Monastery at Large

Category: New Orleans

  • Postcards from the South: New Orleans Courthouse

    Postcard view of the Federal Courthouse, New Orleans

    I find it interesting that the same people who insist New Orleans is some kind of exceptional cultural destination (it’s not) also admit to being shitfaced the entire time they visit there.

    “There’s no other place like it,” they gush, after recounting the evening they spent barfing their guts out in a French Quarter gutter. Truly unique and magical.

    If your personality is alcohol—and to be fair, that’s a large chunk of the American population—I can see why New Orleans would be appealing: I’ve never seen another city with so many bars and liquor stores. But I digress.

    The postcards here depict one of the few buildings in the French Quarter of any architectural caliber: the New Orleans Courthouse, completed in 19091 and designed by Frederick W. Brown, associated with A. Ten Eyck Brown (his son2) and P. Thornton Marye,3 both of Atlanta.

    Location of the New Orleans Courthouse

    Built for a princely $1,000,000,4 the structure was designed in the obligatory Beaux-Arts style, faced with Georgia marble and matching white terracotta trim.5

    Frederick W. Brown was probably little more than a figurehead for the project: he’d reportedly worked as the assistant state architect of New York,6 so using his name must have lent a certain gravitas.

    A. Ten Eyck Brown had previously worked as an assistant in the supervising architect’s office at the U.S. Department of the Treasury.7 8 He was more of a salesman than a designer, and was also quite willing to claim other people’s work as his own, so who knows how much he contributed—probably not a lot.

    Brown and Marye entered into partnership when Brown moved to Atlanta from Washington, D.C., circa 1906, and it appears they joined forces expressly to work on the courthouse. Brown was a competent designer, but Marye was better. The firm dissolved in 1907,9 two years before the project’s completion.

    Marye appears to have been the primary designer for the New Orleans Courthouse: he supervised construction and provided progress reports to the press,10 11 12 and attended the building’s official inspection with the state governor.13

    As interior work neared completion in late 1909, Marye’s firm handled the bids for the lighting and furniture,14 15 and he even traveled to New Orleans to discuss furniture selection.16

    Meanwhile, Brown’s last recorded visit was at the building’s cornerstone ceremony in January 1908.17 Later reports stated he was a “consulting architect” on the project.18

    Anecdotally, I see a whole lot of Marye in the design, specifically in the cornice, bays, and windows, which recall his work on the State Administration Building (1914)19 in Raleigh, North Carolina.

    Postcard view of the Federal Courthouse, New Orleans

    For whatever reason, A. Ten Eyck Brown rarely mentioned his father in biographical sketches, and when he did, he never identified their relationship. One sketch from 1909 noted :

    “…in association with Fred W. Brown, he entered the competition for the best design for the magnificent court house at New Orleans, La.”20

    When Frederick W. Brown died in Atlanta in 1923, the Atlanta newspapers didn’t report it, but word got back to New Orleans,21 where he opened a practice in 1907,22 23 although it appears he never did much work there beyond the courthouse.

    In the 1890s, the senior Brown practiced in Buffalo, New York, where one reporter wrote the following in 1901:

    “I wonder what has become of Frederick W. Brown, who came to this State some years ago with good prestige from other places but no certificate of membership in the American Association of Architects, and who was a scholarly, brainy, rather handsome and entirely capable man, full of ideas and with a bright gifted boy following in his footsteps with enormous ability as an artist and architect. And I thought the older Brown was going to make a big hit in Buffalo and get big contracts on municipal work, as public schools and other buildings, but he didn’t get a smell…”24

    Speaking of which, the New Orleans Courthouse is surrounded by the bars of the French Quarter, so you know it gets a smell—probably from all the people barfing their guts out in the gutter.

    See how I tie this shit together?

    References

    1. “Millions Invested In Modern Buildings In Queen City of South”. The New Orleans Item, August 30, 1909, p. 23. ↩︎
    2. “The Romance Is Passing”. Alexandria Daily Town Talk (Alexandria, Louisiana), April 3, 1909, p. 4. ↩︎
    3. “Courthouse Commission Decides The Prize Plan”. The Times-Picayune (New Orleans), April 7, 1906, p. 12. ↩︎
    4. “New Courthouse Building Will Be Completed Four Months In Advance Of The Time Specified In Contract”. The New Orleans Item, October 31, 1907, p. 2. ↩︎
    5. Ibid. ↩︎
    6. “The Romance Is Passing”. Alexandria Daily Town Talk (Alexandria, Louisiana), April 3, 1909, p. 4. ↩︎
    7. Ibid. ↩︎
    8. “A. Ten Eyck Brown Architect”. The Atlanta Journal, October 17, 1909, p. 68. ↩︎
    9. Ibid. ↩︎
    10. “Mr. Marye Here.” The Times-Democrat (New Orleans), January 8, 1908, p. 5. ↩︎
    11. “Mr. Marye On Visit To New Courthouse”. The Daily States (New Orleans), May 3, 1909, p. 3. ↩︎
    12. “Looking After the Courthouse.” The Daily Picayune (New Orleans), May 4, 1909, p. 16. ↩︎
    13. “To Invite Proposals”. The Times-Democrat (New Orleans), August 4, 1909, p. 5. ↩︎
    14. “Courthouse Commission.” (advertisement) The Daily Picayune (New Orleans), May 16, 1909, p. 11. ↩︎
    15. “Proposals.” The Daily Picayune (New Orleans), August 24, 1909, p. 9. ↩︎
    16. “Courthouse Furniture.” The Daily Picayune (New Orleans), October 16, 1909, p. 7. ↩︎
    17. “Hundreds Present At Dedication Of Million Dollar Courthouse”. New Orleans Item, January 8, 1908, p. 1. ↩︎
    18. “Architect Suggests 20-Story Courthouse”. The Miami Herald, February 13, 1925, p. 3. ↩︎
    19. “State Building Will Open Monday”. The News and Observer (Raleigh, North Carolina), February 1, 1914, p. 13. ↩︎
    20. “A. Ten Eyck Brown Architect”. The Atlanta Journal, October 17, 1909, p. 68. ↩︎
    21. “Frederick W. Brown Dead, Says Atlanta News”. The New Orleans Item, September 26, 1893, p. 20. ↩︎
    22. “Frederick W. Brown.” The Daily States (New Orleans), September 27, 1907, p. 11. ↩︎
    23. “Courthouse Architects.” The Daily Picayune (New Orleans), September 27, 1907, p. 12. ↩︎
    24. “Mostly About People”. Buffalo Evening Times, August 3, 1901, p. 4. ↩︎

  • Postcards from the South: IC Depot – New Orleans

    Postcard view of the IC Depot, New Orleans

    This undated postcard depicts the Illinois Central (IC) Depot in New Orleans, later referred to as Union Station, opened in 18921 2 and demolished in 1954.3 4

    Officially credited to Louis Sullivan, the project likely had at least some input from Sullivan’s assistant at the time, Frank Lloyd Wright, who drafted the station’s blueprints.5

    In the depot design, you can spot the nascent elements of what would become the Prairie School style: the low-slung composition, hip roof, wide eaves, and patterned grouping of windows on the side were all radically different from the prevailing architecture of the time—certainly in the Deep South.

    That’s not to say it was an attractive building, though. In fact, I would consider it downright ugly. The New Orleans press apparently agreed, with the Times-Picayune saying rather demurely at the station’s opening:

    “It is not the finest depot in America, but it is a comfortable, ornamental building…”6

    Ouch.

    My pet theory is that the IC Depot’s design influenced G.L. Norrman—you knew I’d fit him into this somehow.

    Norrman visited New Orleans at least four times between 1893 and 1894,7 8 9 10 11and he must have seen the structure. Within a few years, he fully embraced low-slung buildings with hip roofs, though he began heading in that direction with his design for the C.D. Hurt Residence in 1893.

    Note the similarities between the depot and Norrman’s design for the Eureka Hotel (1902), or better yet, Denmark Hall (1901), which included a hip roof, thin chimneys, a porch lined with columns, and a second-floor balustrade, much like the depot.

    There’s no such thing as original art.

    References

    1. “The Railroads.” The Daily Picayune (New Orleans), June 1, 1892, p. 9. ↩︎
    2. “Railroad Racket.” The Times-Democrat (New Orleans), June 1, 1892, p. 9. ↩︎
    3. “Partial Use of New R.R. Station Is Slated to Start Next Friday”. The Times-Picayune (New Orleans), January 3, 1954, p. 1. ↩︎
    4. “Train Service Is Inaugurated in Union Passenger Facility”. The Times-Picayune (New Orleans), January 9, 1954, p. 1. ↩︎
    5. Louis Sullivan’s sophisticated Union Depot welcomed train passengers to New Orleans for more than 60 years | Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans ↩︎
    6. “The Railroads.” The Daily Picayune (New Orleans), June 1, 1892, p. 9. ↩︎
    7. “The Social World.” The Atlanta Journal, December 9, 1893, p. 10. ↩︎
    8. “Personal”. The Daily Picayune (New Orleans), December 24, 1893, p. 8. ↩︎
    9. “Society”. The Atlanta Journal, January 17, 1894, p. 2. ↩︎
    10. “Personal.” The Times Democrat (New Orleans), June 22, 1894, p. 3. ↩︎
    11. “In the Social World.” The Atlanta Journal, November 30, 1894, p. 2. ↩︎

  • Postcards from the South: Howard Library – New Orleans

    Postcard view of the Howard Library, New Orleans

    Several years ago I drove around New Orleans for about two hours—long enough to learn that the place is a charmless shithole.

    On my way out of town, I was chased for several miles by some cracked-out asshole screaming and throwing objects at my rental car, for reasons that could only make sense to an addled mind.

    Before that inglorious send-off, I drove through the French Quarter and the Garden District and was quite underwhelmed by New Orleans’ so-called architecture, which is little more than cheap cast iron slapped onto a lot of gaudy, poorly designed buildings.

    I made a point of driving by the former Howard Memorial Library, completed in 18891 and ostensibly designed by H.H. Richardson,2 who grew up in New Orleans but wisely moved North to practice architecture.

    Location of Howard Memorial Library

    The building’s style is, of course, Romanesque—Richardson is credited with inventing the style. It’s not one of his better works, though, and was based on a rejected design for a Michigan library.3

    Richardson never saw the building either: construction began a year after his death, and his successor firm, Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge, dusted off the plans and reworked them.4

    Thus, it could reasonably be argued that Richardson didn’t design the building at all, although it’s often touted as his only work in the South. It certainly lacks the sophistication of his better Northern designs, but Richardson’s output was always hit-or-miss.

    I also suspect that Shepley, Rutan, and Coolidge, who were originally Richardson’s assistants, were largely responsible for his later designs anyway, but that’s a discussion for another time.

    I’d originally planned to take pictures of the library, but I’ll never set foot in New Orleans again, so this postcard will suffice.

    On the front, S.S. writes:

    “Good morning Edith. How did you enjoy the 4th.”

    The card was addressed to Miss Edith Smith of Box 85, Clinton, Miss., and postmarked on July 5, 1907.

    References

    1. “Opening the Howard Library.” The Daily Picayune (New Orleans), March 4, 1889, p. 4. ↩︎
    2. “Howard Memorial Library.” The Daily Picayune (New Orleans), January 30, 1887, p. 10. ↩︎
    3. The Howard Memorial Library – myneworleans.com ↩︎
    4. Howard Memorial Library | SAH ARCHIPEDIA ↩︎