<GNOCDC> Pontchartrain Park Neighborhood Snapshot

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Pontchartrain Park Neighborhood Snapshot

Census 2000 Data Tables: People & Household Characteristics, Housing & Housing Costs, Income & Poverty, Transportation, Employment, Educational Attainment, Immigration & Language, Disabilities, Neighborhood Characteristics

Pontchartrain Park is a suburban-style neighborhood, with 200 acres of greenspace for parks, playgrounds, lagoons and the Joe Bartholomew Golf Course. Two major streets run through the neighborhood from Chef Menteur Highway, Press and Congress Drives. All other streets are curvilinear and prevent passage out of the neighborhood, creating a degree of privacy and pedestrian safety.

Pontchartrain is enclosed by railroad tracks to the west, Leon C. Simon to the north, the Inner Navigation Harbor Canal on the east and a small mostly dry bayou, remnants of an older time, to the south. It is one of the first areas in New Orleans designed to provide home ownership to middle and upper income African Americans and one of the last Gentilly neighborhoods to be developed.

History

	© GNO Community Data Center
	A view along Dreux Avenue

The city of New Orleans sold the land between East New Orleans and Lakeview to the New Orleans Lakeshore Land Company. Most of it was swamp and had to be dredged. Pontchartrain Park Homes, with Edgar Stern as president, was the developer for the Pontchartrain neighborhood. The plans were to build a subdivision around the city's 185-acre Pontchartrain Park. It was advertised in the Times-Picyaune in 1954.

Constructed by the same company who built Gentilly Woods, Crawford Homes, built two- and three-bedroom homes styled very similar to those in Gentilly Woods, the all-white neighborhood next to Pontchartrain Park bordering Chef Menteur Highway.

In the late 1950s Mary Dora Coghill Elementary School was built for the young people in the neighborhood. In later years, residents would attend services at St. Gabriel the Archangel Catholic Church in Gentilly Woods and send their children to its school.

In the early 1970s there was a significant residential turnover in Pontchartrain Park as many families moved to the newly developing New Orleans East neighborhoods. In the mid 1970s, a passageway to Leon C. Simon from Press Drive was opened to allow access to the neighborhood from the rear.

Today, the community still retains a certain charm rooted in family and community life. Pontilly Neighborhood Association, Pontchartrain Park Home Improvement Association and other neighborhood organizations, some of who work with city administrators and churches, operate to maintain the visual appeal of the neighborhood, protect property values, and keep the neighborhood safe.

Sitting along the northern edge of the Joe M. Bartholomew Sr. Municipal Golf Course is Wesley Barrow, a 10.82-acre park that includes a stadium, playground and tennis courts. This quite active NORD-run facility provides a multitude of activities for both young and old.

Joe M. Bartholomew Sr. Municipal Golf Course

The Joe M. Bartholomew Sr. Municipal Golf Course, with clubhouse, is an 18-hole course for the intermediate to advanced golfer. As its fairways are lined with huge oak trees, it sits in the middle of the northern portion of the subdivision across from Southern University at New Orleans. Golfers from the greater New Orleans area and out of town frequent this course.

Joe Bartholomew Golf Course in New Orleans

History, Joseph M. Bartholomew, ourGOLF.com Minority Golf Online

Read about the book "Forbidden Fairways."

Joseph M. Bartholomew, Sr.

The Joe M. Bartholomew Sr. Municipal Golf Course received its name from the impressive yet humble Joseph M. Bartholomew, one of the wealthiest African American men in the city of New Orleans. Born in New Orleans in August 1881, Bartholomew attended school up to the 8th grade. At the age of 12, he began working for a white family. After his chores were done, he would caddie at the nearby Audubon Golf Course.

He taught himself how to play golf and became so good, he began to teach others. Demonstrating an additional talent for course maintenance, he was made keeper of the greens at Audubon.

Knowledge of his golfing ability spread as skilled players took their best shot at beating him. Noted players would sometimes win and sometimes lose. After several games with Freddie McLeod, who won the 1908 U.S. Open, McLeod hired Bartholomew as his assistant.

Bartholomew's talents continued to impress the golfing community. After being sent to New York by a wealthy Metairie Golf Club member to study golf course architecture in the 1920s, he built his first golf course, the Metairie Golf Course. Following the construction of the 18-hole course, completed in 1922, he proceeded to build a number of other courses over the next eight years, including City Park No. 1, City Park No. 2, and the Pontchartrain Park courses. He also built courses throughout southeast Louisiana and one in the state of Mississippi during that same time.

Sadly, Bartholomew was not allowed to play, not a single round, on any of the courses that he built because of the color of his skin. Tired of the prejudices and discrimination preventing African Americans from playing golf, Bartholomew built a 7-hole course for African Americans on his own property in Harahan.

	Image courtesy New Orleans Public Library (nutrias.org). Permission for reuse required.
	"During the segregation era in New Orleans, the Lake Pontchartrain Golf Course in Pontchartrain Park was the only golf course available to African-Americans. This photograph was taken on April 29, 1956 at the "unofficial" opening of the course, which included exhibition matches featuring several four-somes of prominent African-American golfers. From left to right are: Sammy Landry, Charles Harris, Fred Miles, Enuf Mathieu, John Roux (who was the course's assistant pro), and Clarence Griffin." [Haynes S. Ragas, Jr. Photograph Collection]

Bartholomew and Pontchartrain Golf Course

On April 29, 1956, the Pontchartrain Golf Course was "unofficially" open for African Americans. The match headlined several prominent golfers of the time. The official dedication was on May 5, 1956. Joe Bartholomew was part of the ceremony with the then Mayor Chep Morrison, Herbert Jahncke, President of the Parkway and Parks Commission, and others.

Joseph Bartholomew was the first African American to be inducted in the Greater New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame. In 1979, the newly renovated Pontchartrain Park Golf Course was renamed Joe M. Bartholomew Sr. Municipal Golf Course.

Bartholomew began a construction company and extended his business into other areas, including landscaping. Over the years, he became wealthy from successful real estate investments and a diversified portfolio. He made substantial contributions to Dillard and Xavier Universities. However, he never was far from his first love, golf. "Even in declining health his eyes would light up at the mention of the game" He died on October 12, 1971.

Southern University at New Orleans (SUNO)

	Image courtesy New Orleans Public Library (nutrias.org). Permission for reuse required.
	"In 1959 Southern University at New Orleans opened its doors on Press Street near Pontchartrain Park. These graduation scenes are from the schools 1976-1977 yearbook, The Commuter." [from the African Americans in New Orleans: Learning exhibit]

Southern University is a fully accredited four-year, co-educational, liberal arts, state school of higher learning for the education of African American students. It's main campus sits on a 17-acre site in Pontchartrain Park and has expanded to include a north campus adjacent to the U.S. Navy and Marine Reserve Training site in the Lake Terrace/Lake Oaks neighborhood.

Southern University opened in 1959, in one building on the site of their present location with 158 students and 15 faculty members. Bachelor's degrees were conferred to its first class in May 1963. Enrollment and faculty members increased substantially over the next ten years. Originally under the authority of the Louisiana State Board of Education, it became a branch of Southern University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in Baton Rouge in 1973. The university was open to all individuals regardless of race or color following a lawsuit against the Louisiana State Board of Education filed by Virigina Cox Welch, a Caucasian high school teacher.

Today, SUNO offers a range of basic degree programs in various fields of study. It is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and has an accredited graduate program in Social Work. Although students from various ethnic backgrounds attend the school, the majority population is still African American.

Southern University at New Orleans, Black American Colleges & Universities
www.petersons.com/blackcolleges/profiles/southern_no.html

Southern University at New Orleans: History
suno.edu/grants/History.html

For more information:

African Americans in New Orleans: Making a Living
nutrias.org/~nopl/exhibits/black96.htm

1999 Land Use Plan New Orleans City Planning Commission District Six Gentilly
www.new-orleans.la.us/cnoweb/cpc/1999_dist_six.htm

Neighborhood Profiles Project Document prepared by the City of New Orleans Office of Policy Planning and the City Planning Commission. Published December 1980. Study available at the Williams Research Center (non-circulating collection).

Dawson, Farth. "Neighborhood Watching." New Orleans Magazine, January 1996, pp. 85-87.

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Last modified: October 5, 2002