Greenway beginnings

1830s:The Old Basin, or Old Carondelet Canal was excavated for drainage and navigation (row boats), between the city and Lake Ponchartrain. It ended at Basin Street, and was infilled in the 1920s, when it became railroad tracks and Lafitte Avenue.


1871: Bonnet Carre river crevasse. A giant break in the levee upriver pushed so much water into the lake that the Hagan Avenue levee broke
Drawing of 1871 flood



By the mid-1950s, Bayou St. John again needed sprucing up. This unusual shot of a waterless waterway shows the bayou in July of 1955. That summer the Sewerage and Water Board drained the bayou to clean out trash and aquatic growth that were causing, literally, a big stink. [Louisiana Photograph Collection. Municipal Government Collection; Sewerage and Water Board Series]
Source: http://nutrias.org/~nopl/exhibits/ccmem/10.htm