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New Orleans, 1937. "Courtyard entrance, 1133-1135 Chartres St." Seen here from another courtyard. Photo by Frances Benjamin Johnston. View full size.
My wife and I stayed in that hotel about 20 years ago. Our room was the one just to the left of the entrance to the courtyard. This place has been updated considerably since we stayed there, judging from the photos at their website.
Not a great shot on Google Maps, but good enough that you can tell some of the same architecture is still there today.
You have to love the French Quarter, then and now.
I remember visiting N.O. back in the late 80's and even then most of these once ornate balconies looked as they do in the picture. ( Pretty shaky)
It's as if nary any maintenance was ever performed over the 100 plus years.
At that time there were many in the French Qtr. that had temporary scaffolding underneath to help support them.
...for the next Anne Rice novel.
I would have known, without the caption, that this photo was not taken before 1934.
The meter to the left of the arch is a General Electric I-20S, and the one to the right is a Westinghouse CS. Both are socket-base meters, which are still completely interchangeable with modern meters in modern sockets, although these early models can only handle 60 amps in most cases.
The CS was introduced in 1933, supplanting an earlier Westinghouse socket design. It satisfied the desire of utilities for a convenient and weatherproof outdoor mounting, as the costs and headaches of indoor meters were becoming unbearable. The following year, the industry had a convention which standardized this and other socket mountings. Outdoor sockets were immediately adopted by many utilities, and became universal for new orders by the 1960s.
Here is a photo of a CS from my personal collection. The serial number identifies it as a 1934 model.
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