Alexander Allison's New Orleans
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The Lake Floods the Basin and the Streets Around Claiborne Avenue, Orleans Avenue, and St. Peter Street, undated

Allison may have taken this photograph in connection with his position with the Sewerage & Water Board. It shows the uptown side of Orleans Avenue between North Claiborne Avenue and North Robertson Street after high water from Lake Pontchartrain overflowed the nearby Carondelet (Old Basin) Canal. The tall structure at the right is a bell tower that stood on the neutral ground in the middle of the block. By the 1920s the Canal was considered no longer essential to the economy of New Orleans; it was completely filled in by the end of the 1930s. Lafitte Avenue now occupies the old canal right of way; area residents hope to develop a Lafitte Greenway alongside the avenue.

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