History

The building at 1000 Poland Avenue has a long and storied past that begins in 1861 when the New Orleans City Railroad Company bought a parcel of land from C.A. Barriere and William S. Toole. Situated on Square 350 in New Orleans’ Ninth Ward, the parcel measured 277 feet wide on St. Claude Avenue and North Rampart Street (formerly Godchildren and Love streets, respectively), and a depth of 397 feet along Lesseps Street and Poland Avenue.

By the time of the transaction, the passenger rail business was booming in New Orleans and across the nation, as noted in The Streetcars of New Orleans by Louis Hennick. The St. Charles and Carrollton Rail already had been carrying passengers from New Orleans to the suburb of Carrollton for 27 years. In the absence of a centralized municipal rail system, privately operated rail companies – including the New Orleans City Railroad Company – competed fiercely for business. The new owner of the Poland Avenue property likely bought the land in order to establish and operate a car line from that location.

The 1883 Robinson Atlas map, which was compiled with information gathered in the late 1870s, labeled the site at Poland and North Rampart as a “Horse Car Depot” with rail lines running from it down Poland toward the river and other branches heading west along Rampart, Dauphine, Royal and Chartres streets. The Dauphine tracks also continued east through Ursuline Convent’s property, site of today’s inner Harbor Navigation Canal, to the slaughterhouse then located downriver of Jackson Barracks.

Times-Picayune. September 9, 1965.

Times-Picayune. March 20, 1969.

Times-Picayune. September 4, 1917.

Horses and, more often, mules, pulled passenger rail cars in New Orleans until 1893, when the cars were electrified. In 1874, as noted by Hennick, dietitians were preparing meals for the hardworking animals at the Poland Street Station.

The outline of the structure at the corner of Poland and North Rampart streets appears in the 1883 Robinson Atlas, but that structure has a different footprint from the building that occupies that location today. The outline shows an L-shaped building having one rectangular portion extending form the corner of Poland and North Rampart toward St. Claude Avenue, and another wing extending along North Rampart towards Lesseps Street. Partially infilling the L was a third rectangular segment situated parallel and adjacent to the segment along Poland Avenue, though shorter and narrower.

An early reference to the Poland Street rail line appears in the 1885 Illustrated Guide and Sketchbook to New Orleans by George W. Cable and Lafcadio Hearn. The book refers to the Rampart and Dauphine line, which “starts at the Clay Statue, goes by Canal, Rampart, Esplanade, Dauphine and Poland station…” and then returns by Rampart and Canal streets. Other references include the “Barracks and Slaughterhouse Line: Starts from station on Rampart, corner of Poland Street, goes by Poland, Dauphine, Delery and Peters to Slaughterhouse. Returns by Peters, Flood, Dauphine and Poland.” The slaughterhouse refers to the Crescent City Livestock Landing and Slaughterhouse, established in 1869 to improve sanitation in the city.

The 1896 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map also shows a structure at the corner of Poland and North Rampart. However, that building is much larger than the one outlined in 1883. Instead of the L-shaped structure, there is a large building labeled “New Orleans City & Lake R.R. Co. Poland Street Station” and designated as an “Electric Car Barn.” No longer were mules pulling passenger cars by that time, and so the Poland location was brought up to date with electrified cars.

The building at the site was wide and rectangular, consisting of short one-story sections along Poland (an office and a shed, possibly remnants of the 1883 building) and a longer and wider portion having a double-peaked roof supported by steel poles. The main building extended more than half the block toward St. Claude Avenue.

The same structure appears on the 1908 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map, identified as “New Orleans Railway & Light Co. Poland Street Barns” and labeled “Car Barn.” Notable is the fact that the New Orleans Railway Company, which bought the property in 1861, had become the New Orleans and Lake Railway Company, then the New Orleans Railway and Light Company by 1908. In 1922, the company would become the New Orleans Public Services Inc. (NOPSI), with the transportation portion of it known today as the Regional Transit Authority and the electric power portion becoming New Orleans Public Service Inc. (NOPSI), which would become today’s Entergy New Orleans.

A ferocious hurricane in 1915 caused extensive damage to the building at Poland and North Rampart, requiring much or all of it to be demolished.

View of the superstructure of the Poland Avenue streetcar barn during construction, with building materials stacked nearby. Photo courtesy of the Historic New Orleans Collection, Gift of Mr. Elmer Freed, New Orleans Public Service, Inc., Acc. No. 1988.31.265.

View of the Poland Avenue streetcar barn office with scaffolding and supports built around two-story brick structure. Eight workers and officials pose in front; a streetcar is parked beside the building. Photo courtesy of the New Orleans Historic Collection, Gift of Mr. Elmer Freed, New Orleans Public Service, Inc., Acc. No. 1988.31.266.

Sanborn Fire Insurance Map, 1896, Vol. 4

Bywater Historic District

1000 Poland Avenue Ownership

  • March 13, 1861: C.A. Barriere and William S. Toole sell the land to the New Orleans City Railroad Company.
  • September 29, 1939: New Orleans City Railroad Company sells the property to New Orleans Public Service Inc./City of New Orleans.
  • August 27, 2015: City of New Orleans sells the property to Bywater Stables LLC.
  • January 17, 2020: Bywater Stables LLC sells the property to Scott T. Aertker.

By the 1930s, the property would become a stable for police horses. The Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of 1937 shows a feed room, saddle room and paddocks (in the open field adjacent to the structure towards Lesseps Street) for the horses associated with the Fifth District Police Station and Engine 24 of the Fire Department. At this time, the building is one story and extends from the corner of Poland and North Rampart about one third of the distance between St. Claude and North Rampart streets, a much smaller structure that was depicted in 1908.

A 1939 transfer to NOPSI noted a value of $19,900 for the land and $27,000 for the building or “improvements,” for a total of nearly $47,000, a somewhat hefty price for the time.

The site became known as “the police stables” and today continues to be referred to colloquially as “the old police stables.” However, in 1969, new stables were built in City Park to hose the police department’s horses, and the stables were largely abandoned. Longtime neighborhood resident John Andrews said he believes horses returned to the stables for a brief period, but that no other activity has taken place in the building. It was likely the building may have been used as storage for the Fire Department Engine 24 or the Stallings Center, which today occupies the largest portion of Square 350, Andrews said.

In 2012, the City of New Orleans commissioned an appraisal of the building. It was auction as surplus property in 2015 for $300,000 to Bywater Stables LLC, which then sold it, unrenovated to Scott T. Aertker.

View of the Poland Avenue Streetcar barn buildings with a streetcar visible in one of the barn’s open doorways. The streetcar barn had a brick facade and double barn doors accessible from the Poland Avenue street rail line. Photo courtesy of the Historic New Orleans Collection, Gift of Elmer C. Freed, Acc. No. 1984.218.42.

Poland Avenue Stables, Bywater New Orleans 1942. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

The Poland Avenue stables served the 5th District Police Station, pictured above. Photo courtesy of the Charles L. Franck Studio Collection at the Historic New Orleans Collection, Acc. No. 1979.325.1194.

1000 Poland avenue, as photographed in 2014. Image of old-new-orleans.com.