Historic places are inherently fascinating and serve as touchstones to a bygone era. However, when a specific place intersects with a specific time, it becomes the material for making memories.
Just ask reader Suzon Evans. She recently wrote that she wanted to fill in the blanks from her youth in the 1950s.
“I was born with no sense of direction, and until I became a driver, I lived my life relying on the kindness of everyone who took me to and from work. I had no idea where I was and was very happy,” she wrote. “Now that I’m older, I’m really curious about where my old high school and college hangouts were, because they’re no longer there.”
Specifically, she named two of her favorite hotspots: Tortrich's and Sail Inn. I remember that these were next to each other in “a body of water near Lake Pontchartrain.”
The Sail Inn was a multigenerational hangout. Evans said she remembers her mother visiting here in her own youth. But Evans' memories center on Tautrich's jukebox, filled with his finest R&B records.
“Both it and the sail-in were bare-bones and extremely popular,” Evans recalls. “It goes back to the days of Flatts and Cats, and they both used to hang out at Tortrich's house. He'd love to read any information he can find about those two places.”
As it turns out, Evans' early years were spent in the same area of the city where generations of New Orleanians sought entertainment for more than a century: the West End.
And that body of water they were in? It was the last remaining section of the New Basin Canal.
The common story of the Sail Inn and Tortlich begins in the 1830s, when canals were built along the route of today's Pontchartrain Boulevard and the Pontchartrain Expressway, providing a means of transporting goods by sea to the city's American division. Founded to provide backdoors.
Originally called New Lake End, the West End quickly became a lakeside resort and entertainment area for locals who traded the stifling downtown for the cool lake breeze.
In his 1838 book Life on the Mississippi River, Mark Twain recalled his visit to the West End, writing, “It was a hotel in the usual bright summer resort pattern, with wide verandas all around, and wide waves crashing. “are gathering,” he said. And then there's the blue Lake Pontchartrain lapping at the border. We had dinner on the ground veranda over the water. The main dish was the famous fish called pompano, which was delicious for a lesser sin.
“Thousands of people come every night by train or horse-drawn carriage to the West End or Spanish Fort to eat, listen to a band, walk outdoors under electric lights, sail on the lake, I enjoy it in many different ways.”
In 1880, the Southern Yacht Club was established in the West End, giving people another reason to flock there. Photographs from the early 20th century show the promenade's promenade, roller coasters, and Mystic Swing attraction, as well as a nearby dance pavilion and bandstand.
It was around the same time that New York businessman William “Pop” Locke introduced movies to New Orleans in 1896, installing temporary theaters in the West End and using streetcar lines to provide electricity.
Within a month, Locke and his business partners moved to Canal Street and established Vitascope Hall, recognized as America's first permanent commercial movie theater.
The West End then became a hotbed for live jazz performances that inspired Joe “King” Oliver’s “West End Blues” (a song covered by Louis Armstrong).
As the years passed, the West End's look continued to evolve, but it still remained a local entertainment destination.
By the 1950s, most of the New Basin Canal had been filled in, except for a half-mile section in the West End, which was still used regularly by local recreational boaters. Like the rest of the region, the canal was dotted with restaurants serving food fresh from the lake, and once the sun went down, there was a lively nightlife.
That includes the Sail Inn Bar, founded in the early 1930s by Albert J. Carpenter at 8658 Pontchartrain Boulevard, a small piece of land that separates the Old Canal from the Orléans Marina. Located just down the road from the Yacht Club, the store advertised itself as the “Yachtsman's Headquarters,” serving sandwiches, beer, liquor, and ice.
The way Evans remembers Tortrich's is different from Tortrich's Italian Restaurant, which was featured in this space in March. That legendary local restaurant was located completely inland at the corner of Royal and St. Louis Streets in the French-His Quarter.
But Tortorish was plentiful and operated numerous eateries over the years.
Among them was Charles P. Tortrich, who in 1946 applied for a liquor license for the Tortrich Bar and Restaurant at 8364 Pontchartrain Boulevard, on the same street as Carpenter's Sail Inn.
By 1955, Tortrich had sold to a new owner, John Waller, but was arrested that summer and charged with selling alcohol to a minor. Within two years, this address was associated with a new business, his Dogpatch Inn.
By that time, Carpenter had retired and sold the Sail Inn to new owners, who operated it under the same name for a while.
It's unclear exactly when the Sail Inn sailed off into the sunset for good, but the fate of the West End was determined by the one-two blows of Hurricane Georges in 1998 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005. It worsened rapidly.
I have not fully recovered yet.
But the stretch of New Basin Canal that Evans remembers is still lined with apartment buildings, albeit on a somewhat quieter footing.
source: Times-Picayune archives. data center. Library of Congress.
Do you know of a New Orleans building that deserves to be featured in this column? Or are you just curious? Contact Mike Scott at moviegoermike@gmail.com.