Navarre, New Orleans

Navarre is a neighborhood of the city of New Orleans, Louisiana.

Navarre is part of the 4th Ward of New Orleans. It is bounded by City Park to the east, I-610 across which is the Lakeview neighborhood to the north, I-10 (formerly the route of the New Basin Canal) to the west, and City Park Avenue (formerly Bayou Metairie Road) to the south, across which is Mid City New Orleans.

The neighborhood includes Delgado Community College, the local Public Broadcasting Service television station WYES-12 studios, and Greenwood, St. Patrick, and Holt cemeteries. Most of the rest of the neighborhood is residential. predominenently white middle class and working class, with a smattering of neighborhood businesses.

History

At the start of the 19th century what would become Navarre was mostly undeveloped swamp land a good distance from the developed parts of the young city along the Mississippi River. The narrow high ground along side Bayou Metairie became a road, along the sides of which farmland was developed. The first of the area's important landmarks to be developed was Greenwood Cemetery, in 1852. The Canal Street, City Park, and Lake Pontchartrain Railway ran along one edge of the neighborhood on its way out along side the Orleans Canal to Old Spanish Fort on Lake Pontchartrain. Otherwise, the land after a distance equivilent of a couple blocks back from Metarie Road was swamp.

The 1880s and 1890s saw the first work at reclaiming the swampland in the area for development, and by the early 20th century the area back to Florida Avenue was largely drained. There was substantial development, mostly as white middle class residential single family homes, in the 1920s. The area in the back section of Navarre was the site of the United Fruit Company radio facilities, until it was redeveloped residentally in the 1940s.

Navarre experienced serious flooding in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.