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Home >> Pre Katrina Home >> Orleans Parish >> New Orleans East District >> Read Blvd East >> Snapshot

This information is pre-Katrina.
Although the information on this page is out-of-date, we are continuing to make it available, as it provides insight about this neighborhood pre-Katrina.

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Read Blvd East Neighborhood Snapshot

Census 2000 Data Tables: People & Household CharacteristicsHousing & Housing Costs, Income & Poverty, Transportation, Employment, Educational Attainment, Immigration & Language, Disabilities, Neighborhood Characteristics

Read Boulevard East contains several high-income subdivisions (Claritas 1999). Lake Forest Estates II, for example, contains a 36-acre lake with very expensive houses situated around it, with a minimum of one-half acre lots.

Snapshots of Read Boulevard East’s history

At the turn of the century, all of the land from Peoples Canal to the Michoud Line (just east of Paris Road) was owned by Harry and Alfred Thompson. In 1906, the land was sold to Edward L. Dwyer of New York, known as the “Millionaire Marine”. After Dwyer’s ownership, a variety of land development companies attempted to develop portions of the tract. These companies failed largely due to the hurricane in 1915 and the freeze in 1917.

Picture
© GNO Community Data Center

  Joe Brown Park

In 1934, Samuel Zemurray bought the land at a sheriff’s sale. According to Tommy Crane, Inc. (a real estate agency specializing in the area), Samuel Zemurray, had masterminded the overthrow of the Honduran government in 1905 to establish a government favorable to his business, the United Fruit Company (now known as Chiquita Brands International), and had forcibly established himself as United Fruit's President in 1933. In 1954, Zemurray sold the land to Joe W. Brown, a Las Vegas casino operator. After Brown’s death, his wife donated sixty acres to the city for Joe Brown Memorial Park and sold 5,000 acres to the LaKratt Corporation, who developed most of the area. Both Zemurray and Brown later became major philanthropists in New Orleans.

Joe Brown Park is a major feature of this area with a large lagoon system and recreation center. Next to this park is the Louisiana Nature Center, part of the Audubon Institute. The Nature Center, occupies 86 acres of hardwood bottomland forest, and has three miles of hiking trails and a planetarium. Occasional overnight programs, hikes and discovery activities are run for children at the center.

New Orleans Public Library East New Orleans Regional Branch
© GNO Community Data Center

  The East New Orleans Regional Library was dedicated on October 23, 1968. The library's opening brought six-day-a-week library service to the area then called "East Gentilly."

Adjacent to these green spaces is the East New Orleans Regional Library. This 13,360 square foot building contains over 60,000 volumes of books, audio cassettes, video cassettes, and compact discs. To serve the large Vietnamese community in New Orleans East, the branch contains a large collection of Vietnamese print and non-print materials.

Learn more...

East New Orleans Regional Branch
nutrias.org/~nopl/info/branches/eno/eno.htm

Audubon Louisiana Nature Center
www.auduboninstitute.org/lnc/index.php

For more information about this neighborhood...

1999 Land Use Plan New Orleans City Planning Commission
www.new-orleans.la.us/cnoweb/cpc/1999_dist_nine.htm/

Census 2000 Data Tables: People & Household CharacteristicsHousing & Housing Costs, Income & Poverty, Transportation, Employment, Educational Attainment, Immigration & Language, Disabilities, Neighborhood Characteristics

Home >> Pre Katrina Home >> Orleans Parish >> New Orleans East District >> Read Blvd East >> Snapshot

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Last modified: October 5, 2002