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The New Basin
Canal, also known as the New Orleans Canal and the
New Canal, was a shipping canal in New
Orleans from the 1830s through the 1940s.
Small pleasure boats now moor on the only remaining portion
of the canal that was important to regional commerce in
the 19th century.
The New Basin Canal
was constructed by the New Orleans Canal and Banking
Company, incorporated in 1831 with a capital of 4
million United States dollars. The intent was to build
a shipping canal from Lake Pontchartrain through the swamp land to
the booming Uptown or "American" section of the city, to
compete with the existing Carondelet Canal in the Downtown
Creole part of the city. Work commenced the following year. Yellow
fever ravaged workers in the swamp in back of the
town, and the loss of slaves was judged too expensive, so
most of the work was done by Irish immigrant laborers. The
Irish workers died in great numbers, but the Company had
no trouble finding more workers to take their
place, as shiploads of poor Irishmen arrived
in New Orleans, and many were willing to risk their
lives in hazardous backbreaking work for a chance to earn
$1 a day.
By
1838, after an expense of $1million, the 60-foot (18 m)
wide 3.17-mile (5.10 km) long canal was complete enough
to be opened to small vessels drawing 6 feet (1.8 m),
with $0.375 per ton charged for passage. Over the next
decade the canal was enlarged to 12 feet (3.7 m) deep,
100 feet (30 m) wide, and with shell roads alongside. No
official count was kept of the deaths of the immigrant
workers; estimates ranging from 4,000 to 30,000 have
been published, with most historical best guesses
falling in the 8,000 to 20,000 dead range. Many were
buried with no marking in the levee and roadway fill
beside the canal.
The
Canal joined with Lake Pontchartrain around the present
day intersection of Robert E. Lee and West End
Boulevards, but jetties were added on both sides
extending into the lake, one with a lighthouse standing
on the far end. From the lake the canal headed south
through the swamp, cut through the highground of
Metairie Ridge, through the mid-city lowlands, into the
city, ended in a turning-basin at Rampart Street &
Howard Avenue in what is now the New Orleans Central
Business District.
The
canal was commercially important through the 19th
century, and served additional uses as improving
drainage in nearby areas and being used to harvest the
bald cypress trees in what is now the Lakeview
neighborhood, which were brought in to the city near the
river via the canal and used to build many Uptown
houses.
 alt=" "Black Bridge" over New Basin Canal in raised position. (This was at or about at the same spot now occupied by the railway viaduct over the Pontchartrain Expressway a short distance riverwards from the West End Boulevard interchange.) "
The importance of the canal declined after World War I,
especially with the opening of the Industrial Canal in
1923. In 1936 the Louisiana Legislature passed a state
constitutional amendment to close the canal. In
1937-1938 the area back to Claiborne Avenue was filled
in, but the rest of the length continued functioning on
a more limited scale until after World War II. The rest
was filled in by about 1950, except for a half mile long
stretch at the lakefront by the lighthouse which was
left as a small boat and yachting harbor and continues
to exist.
Much
of the route became the Pontchartrain Expressway in the
1950s, which was incorporated into I-10 the following
decade. The stretch from the Interstate to Robert E Lee
became a long narrow park by West End Boulevard. On
November4, 1990 the Irish Cultural Society of New
Orleans dedicated a large Kilkenny marble Celtic cross
in the park to commemorate the Irish workers who
constructed the canal.
The
lighthouse that stands at the entrance to the canal,
which is on the National Register of Historic Places,
was heavily damaged during the 2005 hurricane season. By
the end of hurricane season the first floor had
collapsed and its cupola had fallen off. In 2006 the
Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation signed a lease with
the United States Coast Guard to repair the damaged
lighthouse.
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