Algiers, New Orleans
Algiers is a historic neighborhood of New Orleans and is the only Orleans Parish community located on the West Bank of the Mississippi River. Algiers is known as the 15th Ward, one of the 17 Wards of New Orleans. It was once home to many jazz musicians and is also the second oldest neighborhood in the city. History. The land in which later became Algiers was granted to Jean Baptiste le Moyne Sieur de Bienville in 1719. This date is sometimes given as the year of the town's founding, making it one of the oldest neighborhoods  in what is now New Orleans, but development as a town as opposed to a private plantation. A powder magazine was built here for safety reasons and because it stood on higher ground. By then what is Algiers Point today, was known as "The Company Plantation." The plantation came many of the 6,000 people forcibly shipped into Louisiana from the Senegambia, Bight of Benin, Algeria and Congo regions of West Africa during the French colonial era. From Algiers most were sold to new masters and sent off to clear forests and cultivate fields. Some were held in bondage by the  company itself and put to work locally. With the importation of African slaves the Company Plantation spanned over 18 arpents (about 3,500 feet) along the riverfront and up to 26 arpents (5,000 feet) of depth, most of it cultivated in rice, tobacco and indigo. The population, according to a 1731 census, was 224, of whom 99 percent were enslaved, making present-day Algiers Point the site of the largest concentration of people of African ancestry in the entire region. In 1731, the Company went bankrupt, and administration of Louisiana shifted to the French crown. The Company Plantation became the “King ’s Plantation,” Early settlement (1800s). In 1805, the LeBeouf family sold the land to Barthélémy Duverjé for $18,000. The Duverjes built their plantation home in Algiers in about 1812. They would become the first family of Algiers and their home would later become the Algiers Courthouse. Algiers Point has been connected with the foot of Canal Street in downtown New Orleans by the Canal Street Ferry since 1827. It is one of the oldest continuously operated ferry services in North America. Part of the Battle of New Orleans, in January 1815, was fought on the West Bank in what  is now Algiers. Original earthworks remain, and the site is marked with a historical marker on Patterson Drive in the Aurora neighborhood. Much land in Algiers and elsewhere in south Louisiana was owned by John McDonogh, who was one of the world's largest private land owners until his death in 1850. His estate was willed to public schools in Baltimore and New Orleans. McDonogh's home was located on the river south of Algiers point, but the land has since been washed away. McDonogh's grave is in the McDonogh Cemetery in Gretna. Algiers was incorporated as a city  in 1840. Shipbuilding was an important industry here. In the 1850s, Algiers became a major railroad center and eastern terminus of the New Orleans, Opelousas and Great Western Railroad. Ferries were utilized for nearly a century to carry passengers, freight, and rail cars across the Mississippi River between the West Bank (including Algiers) and the East Bank (Central Business District of New Orleans. In 1870, Algiers was annexed to the city as the 15th Ward, an arrangement which has remained although there have been repeated discussions of secession. Until the latter 1930s, rail yards housed large amounts of freight and  rolling stock, which was brought back and forth across the Mississippi River by barge. Then, the Huey P. Long Bridge, which included a railway bridge, was built upriver at Bridge City, Louisiana. The largest railroad presence had been the Southern Pacific yard. That location is still known to Algerines as "the SP yard." For decades it was largely a vacant strip. Portions of the tract were redeveloped for housing in the early 21st century. In the yard's active days, a steam-powered Southern Pacific train ferry brought railroad cars from there across the Mississippi River. The Algiers rail yards  were known for their ability to repair or create replacements for any part needed for any type of locomotive and mechanical parts for ships. A fire destroyed most of the buildings in Algiers in 1895. Most of the gingerbread-fronted houses seen in the neighborhood today date from the rebuilding that began almost immediately after that fire; although a small number of older buildings still survived. In the early decades of the twentieth century, Algiers was the home of Martin Behrman, the longest-serving mayor of New Orleans. In 1901, the U.S. Navy established a naval station in Algiers. Growth  and decline (1958–present). For centuries, intensive settlement in Algiers extended little beyond Algiers Point. The completion of the Greater New Orleans bridge across the Mississippi River in 1958 (now the Crescent City Connection) and the construction of Victory Drive (now General DeGaulle) and General Meyer Avenue made significant new development possible, and Algiers grew rapidly for the next 25 years. Old Algiers began to decline in the 1960s after suburban neighborhoods were developed and expanded along Gen. Meyer Avenue. Many whites from the older parts of the city flooded Algiers, moving into Behrman, Aurora and Walnut Bend sub divisions . The oil industry provided many jobs and sustained the growth of commerce. Whites then fled the area starting in the early 1970s when blacks from the rougher impoverished pockets of Algiers began moving in, resulting in White flight. White flight led to a major decline and the business left Algiers for more sustainable areas in Jefferson Parrish. From 1966 until 2009, the site was one of the two campuses of the Naval Support Activity New Orleans base. Now the shuttered facility's West Bank campus is being redeveloped as a federal city. Jim Crow Era. During the early 20th Century , Algiers remained segregated due to the Jim Crow Laws of the south. Under Jim Crow, blacks were not allowed to live in Algiers Point which was for whites and Creoles of color whom passed as white. Blacks occupied the area south of Algiers Point called “McDonoghville”, named after John McDonogh. Before his death in 1850, McDonogh established "Freetown" for freed slaves and other people of color. Freetown was renamed McDonoghville in 1815. When Algiers became apart of Orleans Parrish in 1870, it became the largest populated black neighborhood on the West bank of the Mississippi river. Many famous Jazz musicians  such as Kid Thomas Valentine, Red Allen and Papa Celestin grew up in McDonoghville during the 1910s and were apart of Algiers Brass Band. Some of the early black neighborhoods included Riverview, Tunisbourg McCLendonville, LeBeoufville, Hendeeville, Oakdale and Whitney. In 1938, L.B. Landry High School opened as the first all-black school in Algiers. The school was named after Dr. Lord Beaconsfield Landry, who lived in the area and died in 1934. It was also one of the first schools to serve African-Americans in New Orleans. Around the mid-1940s, several other schools and neighborhoods were built for blacks, including  Peter S. Lawton School and Oakdale. Oakdale once stood on the edge of Jefferson Parish and stretched from Whitney Avenue to the Mississippi River. It was completely destroyed in the late 1950s to make room for the Greater New Orleans Bridge. McDonoghville, and Whitney Avenue became the heart of Algiers's black community as it was once filled with ballrooms, saloons and Juke joints. Poplar hangout spots like Kohlman's Tavern, The Ping Pong Club and Whitney's Ballroom, attracted hundreds of people every weekend. The most famous, Greystone Voter's League, became the place for Rhythm & Blues shows and  great singers such as Ray Charles, Son House, and B. B. King, who all played there. Most of the jazz venues in Algiers closed by the 1970s. Demographics. The Algiers neighborhood is predominantly African American, with 89.4% of residents identifying as such in the 2000 Census. Algiers' total population pre-Katrina, according to the census, was 28,385 of whom 45.9 were male and 54.1 female. The average age is 29.6, while the population for children under 5 was 2,515. Aged 18 and over was 19,204, while 65 and over were a total of 2,839. Whites make up 21.8 per cent  of the population in Algiers Point, while African-Americans make up 73.6. Native Americans and Alaskan Natives are 0.2 per cent of the population. Hawaiians barely registered, and Latino/as make up 4.3 percent. The average household size is 2.68; the average family size is 3.41. The total number of housing units in Algiers was 12,351; of those, 83.9 per cent were occupied, and 16.1 vacant. 40.6 of those units are owned by home owners, while 59.4 are rented. Socially speaking, 72.3% are high school graduates, and 14.3% hold at least a bachelor's degree. Poverty. Algiers suffers from a  high-poverty rate of between 14.3% and 40% in most census blocks, according to the most recent federal data collected between 2007 and 2011 and assessed by The Data Center, an organization that researches community demographics in Southeast Louisiana. The 70114 section of Algiers is among the lowest income neighborhoods in America, below 91.3% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 54.4% of the children living below the federal poverty line, it has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 92.5% of U.S. neighborhoods. The 70131 zip code in Algiers contains affluent subdivisions such as English Turn, Woodland Heights, Packenham Oaks, Lakewood, and  Park Timbers. Crime. Algiers is adjusted in the heart of NOPD Fourth District. The Fourth District is the only district in the City of New Orleans that is located on the west bank, thus making the Fourth District “A City Within A City”. Unlike Algiers Point, the crime-rate for the surrounding communities in Old Algiers has been extremely high for years due to gun violence and drug activity. Some parts of Algiers like the notorious Fischer Projects, Christopher Homes and DeGaulle Manor were known for having an abundance of drug-related criminal activity. In the 1980s and 1990s, the  4th district ranked high in armed robberies along with car theft, and murder. In 2018 the William J. Fischer Development was ranked the sixth worst neighborhood in New Orleans. In 2017, the 4th District teamed with the NOPD's street-gang unit to quell gun battles spurred by conflicts between neighborhood groups. To reduce crime, law enforcement installed 13 crime surveillance cameras, including 10 fixed cameras and three mobile cameras, along with five license-plate readers, including three fixed readers and two mobile readers. Death of Henry Glover. Henry Glover was an African American resident of New Orleans, Louisiana whose  charred body was found in a destroyed Chevrolet Malibu on September 2, 2005, parked on a Mississippi River levee. Five current and former officers of the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) were charged with Glover's death. First to be charged was former NOPD police officer David Warren, a rookie at the time, who was convicted and sentenced to 25 years and 9 months in prison for shooting and killing Glover. Former NOPD police officer Greg McRae was convicted of obstructing justice and other charges in the burning of Glover's body and was sentenced to 17 years and 3  months in prison. On Dec. 17, 2012, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the two felony convictions of Warren and two of the convictions related to McRae, ordering new trials on those charges. The three-judge panel found, among other concerns, that the trials of the two men should have been conducted separately. On December 11, 2013, a jury acquitted Warren on both counts against him. Algiers 7. After NOPD patrolman Gregory Neupert was found dead in a ditch near the Fischer housing project in November 1980, multiple black families were tortured and killed in retaliation. The chief of  police was eventually forced out amid a racially tinged uproar. The violent police response to Neupert's killing led to the federal indictment of seven officers in one of the earliest, wide-ranging Civil rights probes of the New Orleans Police Department. Three of the so-called "Algiers Seven" were eventually convicted in an exhaustive trial that relied on the testimony of a fellow cop who broke ranks. In 1986 the city has agreed to pay more than $2.8 million to settle suits by 13 people who claim police mistreated them, or killed relatives, while investigating the 1980 slaying  of patrolman Gregory Neupert. State and federal grand juries declined to charge any police officers with wrongdoing in the four deaths or other violent acts. A federal jury in Dallas, however, found three officers guilty in 1983 of conspiring to violate the civil rights of Algiers residents. Culture. People from Algiers have traditionally been known as "Algerines". Algiers was home to various jazz pioneers such as Red Allen, Peter Bocage, George Lewis, Papa Celestin, Kid Thomas Valentine and many others. Jazz musicians of the 1920s referred to Algiers as "over da river" or the "Brooklyn of the South", the latter  for its proximity to New Orleans as compared to New York and Brooklyn, both separated by a river. Algiers also has a long history of Brass bands Jazz music, and there were a number of social halls including Algiers Masonic Hall, the Elks hall, and the Ladies of Hope Benevolent Hall where early jazz was played. There is some jazz parading in the neighborhood today. Super Sunday has been held in the community since the early 1970s. The gathering is an annual celebration of Mardi Gras Indian tribes parading down Whitney and Newton Streets. It also includes picnics and music  concerts which are held in the nearby Fox Park. Thousands of people attend the celebration which starts on Sunday morning all the way to midnight. For many years shootings and physical conflicts have occurred frequently during the event. NOPD threatened to shut down Whitney Avenue which is where the 15th Ward Indians parade, but residents of Algiers still attend the celebration yearly as it is a part of the culture. On May 24, 2009 a man was shot in the head as he was attending the event. The funeral ritual known as a "second line" or "Repass" is traditional in  Algiers, in which a brass band parades through the area after a funeral service. The "main line" or "first line" is the main section of the parade, or the members of the actual club with the parading permit as well as the brass band. Those who follow the band just to enjoy the music are called the "second line". Although second line parades celebrate the passing of a loved one, it can also turn into a block party. The origins of the second line date back to the late 1800s. Louis Armstrong's last New Orleans gig before he left  the city for Chicago was in Algiers at a Teche Street funeral home. Krewe of NOMTOC. The Krewe of NOMTOC (New Orleans Most Talked Of Club) began parading on the Westbank (Orleans Parish) in 1970. Their inaugural parade had six floats, six bands, six marching units, one horse group and a motorcycle squadron. Today, this all-black krewe is composed of 400 male and female riders, 26 floats, ten bands and a number of marching and riding groups. Throws include ceramic medallion beads, jug banks and their signature Jug Man dolls. Their most popular throws for the 2013 parade included : Medallion Tri-Color Bead, Stuffed Baseball, Lighted Medallion Bead, Velour Spear with Krewe Crest, Top Hat Bead with Gold Pearls. The Krewe suggests that the best spots for family viewing are Holiday Dr. and Gen. Meyer Ave., in front of Behrman Stadium, along Mardi Gras Blvd., or at the intersection of Nunez St. and Mardi Gras Blvd. The Krewe's sponsor, The Jugs Social Club, has a rich heritage of civic activism, regularly donating funds to local schools, youth groups, and social programs. Each year a group of academic honor students is selected as guest riders in the parade. Neighborhoods . Algiers contains many neighborhoods such as Education. Primary and secondary schools. Algiers is zoned to schools in the Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB), also known as New Orleans Public Schools (NOPS). The district has its headquarters in the Westbank area of Algiers. The schools include: The InspireNola Charter Schools operate Crescent City Schools include One campus of the International School of Louisiana (ISL) is in Algiers.