July 8

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Crestmont Park in Old Metairie

July 8, 1923

Times-Picayune Advertisement

Old Metairie is older, in fact, than many sections of New Oleans as we can see from this July 8, 1923 advertisement for the Crestmont Park subdivision off Metairie Road. The $70,000 public school "under construction" would become Metairie High and grammar school and would replace the old Metairie Ridge School, the oldest in Metairie which celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2009. Land for the school was donated by Alfred Bonnabel. In 1911 its principal Miss Luella Van Vrancken married Bonnabel's son Alfred Jr. Today the school is named Haynes Academy for Advanced Studies.

Crestmont Park was indeed a park before it was a subdivision. The adjoining property, labelled here as "Dominican College", was intended as the site of an Archdiocese of New Orleans seminary but plans changed and Notre Dame seminary was built, instead, on Carrollton Avenue. The 25 acre tract had been purchased by the church (Archdiocese of New Orleans/the Vatican) in 1919 or 1920 for $40,000 to $42,000 and in March 1920 Archbishop Shaw announced plans for a "Grand Seminary" to be constructed there. In May 1921 Shaw announced that the property was not large enough for this purpose and it was sold on Novemeber 9, 1925 for $141,000.

Metairie Club Gardens, labelled here as "Golf Links and Residential Park" was in the early stages of development during the 1920s but the Blue Line Streetcar, an extension of New Orleans' Napoleon Avenue line ran along Metairie Road which was called Jefferson Highway at this time. Note mention also of the Hammond-Orleans Highway,planned to run along the lakefront, which never fully materialized but a small link of it still runs n Bucktown.

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New Orleans jazz great Lionel Batiste passed away on July 8, 2012 at the age of 81.

WLAE-TV first signed on the air on July 8, 1984; it originally served as a member station of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). WLAE-TV operated as a secondary member of the network through PBS' Program Differentiation Plan, as New Orleans' primary PBS station was WYES-TV (channel 12). (WIKI)

NORD photos -- Girls' softball team, girls' basketball team, ASA League, Washington Square Softball Team, Lyons Center swimming pool, and Washington Square Softball Team, July 8, 1955.

On July 8, 1944, the Liberty ship Milton B. Medary was lauched by Delta Shipbuilding Company.

NOPL photos -- the new The Alvar Street Branch library, buildt by WPA at a cost of $32,000, July 8, 1940.

Photos -- New Orleans Airport, Fountain of the Winds, constructed by the WPA as a part of a general beautification program at the airport, July 8, 1938.

Writer Shirley Ann Grau was born on July 8, 1929 in New Orleans.

The Union Normal School was established by the Freedman's Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church on July 8, 1868. (WIKI)

Don Juan Escolano, representative of the Cabildo in the city of Madrid, advises the Commissioners that when the city funds are insufficient to meet the needs of the Council in all that is useful and necessary to the Community, they may agree to impose an excise tax amongst the residents, requesting Royal permission to carry it out, without which it cannot be effected. July 8, 1785. (NOPL)