Michael T. Martin

culture & the contemporary city

“The Stroll, hep vernacular for black Main Street, was the backbone of the chitlin’ circuit from the ’30s-’60s. While researching the circuit in Indianapolis, Houston, New Orleans, and Macon, I always checked out the stroll to see what was left, and found parking lots, on-ramps, or strip malls. I think the fact that these places were paved over is an important aspect of the circuit’s obscurity as it relates to American culture.”  (via Preston Lauterbach)

“The Stroll, hep vernacular for black Main Street, was the backbone of the chitlin’ circuit from the ’30s-’60s. While researching the circuit in Indianapolis, Houston, New Orleans, and Macon, I always checked out the stroll to see what was left, and found parking lots, on-ramps, or strip malls. I think the fact that these places were paved over is an important aspect of the circuit’s obscurity as it relates to American culture.”  (via Preston Lauterbach)

What exactly, if any, is the link between that [shotgun] housing and these shotgun tracts on the banks of the Big Muddy?” [Quite possibly] the area’s French colonial heritage. Compare with the seigniorial system, introduced in Canada in 1627. As the St Lawrence River was the highway of the new-founded colony of New France (present-day Quebec), it made sense for the authorities to treat her busy banks as highly valuable real estate. The riverbanks were divided into narrow strips of land, each called a seigneurie (4).  This frontage system survived the British takeover of Canada by at least a century; to this day, the so-called long lots determine much of riverine Quebec’s geography.  Similar considerations were at work on the banks of that other great river highway in that other French possession in North America, the Mississippi in Louisiana. Since the shape of these long lots is intimately linked to their value, and hence their taxability, it requires no great leap of the imagination to presume that such a frontage tax could be transposed from the banks of a busy river to the sides of a busy street.

What exactly, if any, is the link between that [shotgun] housing and these shotgun tracts on the banks of the Big Muddy?”

[Quite possibly] the area’s French colonial heritage. Compare with the seigniorial system, introduced in Canada in 1627. As the St Lawrence River was the highway of the new-founded colony of New France (present-day Quebec), it made sense for the authorities to treat her busy banks as highly valuable real estate. The riverbanks were divided into narrow strips of land, each called a seigneurie (4).  This frontage system survived the British takeover of Canada by at least a century; to this day, the so-called long lots determine much of riverine Quebec’s geography.

 Similar considerations were at work on the banks of that other great river highway in that other French possession in North America, the Mississippi in Louisiana. Since the shape of these long lots is intimately linked to their value, and hence their taxability, it requires no great leap of the imagination to presume that such a frontage tax could be transposed from the banks of a busy river to the sides of a busy street.