 In 2010, HBO released a series called Tremay. This series was set in post-Katrina, New Orleans, and of course took place in the Tremay, which happens to be the oldest African American neighborhood in the United States. It also happens to be the home of Congo Square. But before we go any further, you know what to do. Please hit that subscribe button and give us a like. As always, a very, very special thank you to all of our producers and our Patreons. I am truly, truly humbled and grateful for all of your support. We definitely could not do this without you. If you would like to join our Patreon community, there is a link down in the description box below. Welcome to Esoteric Atlanta. My name is Bryce and today on part two of our deep dive into Voodoo, we're going to be talking about the Tremay. Now the Tremay neighborhood again is a very historic neighborhood. It's about a mile and a half from the French Quarter in New Orleans. However, when New Orleans was founded in 1718, the area that was the Tremay was technically outside of the city of New Orleans. The four streets that surround the Tremay are the North Broad Street, Espelanda Avenue, St. Louis Street, and North Rampart Street. Now on North Rampart Street in the beginning times of New Orleans, there was a wall and a fort. On the other side of that wall and that fort was what we call Congo Square. So if you missed our part one into Congo Square, I will place a link to that video down in the description box below. But if you remember from that video, we talked about how the African-Americans, the slaves, would have Sundays off. And so they would hop the wall to go to this particular area to meet on Sundays to dance and to celebrate with their own cultural heritage. As we mentioned in part one, this area then became a very, very special place for the people of African heritage then, as well as now. And because within the African heritage, there was the religion of Voodoo, this became a very important area for Voodoo practitioners. The area around this Congo Square was called the Morand Plantation. And in the late 1700s, a man named Claude Tremay bought the plantation. Now something very interesting about Claude Tremay, he was a white hat maker who had married Julie Moreau. Julie Moreau was a free woman of color. Now this idea of having slaves and free people of color is something we are going to be discussing in part three of our breakdown of Voodoo. Now in today's modern society, this would be no big deal, a white man and a black woman married. No one would give it a second thought. But back in the late 1700s, this was really something that was making a huge statement. So from the very beginning of its inception, this area that became known as the Tremay, named after old Claude Tremay himself, was a haven for the slaves and the free people of color In 1794, a canal was built through this piece of land. And this in a way kind of divided the land. Now this canal is still in use today, but in a very different way, which we will get to. In 1810, Claude Tremay sold his property to the city. But every Sunday up until the Civil War, the citizens of African descent would meet again at Congo Square. Now in the 1860s, during the Civil War, the dancing of course on Sunday died down. Now there was never any real battles that happened in New Orleans because New Orleans surrendered pretty quickly. But if you can imagine, when your country is in the middle of pulling itself apart, business as usual is not business as usual. In the 1890s, the city of New Orleans tried to cover up the fact that this area, including Congo Square, was predominantly a black area. So they renamed Congo Square Beauregard Square. And in the early 20th century, the city put in a playground and a swimming pool. But because of segregation, it was only for white children. Now even though this pool and this playground seems horribly racist, which of course it is, in some weird way, it ended up preserving Congo Square because you see by the 1920s, the city decided to build a theater near the area. And they would have built the theater right on top of Congo Square if it wasn't for the pool and playground. So you see how the devil will make things for bad, but God will use them for good. There's a prime example of that. Because of this really racist playground and pool, Congo Square was able to actually be preserved and would eventually be brought back to what it is today as Congo Square. Now historically, the 1920s is an important marker. For some reason, the 1920s is when historians say this is when our modern age started. I don't know if this timeline will shift the more we get into the future or how they determine that, but literally that's just kind of the agreed upon marker. So the 1920s, we're looking into the modern age. And if you remember from our previous breakdowns of some of the stories based around New Orleans, the 1920s is when New Orleans got the nickname the Big Easy. If you've missed some of our previous content, I will put a link to the playlist on New Orleans down in the description box below. I believe it was our episode on the Vampire Brothers, Carter Brothers, where we talked about New Orleans being the Big Easy in the 1920s. The 1920s was the Roaring 20s. And of course, the Roaring 20s was met by the Great Depression. But after we swung back around from the Great Depression into World War II, we come into the 1960s. And this is when New Orleans started to receive a lot of tourism. They were starting to build hotels around New Orleans and all the culture and the scandals that New Orleans is known for started to become tools for marketing to grow the city's economy. When this happened, the city decided to create an urban renewal project. From the beginning of the urban renewal project in the 1960s, the city would go on to expand and recreate the park for the next decade. On top of the Mahalo Jackson Theater for performing arts, they would also end up building the New Orleans Municipal Auditorium and the New Orleans Jazz National Historic Park, which consists of several buildings. Now, Congo Square is directly in front of the New Orleans Municipal Auditorium. But in the 1970s, a lot of eyes would be on the trommée when Louis Armstrong Park would go on to host the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Now, remember how I told you that in 1794, a canal was built? Well, that canal is now known as the Lafitte Greenway. Now, we in Atlanta have something a little bit like this. We call this the Belt Line. It's this old railroad that loops around the city of Atlanta where you can walk it, you can bike it. And in some parts of the city, there's actually restaurants and entertainment on the actual Belt Line. Some areas of the city, people are using the Belt Line to exercise to ride and then other areas of the city, people are using the Belt Line to find dates. But nonetheless, this interactive Greenway or Belt Line called Lafitte Greenway in New Orleans is something that's very, very modern. It's considered a bike and pedestrian trail and it goes all the way to Bayou St. John. The whole Greenway is about 2.6 miles. Now, something very interesting that's also located in the trommée in Louis Armstrong Park is a Masonic Lodge. This is the preservation Masonic Lodge number four. It's a Scottish Rite Lodge that was chartered in New Orleans by refugees after the Haitian Revolution. And don't you worry, we're going to talk about the Haitian Revolution in part three because like the trommée, like Congo Square, the Haitian Revolution has a lot to do with the culture and the faith of Voodoo that's found in New Orleans. Now, the first floor of the lodge was rented out for public events and the upper floor where they did their Masonic rites and had their dances is where they incorporated in more of a business way the early jazz bands that were birthed in Congo Square. Now, in 1970, this Masonic Lodge was preserved by the city. It was preserved because of its historic significance to the birth of jazz because even today the trommée is still a predominantly creole neighborhood where that modern brass band tradition can be found. Now, I debated on whether covering the trommée or not because I know the focus is Voodoo for this part of our deep dive into New Orleans. And even though I couldn't find anything too scandalous about the trommée besides, you know, the Masonic Lodge, but I wanted to recognize the trommée and I don't know about you guys, but it's interesting to sit back and look at the progression of something that we have culturally. One sometimes can't exist without the other. If Voodoo had not been made illegal, if it was forced upon the slaves to be baptized Catholic, if they were banned from dancing in the city and therefore had to jump the fence on Sundays to dance in the area that became Congo Square, would we even now have a Congo Square? And if that happened, would there ever have been the birth of jazz? I love jazz music. So you see how one action that can be seen as negative can actually catapult humanity into something quite positive. We as humans have come a long way since the 1700s. We as humans have come a long way since five years ago, to be honest with you. And even though, as I said, there wasn't much scandal on this part of our deep dive into the history of Voodoo in New Orleans, I did think it was necessary to give the trommée its own episode. When the day comes that I am able to get back to New Orleans, I am looking forward to going to Louis Armstrong Park. I'm looking forward to going on the left feet to Greenway. And I'm looking forward to honoring all the people that came before us that gave us this rich American culture because that's the thing about the American culture. We are a melting pot. We are an eclectic group of people who come from all over the world. Our culture should be shared. So I thank you guys so much for sitting through this video. One thing I did look for for the trommée, but I couldn't find a whole lot, was ghost stories. I was hoping to find some ghost stories in the trommée because, wow, what a history there is there. I'm sure there's some very interesting stories there, but I really couldn't find that much. I was kind of disappointed. So if you know any ghost stories revolving around the trommée, if you're from the trommée, if you have any type of interesting stories you want to share, please feel free to do so in the comment section below. Part 3 will air next week where we're going to go into the Haitian Revolution and what that meant for the citizens of New Orleans and what that meant for the practitioners of Voodoo. Alright guys, I hope you're having a wonderful week. The best is yet to come. Keep your head held high, keep smiling, keep loving each other, and I'll talk to you soon.