What was built
- Established or development period
- 1810s
- Peak period
- 1900s–1950s
- Who built the community
- Free people of color, Creoles of color and formerly enslaved families, one of the oldest Black neighborhoods in the United States.
- Black population
- A dense Black and Creole residential population.
- Businesses
- Black-owned businesses along Claiborne Avenue and North Rampart Street.
- Financial institutions
- Not yet documented
- Churches
- St. Augustine Catholic Church, founded 1841 by free people of color.
- Schools
- Not yet documented
- Hospitals
- Not yet documented
- Newspapers
- Not yet documented
- Entertainment & cultural institutions
- Congo Square, the birthplace of much of American jazz, and the brass-band and social-aid-and-pleasure-club tradition.
- Other community institutions
- Not yet documented
- Black land & property ownership
- Property ownership by free people of color dating to the early nineteenth century, among the oldest continuous Black landownership in the country.
- Economic significance
- A historic center of Black property ownership, culture and free Black institutional life.
What happened
- What happened?
- The construction of the elevated Interstate 10 over Claiborne Avenue in the mid-1960s destroyed a canopy of live oaks and the Black commercial corridor beneath it. Earlier, the clearance for Louis Armstrong Park in the 1960s and 1970s demolished blocks of Tremé housing.
- Trigger or precipitating event
- Interstate 10 routing over Claiborne Avenue and the Armstrong Park cultural-center project.
- Underlying historical context
- Highway planners spared the French Quarter after preservationist opposition and routed the expressway through Tremé instead.
- Method of destruction / displacement
- Highway · Urban Renewal · Eminent Domain
- Date or period of destruction
- 1966–1976
- Confirmed / documented deaths
- Not yet documented
- Estimated deaths
- Not yet documented
- People displaced
- Hundreds of households and businesses.
- Homes destroyed
- Blocks of housing cleared for Armstrong Park.
- Businesses destroyed
- Roughly 100–150 Black-owned businesses along Claiborne Avenue.
- Acres or property lost
- Not yet documented
Afterward
- What happened to the land?
- Elevated interstate right-of-way over the neutral ground; Armstrong Park.
- Was compensation paid?
- Condemnation payments for takings.
- Was the community rebuilt?
- Partially
- What was rebuilt?
- Not yet documented
- Destroyed or displaced again?
- Not yet documented
- Second displacement date
- Not yet documented
- Second displacement cause
- Not yet documented
- What exists there today?
- Tremé remains a living neighborhood with Congo Square, the Backstreet Cultural Museum and an active federal-supported study of removing the Claiborne overpass.
- Descendant, reparation & restoration efforts
- The Claiborne Avenue Alliance, federal Reconnecting Communities planning and cultural preservation organizations.
- Historical significance
- One of the oldest Black neighborhoods in America, disrupted by an expressway that spared a white historic district.
Connected records
Sources
- Source lookupFind
National Park Service, New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park
- Source lookupFind
Historic New Orleans Collection
- Source lookupFind
Louisiana Department of Transportation, I-10 Claiborne project records
- Source lookupFind
U.S. Department of Transportation, Reconnecting Communities program documentation
"Find" opens a focused search for legacy references that do not have a stable link; "Open" goes directly to the source.
Last verified: 2026-09-20. This is a living historical collection. Additional communities and documentation will be added as research and verification continue.