Zion City.

I know I started posting this before but that was two weeks ago. I need to get back on schedule. To remind you where we were in the story of Gert Town—-

At six blocks by four New Orleans city blocks, you will not find Zion City on many a map. It is a real place. From river to lake, it is composed of South Broad, South White Street, and South Dupre, Gayoso, Salcedo, and Lopez Streets, and, from downriver to upriver, Earhart Boulevard, Clio, Erato, and Thalia Streets, to the Washington-Palmetto/Metairie Outflow Canal. You have never seen any place like it.

New Orleans neighborhoods are shifting things. Everyone has their own mental map. The No. 9 Bus goes past Zion City. So does the 52 Bus. Nothing goes through Zion City. It is a place where musicians are born to perform on bigger stages.

Zion City was once part of the McCarty Plantation. That name is cursed in New Orleans. It may be elsewhere. The plantation included all or parts of Carrollton, Mid-City, Hollygrove, and Gert Town, as far as Zion City. Zion City was on the edge. Most of modern day Zion City sits in what was then the Millaudon Plantation. No one notes the Millaudon name is dead. You will never meet a Millaudon in Zion City.

It wasn't until after the Melpomene Pumping Station (officially, the Broad Avenue Stormwater Drainage Station No. 1) was installed that the neighborhood started to take off. From the 1900s until the 1980s, Zion City was a self-sustaining neighborhood. Thriving is a strong word for Zion City most days, but vibrant is not too strong a word for this part of New Orleans on Sundays. Zion City is a neighborhood of churches.

Zion City is a part of New Orleans where you can leave a dead body. It won't be reported until the corpse is long fleeced. It could take weeks. It could take months. Some parts are nicer than others.

There used to be more churches. There were also restaurants, sweet shops, grocery stores, fruit and vegetable stands, fresh chickens, barber shops, beauty salons, seamstresses, mechanic shops, carpenters, coin-operated laundry, bar rooms. There was even a community park and a law office.

If it weren't for the pumping station and the drainage canal, there might never have been a Zion City. The community evolved biblically, naturally tightly knit. This was the negro part of Broadmoor, the lowest-lying part, the swampiest, marshiest, most flood-prone part of Broadmoor, the part of Broadmoor people avoided. That changed, somewhat, with the arrival of the pumping station.

Don't go repeating this on the street, but some people will tell you that Katrina was the best thing to happen to New Orleans. It is true that time is measured before- and after-Hurricane Katrina epochs. If it were not for the federal levees breaking, nothing would be fixed up. There are spiffy, new houses on Erato Street. Not everything in Zion City is crummy.

— Now for a little paywall action. You should become a paid subscriber. I will pick up where I left off tomorrow.