New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park
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| New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park | |
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| IUCN Category V (Protected Landscape/Seascape) | |
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| Location | New Orleans, Louisiana, USA |
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| Area | 4 acres (16,000 m²) |
| Established | October 31, 1994 |
| Visitors | 40,242 (in 2005) |
| Governing body | National Park Service |
New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park celebrates the origins and evolution of America’s most widely recognized indigenous musical art form, jazz. The National Park Service leases four acres within Louis Armstrong Park, which is located in the Treme neighborhood of New Orleans, Louisiana. The park has an office, visitors center, and concert venue a several blocks away in the French Quarter.
The park provides a setting to share the cultural history of the people and places that helped shape the development and progression of jazz in New Orleans. The park preserves information and resources associated with the origins and early development of jazz through interpretive techniques designed to educate and entertain.
[edit] Perseverance Hall No. 4
The centerpiece of the site is Perseverance Hall No. 4 (not to be confused with Preservation Hall). Originally a Masonic lodge, it was built by white citizens between 1819 and 1820. It is the oldest Masonic temple in Louisiana. Its historic significance is based on its use for dances, where black jazz performers and bands reportedly played for black or white audiences. Although the building was used for social functions such as weddings and balls where jazz musicians performed, these uses have only been occasionally documented, perhaps because many pertinent masonic records have been destryoyed. During the early 1900s some bands, such as the Golden Rule Band, were barred from appearing at Perseverance Hall, apparently because management considered them too unidignified for the place. Various organizations, both black and white, rented Perseverance Hall for dances, concerts, Monday night banquets, and recitals. The building also served as a terminal point for Labor Day parades involving white and black bands. During the 1920s and 1930s, well past the formative years of jazz, various jazz bands played there.[1]
Perseverance Hall was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 2, 1973. The entire National Historical Park was administratively listed on the Register on the date of its authorizaton, October 31, 1994.
[edit] References
- The National Parks: Index 2001–2003. Washington: U.S. Department of the Interior.
- ^ National Park Service. Perseverance Hall No. 4. Retrieved on June 7, 2006.
[edit] External links
- Official NPS website: New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park
- Old NPS website (has more information about the structures and history of the park): New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park
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