This Prytania Street streetcar, pictured in 1907, was part of the New Orleans Railway and Light Co., the precursor of NOPSI, which was created in 1922. (The Times-Picayune photo archives)
Before Entergy and the RTA, city residents and businesses depended on New Orleans Public Service Inc. The multipronged utility, founded in 1922, touched some aspect of the daily lives of everyone who lived or worked in the city. Electricity, natural gas, public transit, even recipes, all courtesy of NOPSI.
By 1964, NOPSI had shut down all but one of several streetcar lines that had crisscrossed the city through the 19th and 20th centuries. It left behind public transportation entirely in 1983 after the Louisiana Legislature created the New Orleans Regional Transit Authority.
New Orleans Public Service purchased in this bus in 1924, shortly after its first bus lines went into operation. (The Times-Picayune photo archives)
NOPSI remained a local presence until 1989 when its parent company rebranded to Entergy Corp. Developers returned the acronym to the downtown building on Baronne Street that was once headquarters to the company. The NOPSI Hotel, which opened in 2017 after an extensive renovation, features numerous tributes and references to the utility.
Our photo archives also contain a wealth of NOPSI history, which has been marked at times with conflict and violence. Through the 20th century, the evolution of New Orleans Public Service charted a winding path for the city’s future.
Striking streetcar workers parade on St. Charles Avenue during the 1929 job action. (NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune archive)
One of the most turbulent labor strikes in the history of New Orleans occurred in 1929, when members of the local Amalgamated Association of Street and Electric Railway Employees walked off the job. The union was intent on preserving its autonomy from New Orleans Public Service Inc. and held demonstrations and parades.
Some of the gatherings turned violent, including riots, shootings and several bombings. A few deaths were reported.
During the 1929 strike, strikers and their supporters organized “jitney cars” to transport people around the city. According to the original caption for this photo, Dorothy Hinton's "beauty has made her one of the most popular jitney drivers in New Orleans."
NOPSI was able to convince the city to ban jitney cars, prompting an impromptu mass demonstration at City Hall (now Gallier Hall). Police fired tear gas on the crowd to force it to disperse. The incident turned violent, and two people were shot. One of the victims, Danny Young, is taken away on a stretcher.
During the union strike, the Napoleon street car was blown off its tracks while on its late-night route at Washington Avenue and South Dupre Street. The wheels of the streetcar are shown lying at a 45 degree angle as workers attempt to get a jack under the trolley.
A crowd gathers at the scene of a streetcar accident on City Park Avenue during the 1929 transit strike.
A barn housing streetcars was one of two NOPSI buildings destroyed by fire during the 1929 transit workers' strike.
U.S. Deputy Marshal Jess Ernst, right, and an unnamed colleague display their weapons during a demonstration involving striking transit workers. In at least one instance, operators who stayed on the job in 1929 had to abandon their streetcars when demonstrators threw bricks and stones. A streetcar's broken windows can be seen behind the two men.
One legacy of the 1929 strike, if you lend credence to this account, is that it's responsible for creating the term "po-boy." Sandwich purveying brothers Benny and and Clovis Martin are said to have created the discount item to feed striking workers.
Facing a manpower shortage in 1943 during World War II, NOSPI started hiring women to replace conductors and motormen who were on active duty. One of the first was Mrs. Leon Levy, shown here with railway instructor I.J. Belanger.
Henry Schonacher, a motorman for New Orleans Public Service, is pictured here in 1944 when he was honored for working for the company for 55 years, according to a November 1959 story in The Times-Picayune.
Schonacher drove a streetcar on the "Cream Cheese line" that reached the Fairgrounds neighborhood. He reasoned, in the 1959 report, that the line got its name from the number of dairy farms it passed along its route.
NOPSI began publishing the "Riders’ Digest" on Sept. 15, 1947, as a free weekly brochure for passengers on its streetcars and buses. Copies were placed inside each NOPSI vehicle.
NOPSI bus operator Robert Cassagne tips his hat in farewell to the city's famed "Streetcar Named Desire," which was replaced by buses on May 30, 1948.
Well before Entergy cat, squirrels and Mylar balloons wreaked havoc with the city's power grid, an owl was responsible for an outage in the Carrollton area in 1952. The bird, with a 51-inch wingspan, was found after it flew into a 13,000-volt feeder line. For some reason, NOPSI decided to put the culprit on display.
Look closely here and you’ll see a giant tube attached to the open entrance of this bus. It’s part of the Cyclone Cleaner, which according to the original 1954 report “creates a 25-mile-per-hour wind to ‘vacuum’ clean a NOPSI bus interior in two minutes.” NOPSI claimed it could service 260 vehicles a night with the cleaner.
A NOPSI crew installs a 24-inch gas main along Paris Road in 1954, designed to supply gas to “the rapidly developing area east of the Industrial Canal.”
This 1955 photo shows NOPSI’s A.B. Paterson power station near the Industrial Canal. It was built two years prior to meet the growing demand for electricity in burgeoning portions of New Orleans.
Driver O.A. Gautreaux points out a sign announcing the experiment in air-conditioned buses, which NOPSI launched in 1958.
Workmen install electric lines on a new 368-foot NOPSI tower in 1959. It was one of two towers constructed to support cables crossing the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet near its junction with the Inner Harbor Navigation canal.
Ralph Uribe
NOPSI buses are parked in the 600 block of Canal Street in 1964. Note in the background the Globe Theater, which is now the J.W. Marriott hotel.
Erby Aucoin
NOPSI pared back streetcar service in 1964, leaving only the St. Charles Avenue line in operation. Here, an 8,000-pound set of streetcar wheels from a Canal streetcar is loaded onto a truck for a trip to the scrap yard. In the background, a billboard illustrates proposed beautification and widening of Canal Street.
Pierre A. Hughes
New Orleans police were assigned to NOPSI transit stops in 1970 to address an increase in armed robberies of bus drivers. Patrolmen L.S. Paretti and R.N. Brady “display heavy weaponry that could be used in a showdown,” according to the original photo caption, as Capt. Ike Foster looks on.
Ronald LeBoeuf
Mayor Moon Landrieu peers from the driver's seat of one of NOPSI’s 48 new buses, purchased by the city in 1974.
J.W. Guillot
A NOPSI sign is illuminated at the Central Transit Station on Canal Street in 1974.
This minibus is one of eight standard transit vehicles NOPSI purchased in 1974 and modified to resemble streetcars that once served the French Quarter. The smaller vehicles began operating within the Vieux Carre on Jan. 1, 1975
Ralph Uribe
A misspelled NOPSI sign inspires Paul and Yvonne Perret to smooch near Canal Street and North Claiborne Avenue in 1974.
Ralph Uribe
Auton Jeppson is the first recipient of a special NOPSI identification card issued in 1974 to New Orleans residents 65 and older. The card entitles the holder to a 10-cent bus fare reduction during off peak hours.
William F. Haber
Bus and streetcar operators wait to vote on whether to strike against NOPSI in late 1974 over higher pay. It took nearly three months for the union, Mayor Moon Landrieu and the City Council to reach agreeable terms.
Philip Ames
NOPSI buses sit empty in the Magazine Street barn hours after negotiations between the utility and its drivers broke down in 1974, leading to a nearly three-month-long strike. The bus barn is now the site of the Whole Foods grocery store.
M. Bates
Street car operators man picket lines in December 1974 in front of NOPSI’s car barn on Willow Street.
Ralph Uribe
Striking bus driver Isaac Joshua speaks to reporters at the NOPSI bus station on Canal Street in January 1975.
Bryan S. Berteaux
Maintenance man Edison Butler makes sure a bus is ready to roll following the end of a mass transit strike in March 1975.
NOPSI President William McCollam Jr. and Verna Landrieu, head of the New Orleans Bicentennial Commission, inspect two star-spangled buses that rolled on city streets in 1976.
Ralph Uribe
NOPSI bus driver Vernon Thomas greets a passenger in 1977 on the day that fares were reduced a nickel in response to a lawsuit from passenger advocates seeking lower rates.
NOPSI workers post a special "King Tut" bus stop along the Esplanade Avenue line in 1977 preparation for the public opening of an exhibit of Egyptian treasures at the New Orleans Museum of Art.
John Ware
A 1978 report on New Orleans public transit focused on complaints from passengers, including a lack of air conditioning on business. The only relief for passengers aboard this bus on a hot summer day was opening the windows.
Ronald LeBoeuf
Rush-hour commuters pack a bus on Canal Street in 1978. According to the accompany report, NOPSI counted 86.8 million passengers the year before. In 2018, RTA reported serving nearly 19 million passengers.
Susan Waters
NOPSI employee David Oalmann replaces 860-watt lightbulbs in streetlamps along the Rampart Street neutral ground in 1979. It was a job that needed to be done twice a year.
Susan Waters
Mayor Ernest "Dutch" Morial, right, takes the media for a ride on the first of 185 new buses put into operation in October 1979.
James W. Guillot
A NOPSI employee needs good eyesight to read an electricity meter in 1980 on a traffic light on Decatur Street near Jackson Square.
A NOPSI employee puts finishing touches on one of the new Wayne Transette vans for use in the French Quarter in 1981.
Bryan S. Berteaux
Passengers board the bus at Rampart and Canal streets. Note the "updated" sign for the Saenger Theater.
Alexander Barkoff
Santa Claus, a.k.a. Vincent Kattanick, chats with fellow passenger Frank Conforto, right, on a Canal Street bus in 1982.
E. Lucia
Bus driver Earl “The Pearl” Duvernay stands in front of a bus at the NOPSI barn on Magazine Street in March 1983.
Bryan S. Berteaux
Passengers board a bus at Desire Street and Florida Avenue, one of the lines at risk of termination heading into a March 1983 tax vote to support public transit. Nearly two-thirds of voters would approve the 1-cent sales tax.
G.E. Arnold
NOPSI workers Carl Baudoin, Clayton Diamond and Wayne Nichols load signs into a truck near the Union Street entrance of the utility’s headquarters in 1985. The signs urge voters to oppose Proposition #1, which would return regulatory control of NOPSI and Louisiana Power & Light, which supplied electricity to Algiers, from the Louisiana Public Service Commission to the New Orleans City Council.
The election was held as the city was considering a buyout of NOPSI to shield customers from rate increases. Voters ended up approving Proposition #1.
via nola.comhttps://www.nola.com
0 Comments:
Post a Comment