As a post World War II "Baby Boomer" growing up in the Gentilly section of New Orleans, Louisiana, I attended Gentilly Terrace Elementary School at 4720 Painters Street at the corner of Mirabeau Avenue. The school dated almost to the founding of the Gentilly area of the city, which began shortly after the creation of the Sewerage And Water Board in 1900. Pumping stations and drainage systems designed by S&WB founding engineer A. Baldwin Wood, allowed the land north and east of the French Quarter to be drained and made usable for the construction of homes and businesses.

Gentilly Terrace was a development that, by design, sat on a natural ridge formed by the overflow of Bayou Sauvage. The overflow, which had occurred for thousands of years, rendered the land higher than most below sea level terrain in the north and eastern parts of the city.

Gentilly Terrace Homes subdivision development was a business venture of three partners, city real estate manager Edward Lafaye and his partners Michael Baccich and R.E. Edgar de Montluzin. Viewable here, The land sale prospectus for the new community promised "Homes Built On Hills."

Gentilly was the second area in the city to be expanded out beyond the original French Quarter and American Sector settlements that followed the high land along the banks of the Mississippi. The extension of Canal Street toward Metairie Road, and the area known as Gentilly (mostly farm land extending beyond old Gentilly Shell Road), were the new frontiers that developed as drainage and artificial filling of the land occurred.

At the inception of the Gentilly Terrace Homes project, access to the area was either by way of wagon traveled dirt roads or the Pontchartrain Railroad, oldest railroad in the southern United States. The railroad operated a short line from the Mississippi River and French Quarter, to the old village of Port Pontchartrain, which also was called Milneburg. Milneburg, pronounced "millenburg" was named for the founder, plantation owner Alexander Milne who owned a large tract of land east of the original French Quarter. When this Smokey Mary locomotive photo was taken (Ca: 1904), Gentilly was comprised mostly of undeveloped land and a few family owned farms. Auto travel, in that era, was extremely difficult, as the urban part of the city ended at Florida Avenue and the L&N Railroad track. From there existed only dirt roads which were impassible by car most of the time.

Shown here is the show place home of developer Edward Lafaye, formerly located at the corner of Gentilly Boulevard and Franklin Avenue, It was a striking example of early Gentilly Terrace residences, and intended to demonstrate the intent of the partners to create one of New Orleans most prestigious new residential housing developments. The homes along Gentilly Boulevard were mostly mansion like villas, built on the high terraces that was formed by the creation of streets. Gentilly Road existed as a walking trail, and was used by Indians from the Lake Catherine area who came to town to sell their wares at the city's Lebreton Market on Bayou Road near North Broad. The building remains today and serves as a church.

At the same time, Elysian Fields Avenue did not exist until the railroad was removed. Frenchman road, one block to the west, was the only access road leading to the farms and Jewish burial grounds that were along the railroad right-of-way. The present strip of land that became Elysian Fields Avenue in the 1930s was the road bed of the Pontchartrain Railroad, and was only developed into a roadway by the Works Progress Administratio in the mid 1930s.

THE HISTORY OF GENTILLY TERRACE SCHOOL

In order to attract upscale home buyers, desirable neighborhoods require good schools, so it was only fitting that New Orleans newest development of luxury homes needed a suitable neighborhood school. Gentilly Terrace School opened in 1914, and provided that much needed school for the children of the well-to-do families who were building their homes.

Today when New Orleanians speak of Gentilly Terrace, the designation has been applied to parts of the city which were not in the original charter. Today, the boundaries have been extended to as far as Benefit Street on the South and Paris Avenue on the West, but the actual boundaries of Lafaye's chartered development were Western Street on the West, Prentiss Avenue on the North, Peoples Avenue on the East, and Gentilly Road on the South. Obviously, the recent movement by residents and city government officials , to rename and redefine historic areas of the city in order to be eligible for state and federal money, displays their ignorance and lack of caring of history, and is distressing to historians, and confusing to true researchers.

The photo at the top of the page shows the school as it looked in 1952, just prior to a major event in its hundred-year history. At the time that photo was taken, the school housed grades Kindergarten through Eighth Grade, which was the case with most of the city's elementary (or "grammar") schools. All New Orleans public schools were segregated prior to the late 1960s, and the concept of middle schools did not hit New Orleans until the early 1950s. Students who completed the eighth grade in one of the city's many elementary schools, went on to attend one of the city's four-year high schools, John McDonogh, Warren Easton, Fortier or Francis T. Nichols. For African-American students, there were separate segregated elementry and high schools. For white students who wished to pursue a trade, there were two additional high schools which offered specialty training, Rabouin which taught subjects such as practical nursing and office support to girls, and Samuel J. Peters, or "Commie High" as it was known, which taught commercial and industrial subjects to boys.

System-wide changes in the 1950s had already altered the board's operation of high schools. Previously separated boys' and girls' high schools were the rule prior to the end of World War II. McDonogh High, Warren Easton, Nicholls and Fortier, were originally segregated not only by race, but also by sex. John McDonogh High on Esplanade Avenue, which many Gentilly Terrace graduates attended, was formerly an all girls school, and Warren Easton, on Canal St. was the companion all boys school for the Gentilly and Mid City areas. The 1950s saw all of that change as high schools became 3 year co-educational programs with students attending schools based on their residential districts. A number of schools that were previously K-8 grammar schools, now became junior high schools, offering 7th - 9th grades, and the elementary schools were reduced to K-6th grade only.

At the right of the 1951 photo (top of page), we can see a former 1930s bus garage which later housed the Manual Training workshop for seventh and eighth graders. There was also a Home Economics "laboratory" in the basement of the school at the opposite corner of the building on Arts Street. Miss Clara Laticia Jackson was the school's last Home Economics teacher, and Mr. Harvey instructed seventh and eighth grade boys in carpentry and and manual training. The principal of Gentilly Terrace School at the time was Isaac Foster, who had recently been appointed to the position upon the retirement of the school's founding principal, Henrietta Keitz.

THE PHYSICAL PLANT

The School building was designed by noted New Orleans municipal architect Edgar Christy. The original design of the school was an eight classroom structure which comprised what is now the front of the present building that faces the playground and Carnot St. In 1926, the school was enlarged, and wings were added forming the present quadrangle structure. The enlarged plant included an open basement area which was used for assembly and recess congregating on bad weather days.

Until the summer of 1953, only the cafeteria, student rest rooms, three kindergarten classrooms, and the Home Economics and manual training classrooms were actually built out in the original basement. The stairwells at each of the four corners of the school, and the main "grand" staircase leading into the center of the building, were all open staircases with beautiful oak and cypress millwork, typical of early 20th Century public buildings.

On the second floor, the top of the grand staircase led to the principal's office, and an adjacent room that was used as a small auditorium.

Toilet rooms for boys and girls were located along the first floor hall in the center of the basement, just off north side of an open courtyard, with the girls' room being located closer to Arts Street and the boys' room to the right approaching the Painters Street side of the building. The "Patio," which was an open area formed and enclosed by the four wings of the building, was used as a safe play area for children in the lower grades.

Those students who attended in the 1940s and early 1950s may remember some of the earlier architectural features. For example, as mentioned above, stairways were open between floors, typical of early 1900s residential construction. They provided no fire spread protectionin within the heavily populated building. The areas under stairways were used for storage of such items as the surplus army cots that were used by napping kindergarteners, folding chairs used for meetings in the open basements, and in some cases, drums of cleaning supplies and janitorial equipment.

The idea of fire retardency was unheard of in those days, and the school's wood frame building, oak and pine floors in both the basement and second floor, and wooden interior and exterior doors fitted with with single pane glass, provided a building that could be considered a fireman's nightmare. There were no window screens with the exception of those mandated by the health department on windows in the school's cafeteria. The entire building relied on incandescent lighting with all light fixtures being the standard "school house" glass bowl fixtures which were used in many public facilities of that era. In order to provide adequate light for school activities, hundreds of incandescent light bulbs in the 150-200 watt range, illuminated the basement and classrooms, which resulted in high lighting costs for the facility.

Typical 150 watt incandescent lighting fixture used throughout the GTS building prior to 1953 renovations

As far as can be determined from available records, the school had no food service facilities until approximately 1927. Prior to then, it is assumed that children eithr brought bagged lunches to school, or that some may have been allowed to go home to receive lunch. A Times Picayune newspaper article indicates that Henrietta Keitz, the school's founding principal, brought forth a pilot program wherein she was able to acquire donations of cooking equipment. With the help of parents, she was able to set up a food preparation and dining area which was then staffed daily by volunteering parents.

School provided hot meals were unheard of at the time in the city's schools, so Ms. Keitz's program was probably necessitated by the isolated location of the school, surrounded by rural working farms and mud roads. While many of the students from the families who purchased the Gentilly Terrace development homes, were of means and could afford good meals, there were a number of children from the poorer farms and original families in the area, who were probably happy to have access to a hot healthy meal during the day. It was not until the Great Depression, and the availability of Federal and State money, that the Orleans Parish School Board instituted the subsidized school lunch program across their entire system. As the Depression took its toll, for many poorer students across the system, government subsidized school lunches were the only opportunity to be provided with healthy meals.

Despite the funding of lunch programs that began in the Depression, the status of the early 1950s cafeteria at Gentilly Terrace School, was still relatively crude and mostly void of modern food preparation equipment. The room was physically located on the first floor Arts/Mirabeau corner of the building, and was accessed through wood frame screen doors similar to those found on most corner groceries and small restaurants in the city at the time. Although most of the windows in the building had no screens, screening of the food service areas had been mandated during World War -II when the nearby Agriculture Street Landfill expanded as a result of the city's growing population. Flies and other insects from the landfill became a significant sanitation problem, and health regulators mandated that windows and doors of food service areas in all restaurants and schools, be fitted with screens.

The food preparation area extended along the Mirabeau Ave. wall of the cafeteria, with a serving counter placed parallel to the wall and several feet out into the dining area. Behind the counter were open unvented gas stoves and a large exposed gas water heater, all of which took their combustion air directly from the room. Open sinks were also located along the Mirabeau Street wall, and dish washing and sanitation were were all performed by hand by the staff. Due to the absence of vent hoods, the cafeteria yielded a distinctive odor that was a combination of food stale odors and chlorine bleach.

Students dined in the same room where food was being cooked and dishes were being cleaned. Furniture consisted of long wooden tables that were painted with brown enamel paint, with seating on detached picnic-table like benches. That alone should make any sanitation-aware person take notice, since proper cleaning and sanitizing of the porous wood tables, with their scratched painted surfaces, would have been impossible. Lunch trays were dispatched from a food line, and teachers and upper grade students volunteered their lunch hours to assist kindergarten and lower grade students in getting their trays safely to the tables. Of course broken glass milk bottles and spilled food and milk were common.

To their credit, the Orleans Parish Public Schools did offer good balanced meals, Freshly prepared hot food, bread and Gold Seal milk in glass half-pint bottles, was served to students on trays with divided beige military style bakelite plates. Milk was available not only at lunch, but at recess as well for those who wished it. Food menus for the entire school system were published weekly in the local newspaper, so parents could tell what would be served to their child each day of the week.

Here is an actual example of an Orleans Parish school lunch menu from the late 1940s. The cost to students, at the time this menu was published in the Times Picayune newspaper in 1948, was only 15 cents.

The cost of lunches remained fifteen cents until late in the 1950s when it increased to twenty-five cents. Prior to 1953, lunch money was collected by the classroom teachers daily, and students were issued lunch tickets for collection by the cafeteria personnel. Children who failed to provide their lunch money would usually be extended credit by Ms. Newman, the principal's secretary. In 1953, as part of the school's major renovation, the cafeteria was modernized and enlarged. As part of that project, the food preparation area was moved to a newly constructed addition that replaced the former manual training wood shop, and an enclosed ramp was constructed on the Painters St. side to allow children to line up in an orderly manner to pay for their lunches prior to being served. Lunch money was then collected by cafeteria personnel stationed at the cafeteria entrance, thereby removing that responsibility from the classroom teachers. It should be noted that in the school's most crowded years of the mid-1950s, it was not unusual for the school cafeteria to prepare and serve as many as seven hundred hot lunches each day.

POST WORLD WAR II CHANGES

By 1950, new fire codes had been adopted. Architects and safety administrators were now aware of the potential for fire spreading between open floors in multi-story wood frame buildings. Fire ratings were being placed on building materials, based mainly on research learned as a result of the recent war. Owners of publicly occupied wood frame structures were ordered to enclose stairways and raceways between floors so as to prevent or slow the spread of fire.

There was also the danger posed by the fact that a large originally coal fired boiler, absent of many safety controls that are taken for granted in modern mechanical plants, was located in the middle of the building complex. In that era, boilers in large buildings required constant attention by trained and licensed stationary engineers, and boiler explosions were not uncommon. In November of 1936, Gentilly Terrace School was heavily damaged and almost destroyed by a fire which was directly attributed to the operation of the school's hand fired coal burning heating plant.

The resulting fire damaged more than half of the building, resulted in the collapse of the roof, and forced a year long period of repair during which students were housed in area churches and willing private homes. A detailed account of the 1936 fire is provided further down this page.

With an ever growing student body in a building that literally was a fire trap, there was ample reason for the school board to undertake a major renovation project to bring this and other older school buildings up to newer fire codes established after World War II. That major upgrade for the Gentilly school occurred over the summer of 1953, as the school board was also attempting to address post-war over crowding in the city's schools. Gentilly Terrace School reopened for the 1953-54 school year as a model modern grade K-6 elementary school. The former seventh and eighth grades were moved to newly designated seventh through ninth grade junior high schools such as C.P Capdeau and McDonogh 28, previously elementary schools that were now transformed into junior high schools. .

Preceding the 1953 renovation, a number of things had transpired. In addition to the system-wide changes already discussed, there were specific changes happening at Gentilly Terrace School.

Just after Christmas holidays in 1952-53, principal Isaac Foster, who had just assumed the principalship in 1947 following the retirement of the school's original principal Miss Henrietta Keitz, died unexpectedly. Foster had taken sick during a pre-Thanksgiving student assembly, was hospitalized, and remained on leave until his death the following January. For the balance of the 1952-53 school year, Mrs. Pauline Johnson, an upper grades teacher with degrees from LSU, assumed the role of acting principal.

Prior to 1953, the GTS, like several other public schools in the Orleans Parish Public Schools System, had a custodian who lived in a house located on the property. In the case of Gentilly Terrace, that person was Mr. Vincent Danna, who, according to public records resided in a small house located on the school grounds at the corner of Mirabeau and Arts Street. In September of 1952, the school board reached a decision to eliminate on site custodial housing and require custodians to live off-site. In the spring of 1953, prior to the beginning of the Summer vacation shutdown of classes, the custodian's house was demolished. When the school reopened in the fall of 1953, the new head custodian was believed to be a Mr. Morris Allen, We have been unable to determine what actually happened to Mr. Danna, but a former student from that era, that we interviewed, thought that he may have passed away over Christmas holidays at the end of 1952.

When the school reopened for the 1953-54 school year, Clifton P. Kessler, a former coach and chemistry teacher who originally taught at Saint Aloysius High School, and who was more recently principal of Wilson public school, was appointed the new principal of Gentilly Terrace School. Kessler held that position into the 1960s, and saw to the implementation many of the school's newer concepts including an organized school band and vocal music program, audio-visual learning experiences, well publicized and successful fund raising events, competitive sports, and a well functioning parent-teachers' association and "dad's club."

As the students returned from summer vacation that year, they came into an almost unrecognizable facility. The school's stately open oak and cypress stairways had all been enclosed with fireproof gypsum sheathed walls with UL fire rated doors at the bottom of each stairway. The previous heating system had been replaced with a less dangerous gas fired circulating hot water system. Modern baseboard level hot water convectors now replaced the original unsightly ceiling hung cast iron radiators that formerly heated the first floor open basement and kindergarten rooms. The updated heating system, removal of wood floors at the first floor level, and installation of modern lighting allowed the construction of eight new classrooms in the former open basement areas.

The principal's office had also been modernized and expanded into a suite of offices on the second floor opposite the grand staircase. The small assembly room, immediately to the Painters street side of the original office, now became part of the expanded principal's suite. With that change, a new modern auditorium, capable of seating a large segment of the student body at one time, had been constructed in what was previously the open patio that was surrounded on all sides by the original school and the 1926 building additions.

The 1920s wooden bus garage, that later served as the "manual training" workshop, had been demolished and replaced by a new cafeteria kitchen with modern food service equipment, sanitary restaurant style tables and chairs, and a stainless steel serving lime where students were served their food in true cafeteria style. Although the cafeteria renovation was not completed until several weeks into the Fall 1953-54 session, it was considered a dramatic improvement from the primitive facilities that it replaced.

The former Home-Ec lab, which was located on the Arts Street right hand corner, had been turned into a fourth kindergarten classroom, anticipating the expanding student body that resulted from post-war Gentilly development. A state-of-the-art fire alarm system, an IBM automatic clock and /bell ringing system, and an all classroom public address system had all been installed, making it possible for students to remain in their classrooms for the daily announcements that previously required classes to line up in the open basement each morning.

From the operations side, a safer gas fired hot water boiler and heating system had replaced the building's original manually operated heating system. Much of the maintenance staff could now be freed up to perform other duties, and the daytime staff was reduced to one operating engineer/janitor, and a janitor assistant. Cleaning was also performed after-hours by a separate staff of custodians, which allowed the two daytime custodians to concentrate on operation of the heating system and maintenance of the building's other systems.

THE ANNEX

Those of us who attended Gentilly Terrace School in the 50s will surely remember the "Annex" which was located on the opposite end of the school grounds facing Carnot Street. It was a wood frame building, reminiscent of a military style barracks buildings typical of temporary construction through much of World War - II. The annex housed the school's fifth-grade classes, as well as an overflow third grade class. The annex had been constructed during the 1946-47 school year as a means of easing the over-crowding that resulted from a dramatic population increase in the Gentilly and Lakefront areas due mainly to the expanding post-war development of Gentilly. With the 1953 main building renovation, little was done to the Annex, and updates were mostly limited to installation of a fire alarm system. This reflected the view of the school board that the non-code compliant structure was merely intended to be a stop-gap measure to buy the board some time to complete construction of new schools in Oak Park, Lakeview and Gentilly Woods. The annex was literally a wood frame, wood floored fire trap, heated by individual gas fired space heaters installed in each classroom. It was lighted by antiquated incandescent light fixtures, and most furniture consisted of well worn 1920s attached pedestal student desks which apparently had been used elsewhere before they were incorporated into the 1946 project. Students assigned to the annex were forced to use unheated outdoor toilet rooms and water fountains that remained until the building's demolition many years later. Demolition occurred in the 1970s, at which time overcrowding had been reduced, to the point that all classes could again be housed in the main school building.

Please note that we are attempting to locate usable photos of the exterior of the Annex. If anyone happens to have photos showing the interior and exterior details of the Annex, please allow us to share them through this site.

It should be noted that the 1950s Post War era was the greatest period of residential development in the Gentilly and Lakefront areas of the city. The Great Depression and then World War II had delayed the eventual growth of the Gentilly Terrace neighborhood. It was only due to a heavy presence of military facilities along the lakeshore, that war-time housing construction on the undeveloped land between Gentilly Road and the lakefront, began the residential population explosion of the area, and thereby increased the student population of the area's only public school.

Following the War, exponential development and growth in not only the Gentilly and Lakefront area, but also the development and inclusion of most of New Orleans East into the service area handled by Gentilly Terrace School, literally strained the walls of the old facility that was only designed to handle the children of the one square mile area of the original Gentilly Terrace subdivision. With much of Gentilly's undeveloped area turned into housing for employees of the factories and military installations along the reclaimed lakefront, and later the families of returning military personnel, the population of Gentilly exploded in the late 40s and early 50s.

By the start of the 1953-54 term, the school, which originally was staffed by one principal and two teachers, had grown to a minimum of four classes for each for the six elementary grades and kindergarten. There were five fifth-grade classes at the time that most of the post WW-II baby boom children were at that level in their education, and classes generally housed between 30 and 40 students under the management of a single teacher. A number of those teachers at that time were still Normal School trained, and did not possess college degrees. Many were in the process of obtaining degrees, however there were teachers who retired in and after the 1950s who were still operating on their Normal School training and certificates. Later, as new public schools were constructed in the Gentilly, Lakeshore and New Orleans East areas, the student load on Gentilly Terrace School was reduced. The removal of the seventh and eighth grades in 1953 also served to reduce the population serviced by this school, so it then became possible to modify the student-teacher ratios, and to seriously contemplate demolition of the Annex. Still, however, the school remained crowded, well beyond its initial eight classroom design, with an average enrollment approaching eight hundred students through much of the 1950s.

The following are photos from private collections, and from various state and public library collections, that are presented as an historical perspective of what life for a student in Gentilly Terrace School was like in the 1950s. We appreciate the use of photographs held by persons who posted to social media sites, and we have attempted to give photo credit wherever possible. We have also provided a list of the faculty from the 1950s, and have indicated their present status. whether alive or deceased. If anyone who views this site has additional information that would be of interest, we will be happy to incorporate it into the site. Thanks especially to those folks on the "I grew up in Gentilly" and "people who attended GTS in the 50s" Facebook sites for making available several photos and many memories of our old school and life in Gentilly in the 1950s.

By the 1919-1920 school year, Gentilly Terrace School had already become a fixture as families began to build houses on the lots that the new development offered. While the school began in 1914 with only Miss Keitz as the principal, and two other teachers, the 1919-1920 roster of Orleans Parish School Board employees listed the following ten teachers and employees assigned to Gentilly Terrace School:

GENTILLY TERRACE— Boys and Girls.
Grammar and Primary.
District: Neighborhood.
Miss Henrietta C. Keitz Principal
Miss Fannie Tobin Assistant
Miss Claire Leefe Assistant
Miss Hermia Feraon Assistant
Miss Marion' Wadsworth Assistant
Miss Marion Phillips Assistant
Miss Amelia Masson Assistant
Miss Rita Sbisa Assistant
Miss May C. Nobles Kindergarten
Mrs. Clemence Raby Janitor

Note that no food service employees were listed in the 1919-1920 roster. As mentioned on this site, the lunch room did not exist prior to 1927, and only then as a facility staffed by parent volunteers.

During the administration of Mr. Kessler, the school enjoyed an extremely active Parent Teachers Association and a Dad's Club which also brought many improvements to the quality of education at Gentilly Terrace School. In addition to competitive sports, fund raisers, and an active role by the school in the Gentilly neighborhood community, Kessler also introduced the concept of a student talent show to highlight the many talents of the children who attended the school during that era. The photo above is from the New Orleans Times-Picayune account of a talent show held in December of 1956.

To see a copy of that article, which mentions and shows several performers by name along with Mrs. McWhirter who was the producer, click the photo above.

Born Apr 19, 1909, Died Dec 1987 (buried in St. patrick's Cemetery in New Orleans.