Pontchartrain Park is a historically registered neighborhood of the city of

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

. A subdistrict of the Gentilly District Area, its boundaries as defined by the City Planning Commission are: Leon C. Simon Drive to the north, the

Industrial Canal The Industrial Canal is a 5.5 mile (9 km) waterway in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. The waterway's proper name, as used by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and on NOAA nautical charts, is Inner Harbor Navigation Canal ( IHNC). ...

to the east, Dreux Avenue to the south and Peoples Avenue to the west.

Geography

Pontchartrain Park is located at and has an elevation of . According to the

United States Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau (USCB), officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The Census Bureau is part of t ...

, the district has a total area of . of which is land and (7.0%) of which is water. Pontchartrain Park includes a senior center, a

golf course A golf course is the grounds on which the sport of golf is played. It consists of a series of holes, each consisting of a tee box, a fairway, the rough and other hazards, and a green with a cylindrical hole in the ground, known as a "cup". ...

designed by famed African American golf course designer Joseph Bartholomew and the Major League Baseball Urban Youth Academy located at

Wesley Barrow Stadium Wesley Barrow Stadium is a 650-seat baseball and softball stadium located in the Pontchartrain Park section of New Orleans, Louisiana. Named in memory of Negro league baseball manager Wesley Barrow, a longtime prominent figure in the New Orleans ...

. Adjacent to the Pontchartrain Park golf course is the campus of

Southern University at New Orleans Southern University at New Orleans (also known as SUNO) is a public historically black university in New Orleans, Louisiana. It is a member of the Southern University System and the Thurgood Marshall College Fund. History Southern University ...

Adjacent Neighborhoods

* Gentilly Woods (south) * Lake Terrace/Lake Oaks (north) * Milneburg (west) * Pines Village (east)

Boundaries

The City Planning Commission defines the boundaries of Pontchartrain Park as these streets: Leon C. Simon Drive, the Industrial Canal, Dreux Avenue and Peoples Avenue.

Demographics

As of the

census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses in ...

of 2000, there were 2,630 people, 1,009 households, and 736 families residing in the neighborhood. The

population density Population density (in agriculture: Stock (disambiguation), standing stock or plant density) is a measurement of population per unit land area. It is mostly applied to humans, but sometimes to other living organisms too. It is a key geographical ...

was 2,828 /mi² (1,096 /km²). As of the

of 2010, there were 1,482 people, 551 households, and 385 families residing in the neighborhood.

History

Pontchartrain Park was developed after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. It was one of the first suburban-style subdivisions developed by and for

middle class The middle class refers to a class of people in the middle of a social hierarchy, often defined by occupation, income, education, or social status. The term has historically been associated with modernity, capitalism and political debate. Com ...

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

s during the Jim Crow era of

racial segregation Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into race (human classification), racial or other Ethnicity, ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crimes against hum ...

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

. It has been home to such prominent New Orleanians as mayors

Dutch Morial Ernest Nathan "Dutch" Morial (October 9, 1929 – December 24, 1989), was an American political figure and a leading civil rights advocate. He was the first African-American mayor of New Orleans, serving from 1978 to 1986. He was the father of Ma ...

and

Marc Morial Marc Haydel Morial (born January 3, 1958) is an American political and civic leader and the current president of the National Urban League. Morial served as Mayor of New Orleans from 1994 to 2002 as the city's youngest Mayor, President of the ...

, political activist Philip M. Baptiste and district attorney

Eddie Jordan Edmund Patrick Jordan, OBE (born 30 March 1948), also known as EJ, is an Irish businessman, television personality and former motorsport team owner. Born in Dublin, Jordan worked first at the Bank of Ireland. He won the Irish Kart Championship ...

; as well as nationally known figures such as Lisa P. Jackson, EPA Administrator under President Barack Obama, actor

Wendell Pierce Wendell Edward Pierce (born December 8, 1963) is an American actor and businessman. Having trained at Juilliard School, Pierce rose to prominence as a character actor portraying roles both on the stage and screen. He first gained notoriety portra ...

, and jazz musician Terrence Blanchard. In the 1970s, urban renewal projects were undertaken with funding from the federal New Town Program. Pontchartrain Park flooded badly in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, taking on water first from the overtopping of a section of floodwall of the Industrial Canal caused by storm surge channeled into the city from the MRGO Canal, then from major breaches sustained by floodwalls along the

London Avenue Canal The London Avenue Canal is a drainage canal in New Orleans, Louisiana, used for pumping rain water into Lake Pontchartrain. The canal runs through the 7th Ward of New Orleans from the Gentilly area to the Lakefront. It is one of the three main drai ...

. In July 2020, th
Pontchartrain Park Historic District was announced
as the neighborhood was added to the U.S. National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places. A commemorative marker was unveiled on June 30, 2022.

Notable residents

* Terrence Blanchard * Lisa P. Jackson *

* Darryl Willis * Gustave Blache III

References

External links

NPR story: Return to Pontchartrain Park
Neighborhoods in New Orleans {{NewOrleans-stub