Tremé: Difference between revisions

Tremé abuts the north, or lake, side of the [[French Quarter]], away from the [[Mississippi River]]—"back of town" as earlier generations of New Orleanians used to say. Its traditional borders were [[Rampart Street]] on the south, Canal Street on the west, [[Esplanade Avenue, New Orleans|Esplanade Avenue]] on the east, and Broad Street on the north. [[Claiborne Avenue]] is a primary thoroughfare through the neighborhood. At the end of the 19th century, the [[Storyville, New Orleans|Storyville]] [[red-light district]] was carved out of the upper part of Tremé; in the 1940s this was torn down and made into a [[public housing]] project. This area is no longer considered part of the neighborhood. The "town square" of Tremé was [[Congo Square]]—originally known as "Place des Nègres"—where [[slavery|slave]]s gathered on Sundays to dance. This tradition flourished until the [[United States]] took control, and officials grew more anxious about unsupervised gatherings of slaves in the years before the Civil War.

 

The square was also an important place of business for slaves, enabling some to purchase their freedom from sales of crafts and goods there. For much of the rest of the 19th century, the square was an open-air [[Market (place)|market]]. "[[Creoles of color]]" brass and symphonic bands gave concerts, providing the foundation for a more improvisational style that would come to be known as "[[Jazz]]". At the end of the 19th century, the city officially renamed the square "Beauregard Square" after the French Créole Confederate General [[P.G.T. Beauregard]], but the neighborhood people seldom used that name. Late in the 20th century, the city restored the traditional name of "Congo Square".