New Orleans Republican., 1871-07-16
The Fair Grounds Vicinity.

| Espl anade street, crossing Bayou Bridge,
| is lost in the marshy road that runs in
| front of the City Park, the dairy stables
and adjcaent cottages with the inevitable
| dung heaps in front that are cis-a-ris to the
park fence, tending to make its appearance
more uninviting every year, until reclama-
ton will turn aside from it and set out in
another direction. But this, the lower
boundary of the old cite when Canal street
was its lower limit, and Rampant street
formed the rear line, this splendid avenue
has changed its looks for the better grad
| ually within the last five years from the
road which carriages take from the Fair
Grounds gate to the bridge.
Between these points handsome cottages
with tasteful cornices, pretty green blinds,
shelled walks in front and blooming gar
dens have taken the place of the clover
made within this time into the unbroken
line of picket or palisade fences.
Esplanade and Canal street are both the
route selected by which city improvement
will reach the lake shore just before the
rear gate of the Fair Grounds is reached.
one of the most tasteful, as well as one of
the largest, cottage-built residences in the
city strikes the eye, occupying, with its
surrounding garden, an entire square of
ground, standing upon high basement,
and looking on the bread avenue with i'm
posing front.
Fully fifteen new dwellings have been
completed since the opening of the Agri-
cultural Fair, and each has now its happy
tenant.
Within the Fair Grounds itself. filling
and Improvement are going on-prepara-
tions to build the capacious structure which
is to replace the Octagonal Building are
made, shells for pretty walks are dis
tributed, and all details necessary for the
opening day are about to be concluded, it
is expected, without further delay.
There have been many propositions for
the beautifying of these grounds which
have not been ratified. Artificial lakes were
to repose within it, upon which, as in Cen
trail Park, gondolas were to play. Artificial
winding round about, serpentine, artificial
hills were to be constructed by skilled
hands. But this never came to head, and
though the plans were all drawn, the project
never ripened So the Fair Grounds re-
mains, almost in the condition as it was
when a race course.
But city railroads, the great civilizers, are
the surroundings upon all sides,
and for high ground, above water, as vel as
salubrity of the atmosphere, the still open
building sites can not be matched.
Looking into the future, concealed only
from inability to read the past but re-
vealed to those who make what has been
their study, one can see the vicinity smiling
in beautiful residences of fair proportions,
and blossoming in cultivated gardens. He
can see the inky waters of the bayou once
more run pellucid, freed from the contami-
nation of drainage. And still further on,
the morass of the lake shore, with its
stunted and blackening vegetation, rises
from the waters, and on the made land
princely mansions lift their ornamental
chimneys and aspiring roofs making the
curves of the shore into lines of beauty.
The city of New Orleans will go out to
the lake, starting from this the nearest point,
city railways will be laid through its newly
made thOroughfares, and the revolving
lands will become dry, just as the prettiest
portion of the Garden District, containing
5he finest of private abodes, has been de-
Teloped from waste lands, and created out
IF fat marsh.