The Last Moments of Girod Street Cemetery

Visitors mills through Girod Street Cemetery, 1957. Photo by Robert W. Kelley, LIFE Magazine.

This blog post was inspired by the photos within, most of which were taken by Robert W. Kelley of LIFE Magazine in 1957.  These images show Girod Street Cemetery in its final moments, as well-dressed adults and children mill around its collapsed tombs and open vaults, with newly-built New Orleans City Hall present in the background of many shots.  Mis-labeled “Gerard” Street Cemetery, they offer a vignette of what has long since disappeared from the New Orleans landscape.  The full album can be found via Google Cultural Commons here.
 
The topic of Girod Street Cemetery is one that comes up in a few varieties of conversation among New Orleaneans, most often related to the charming notion that the Louisiana Superdome was built atop the burial ground (it wasn’t, per se).  The relationship of the old cemetery, known also as the Protestant Cemetery, to the New Orleans Saints football team is one that has been described many times over, best by Richard Campanella and Doc Boudin of Canal Street Chronicles.  Check them out to see why you can’t blame the vengeful dead for a losing season.

Vandalized and abandoned tombs, Girod Street Cemetery, 1957. Photo by Robert W. Kelley, LIFE Magazine.

The Protestant Cemetery, 1822 – 1940
The former footprint of the cemetery, however, was indeed quite close to the present-day Superdome.  Originally bounded by Liberty, and the former Cypress and Perillat Streets, the cemetery once stood beneath where Superdome parking garages and the Champions Square complex now rise. Founded in 1822, this once-distinctive cemetery lay at the terminus of Girod Street.  Previous to that date, non-Catholics were buried in the rear of St. Louis Cemetery No. 1.  The narrow “Protestants Section” in St. Louis No. 1 was once much longer, but was truncated after construction to Treme Street in 1820.  Shortly afterward, Episcopal Christ Church was awarded the land that became Girod Street Cemetery.
 
Over the course of the nineteenth century, Girod Street Cemetery developed into a landscape distinct from its New Orleans cemetery sisters.  As the second-oldest cemetery in the city, it amassed the vestiges of early cemetery architecture, from single-vault, stepped-roof structures to more ambitious marble-clad and Classically inspired sarcophagus tombs.  The tomb of Angelica Monsanto Dow, who died in 1821, reflected this aesthetic well. 
 
Girod Street Cemetery furthermore was an “American” cemetery, in that it became the final resting place for many New Orleans residents who had travelled from elsewhere, particularly the Anglo-American north and Midwest.   From these outsiders came tombs and materials inspired by northern cemetery designs – clean, wire-cut Philadelphia brick, liberal use of stone urns and many, many obelisks.  Girod Street Cemetery kept within its walls a tableau of cemetery artisanship that stood out from the landscapes of its sister Catholic, municipal, and fraternal cemeteries.
 
Through the nineteenth and into the twentieth century, Girod Street Cemetery would become the final resting place for many New Orleaneans of distinction.  Heroes of the Mexican American War, civic leaders, and prominent families utilized the burial ground.  One estimate suggested that the cemetery was once home to 100 society tombs.  For comparison, Lafayette Cemetery No. 2, which is usually noted for its society tombs, has just twenty.  In Girod Street Cemetery, the tomb of the New Lusitanos Benevolent Society was likely the most notable.  Designed by J.N.B. de Pouilly and erected in 1869, the tomb had 100 vaults and a walk-in vestibule framed with a Classical portico.

An intact vault identifies the name and date of burial. Photo by Robert W. Kelley, LIFE Magazine.

Being somewhat centrally located, Girod Street Cemetery was also heavily utilized as a public burying ground in times of epidemic.  It seems as though nearly every major epidemic of the nineteenth century involved a terrible debacle at Girod Street Cemetery, in which bodies were stacked beyond capacity with no one to bury them.  This may have also been due to the presence of a de facto Potter’s Field adjoining the cemetery, which was described as early as 1837: “This latter receptacle of the dead [the Protestant cemetery] has for many years been a disgrace to New Orleans.  Once the Potters’ Field, it soon became the public burying ground, provided you were able to pay for a vault – otherwise you had to be sent further out into the swamp.”[1]
 
The 1833 cholera epidemic in New Orleans proved especially tragic for Girod Street Cemetery, although it was not necessarily the last time the cemetery fell prey to insufficient manpower in the face of great loss of life:
 
… the unshrouded dead dumped at the gateway of the Girod Street Cemetery accumulated in such numbers that the entrance to its precincts was so obstructed that arriving bodies had to be deposited on the outside; no graves at this time could be dug; no coffins were procurable, for there were neither grave diggers to be had nor undertakers to be found.  The City Council was forced to order out the chain gang ‘prisoners’ from the city jails, to dig a trench the whole length of the lower side of the cemetery.  It was dug some twelve or fifteen feet wide, and as deep as the filtering water soil would permit, into this receptacle the decomposing bodies were dragged by hooks from the fire companies, without the formality of precedence or order of any kind.  As a part of the trench was filled, the earth taken from it was heaped upon the remains of the rich and the poor, the aged and the young.[2]
 
This mass grave would eventually be erroneously referred to as the “yellow fever mound” in later years.  In the late 1940s, historians would determine that this feature was in fact the burial of 1833 cholera victims.[3]

Wall vaults in Girod Street Cemetery, 1885. Postcard image by Louis Schwartz. (via Wikimedia Commons)

The Back of the Swamp
Girod Street Cemetery, for its stately obelisks and high society residents, would be plagued with issues surrounding its management and topography for most of its existence.  In the 1830s, only years into its functional life as a cemetery, it would be noted that its vaults were built with only one brick thickness to their walls, which permitted the “escape of unhealthy odors.”[4]  However this was not an issue exclusive to Girod Street – City ordinance did not regulate the quality of tomb construction until the 1850s.
 
What did afflict Girod Street perhaps more than other cemeteries was its location in significantly low-lying land.  Girod Street Cemetery swelled with feet of water in Sauve’s Cravasse of 1849, and frequently took on water in other instances, owing to its place on swampy land.
 
In 1880, a special commission of Louisiana state representatives assessed the condition of New Orleans cemeteries and found them all to be in “proper” condition – with the exception of Girod Street Cemetery.  Noting, “in the event of rain [Girod Street Cemetery] is always flooded to such an extent that it will affect the sanitary precautions necessary to prevent the contracting or spreading of any diseases,” the commission recommended the cemetery be closed.  This recommendation was apparently declined.[5]  Girod Street Cemetery’s troubles would not end there.

The tomb of the New Lusitanos Society, Girod Street Cemetery, 1957. Photo by Robert W. Kelley, LIFE Magazine.

 The Fall of Girod Street Cemetery
Through the course of its existence, Girod Street Cemetery was owned and operated by Christ Church Cathedral.  Until the mid-twentieth century, most religiously-affiliated cemeteries were managed by the respective congregation that owned them.  These congregations appointed a sexton or caretaker to manage them by performing burials, building tombs, and keeping records.  Although city law required sextons to compile records to be submitted to the Board of Health, the interment records of each cemetery were kept by each sexton to varying degrees of organization.

At the turn of the century, increasing industrialization of the monument trade shifted the role of sexton away from groundskeeper and toward that of a sales agent.  In some cases, this meant a decline in peripheral duties.  This shift is often credited for the lessening of care for the cemetery, as is the inclination of families to move their loved ones remains to newer cemeteries (namely Metairie Cemetery, established 1872).  Lack of sellable space and changing racial demographics in the neighborhood of Girod Street Cemetery are also noted as causes for decline.  For any combination of these reasons, or others, the administration of Christ Church found themselves in a difficult bind with their cemetery.[6]
 
By the early 1940s, reports on the condition of Girod Street Cemetery appear to have drastically worsened.  Wrote one reader in a 1943 letter to the Times-Picayune:
 
… I was horrified to find many of the tombs broken open and others completely destroyed.  There was a large fire burning at the top of one of the tombs.  I saw what looked like wooden boxes burning.
The cemetery looks more like a poultry farm.  Atop the tombs are a number of chicken coops, and chickens wandering everywhere, and some of the lovely trees are completely or nearly burned down.
Where are the owners of these tombs, that such desecration is allowed?  And who cares for this unfortunate burying place?[7]

The vestrymen of Christ Church had apparently struggled with the management of Girod Cemetery for some time.[8]  New efforts to repair and care for the cemetery appear to have been quashed in their infancy by technicalities and concerns regarding ownership and liability.  In 1945, church leaders again attempted to take control of the situation.  Asserting that Church ownership extended only to common areas – walls and aisles – and that ownership of tombs rested exclusively on associated families, the Church announced plans to place notices on each tomb on All Saints’ Day.  These notices warned tomb owners that their property must be repaired within sixty days or it would be demolished by the Church.[9]  Despite this effort, the Board of Health declared the cemetery unsanitary.  Burials continued to take place in Girod Street, including the interment of Zulu chief Joseph Smith, as late as 1948.[10]

Monumental Modernism
Two years later, the Church marketed this plan to demolish abandoned tombs as a “renovation” or “rebuilding” of the cemetery.  Presented in this way, it seems as if the plan for Girod Street Cemetery would be to modernize it – remove the abandoned and unsanitary structures and replace them with new, presumably sellable space.[11]

Caskets, debris, and broken tablets strewn between wall vaults, 1957. Photo by Robert W. Kelley, LIFE Magazine.

By the time of this announcement in 1947, Girod Street was merely joining in a much larger phenomenon in which cemetery management was drastically changing.  In 1945, the City of New Orleans eliminated the position of sexton from the six municipal cemeteries.  In the years following, former sextons and stonecutters would go into business for themselves as cemetery owners, profiting primarily from streamlined materials and low overhead costs.  This process was best accomplished by Albert Weiblen, who eventually purchased Metairie Cemetery, and the Stewart family, who built Lake Lawn Park in the 1950s.  However, this approach relied on the cemetery having lots available for sale.
 
The last sexton of Girod Street Cemetery, Eugene Watson, died in 1950.  In 1948, Christ Church ran multiple notices enjoining tomb owners to repair their property.  However, as the cemetery owners pushed to bring the burial ground into the twentieth century, they would stumble over technicalities of property ownership, prohibitive costs, and a booming, modernizing world slowly encroaching on the Girod Street walls.

A mother reaches out for her child, a casket between them. Girod Street Cemetery, 1957. Photo by Robert W. Kelley, LIFE Magazine.

“An Eyesore in the Midst of Progress”
The Post-World War II era brought huge changes to nearly every facet of American life.  In the cemeteries, everything from materials to business models to the funeral industry transformed.  In the American city, revolutionary ideas of urban renewal swept through downtowns, destroying historic districts and erecting aggressively modern new landscapes.
 
In New Orleans this urban renewal took place with mayor deLesseps “Chep” Morrison, and it took place along Loyola Avenue, where historic buildings were swept away for a new library, city hall, and train depot.  The intersection of Liberty and Girod Street, at the boundary of the cemetery, was awkward and could not adequately accommodate recently increased truck traffic volumes.  By the late 1940s, even the federal government eyed the Girod Street property as a potential site for a new post office and federal building.
 
In the light of rapidly encroaching superhighways and new urban landscapes, Girod Street Cemetery became even more anachronistic.  Perceived as an affront to the bright future of the city’s civic heart, plans to renovate the cemetery fizzled into outright demolition by neglect, aided by the agenda of modern city leaders.  Lack of care led to vandalism, which led to inevitable decries that the cemetery was too broken to be fixed.

Girod Street gate, 1953, showing collapsed and disassembled walls. Photo by Alexander Allison, via New Orleans Public Library.

In June 1948, city workers arrived at Girod Street Cemetery and knocked enormous holes in the perimeter wall, hauling away five truckloads of bricks.  After protests from Christ Church, Mayor Morrison simply responded that he didn’t realize there would be an objection.[12]
 
In 1954, the City of New Orleans successfully expropriated more than twenty thousand square feet of the cemetery for the purposes of widening Liberty Street.  In addition to this seizure of land, city council furthermore requested the mass removal of all remains from the cemetery entirely, and that they be removed to newly-finished Lake Lawn Park, a for-profit venture of the Stewart family.[13]

Recently-finished New Orleans city hall peeks over the ruined wall vaults of Girod Street Cemetery, 1957. Photo by Robert W. Kelley, LIFE Magazine.

Girod Cemetery is Calling
Days after the announcement of the expropriation, city attorneys placed ads in newspaper enjoining any person with family buried in Girod Street to contact the City.  Attempt to salvage burials, tombs, sculpture, and any other remaining resource of the cemetery were launched.  Many of these reburials had already taken place in years previous by families who suspected the cemetery’s demise.
 
In 1955, the remains, tomb, and monument of Lt. Col. William Wallace Smith Bliss was removed to namesake Fort Bliss in Texas.  The Louisiana Landmarks Society led this effort, as it did other efforts to locate families associated with the cemetery.  In June of 1955, the city officially purchased the cemetery.  In January 1957, it was deconsecrated.
 
Only months later, Louisiana Landmarks member and remarkable cemetery historian Leonard Victor Huber decried the demolition process at the cemetery: “Another 60 days and there will be nothing left of Girod Street cemetery but a memory.  Tombs are being broken up… I was in a garden recently with its walls built of marble slabs from the cemetery.[14]”
 ​
Through the course of demolition, remains of white descent were reinterred at Hope Mausoleum, owned by Leonard V. Huber.  African American burials were removed to Providence Memorial Park.

A battered sign invites Girod Street families to inquire for reburial in Lake Lawn Park and Mausoleum, 1957. Photo by Robert W. Kelley, LIFE Magazine.

In October 1958, Christ Church sold 96,000 remaining square feet of the cemetery to the federal government for nearly $300,000.  This sale would transform sections of the cemetery into a parking garage for a planned post office and federal building on Loyola Avenue.  Said Frank Schneider of the Times-Picayune, “Girod became an eye sore in the midst of progress but now it will contribute something to New Orleans’ changing skyline.  The 14-level post office structure will be the largest federal building in the Deep South.”[15]
 
Learning from Girod Street
Although certainly accelerated by ambitions of new urbanism, the issues that led to the demolition of Girod Street Cemetery are the same issues that regularly appear in discussions of historic cemetery management today.  The power of the cemetery authority to manage abandoned tombs and lots is a topic of constant contention.  Cemetery owning bodies today can write off issues of abandonment by appealing to private property rights, and nearly in the same breath demolish lots that become hazardous or inconvenient to redevelopment.  The ability to be conveniently selective regarding Louisiana cemetery law has, in many cases, enabled neglect.  This neglect, of course, contributes to cyclical issues of cemetery vandalism, which often goes unabated until conditions are perceived as unsalvageable.
 
The sweeping demolitions that took place across the United States during the 1940s through the 1960s spawned a revitalization of the American historic preservation movement.  Iconized by the demolition of Pennsylvania Station in New York in 1963, fatigue over the loss of entire historic districts led to the passing of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 which, among other things, would have likely prevented the Federal government from purchasing portions of Girod Street Cemetery.
 
The tale of Girod Street Cemetery is comprised of much more than a haunted sports arena.  For cemetery preservationists in New Orleans, it is a cautionary tale that should never be too far from one’s mind.  The stunted successes and disappointing failures could easily revisit any of our burial grounds.

A child trips over a casket and is helped up, Girod Street Cemetery, 1957. Photo by Robert W. Kelley, LIFE Magazine.

[1] “New Orleans Grave Yards,” The Picayune, September 19, 1837, 2.
[2] Daily Picayune, August 21, 1885, 2.
[3] Leonard Victor Huber and Guy F. Bernard, To Glorious Immortality:  The Rise and Fall of Girod Street Cemetery, New Orleans’ First Protestant Cemetery, 1822-1957 (New Orleans:  Ablen Books, 1961).
​[4] “New Orleans Grave Yards,” The Picayune, September 19, 1837, 2.
[5] Louisiana State House of Representatives, Official Journal of the Proceedings of the House of Representatives of the State of Louisiana (New Orleans:  The New Orleans Democrat Office, 1880), 285.
​[6] “The Crumbling World of Girod Cemetery,” Dixie:  Times-Picayune States Roto Magazine, August 29, 1954, 6-7.
[7] “Historic Cemetery Neglected,” Times-Picayune, June 23, 1945, 10.
​[8] “Old Cemetery to be Rebuilt,” Times-Picayune, December 21, 1947, 3.
[9] “Threaten Razing of Vaults, Tombs, Fate of Old Cemetery to Rest with Lot Owners,” Times-Picayune, October 23, 1945; “Girod Cemetery Inspection Made,” Times-Picayune, October 30, 1945.
[10] “Zulu Chief’s Wish to be Buried with Pomp and Ceremony Fulfilled,” Times-Picayune, August 23, 1948, 24.
​[11] “Old Cemetery to be Rebuilt,” Times-Picayune, December 21, 1947, 3.
[12] “The Crumbling World of Girod Cemetery,” Dixie:  Times-Picayune States Roto Magazine, August 29, 1954, 6-7.
[13] “Girod Cemetery Strip is Sought,” Times-Picayune, November 12, 1954, 1.
[14] “Up and Down the Street:  Book on Girod Cemetery Needs Help,” Times-Picayune, August 15, 1957, 19.
[15] “Old Burial Spot is Sold as Site for U.S. Garage,” Times Picayune, October 4, 1958, 11.