strips widen out into small parks, squares or places," and New Orleans has a fair quota of these civic lungs, there being 34 squares and places, with an area of 53.86 acres, and 26 avenue spaces with an area of 40.90 acres. In addition there are 209 acres of private parks, 75 acres of residence parks, and 11 acres of public resorts under private control. All these, exclusive of the two large parks, viz., Audubon Park, 247 acres with 33 acres of batture (or land accumulated by river

deposit), and the City Park, with 216 acres. As soon as the visitor begins to ride about New Orleans he observes a marked peculiarity of the streets. Those streets which have a general east and west direction follow the course of the river, which is largely that of a crude dipper. The result is that these streets curve about considerably, to the manifest confusion of the stranger. For instance, St. Charles Avenue begins at the upper part of the river, near Jefferson Parish, and runs south-easterly, then gently curves with the river to a slight northerly divergence from east, then sharply northeast to a few blocks beyond Lee Circle,