The Cabildo, Chartres Street, June 1936

The Cabildo fills the right half of the frame, its east facade running along the pavement of Chartres Street. The photograph is upright, taken at pavement level from the east side of the street, with the building line falling away into the distance on the left. The ground floor is an arcade of round arches on square piers, the plaster mottled and stained, each arch opening into shadow. Above the arcade a second-storey gallery repeats the arches on paired columns, with wrought-iron railings in a lace pattern between them. A third storey rises above that, and at the top right a mansard roof with a dormer leans against the pale sky. The kerb curves toward the camera, and the pavement is bright enough to throw the ground-floor arcade into contrast.

Centered in the facade, a triangular pediment carries a sculpted relief of an eagle with spread wings, flags, and a shield, but only part of the relief shows, in profile against the sky. A large American flag hangs from a pole angled out over the second-storey gallery, its stripes catching the light. On the pavement under the arcade, two men walk away from the camera, one in a light shirt and trousers with a hat, the other in a white shirt and dark trousers, both slightly blurred. On the left, a car passing close to the camera has blurred into a dark streak; farther down the street are parked cars, a delivery truck, a boy in the road, and a man standing at a corner by a street sign. The far side of Chartres is a row of three-storey buildings with cast-iron galleries at the first and second floors, a shop sign reading REGA, and a strip of awning beyond. At the end of the street, tall office blocks rise in haze. A power line and a lamp standard cross the middle distance. Along the left edge, in white hand-lettering on the film's rebate, is the survey number.

Richard Koch, June 1936

The catalogue record for the negative is concise. Richard Koch made the photograph in June 1936 for the Historic American Buildings Survey. The subject is recorded as the Cabildo, 711 Chartres Street, New Orleans, Orleans Parish. The medium is a black-and-white negative, 5 by 7 inches. The survey's number is written in white in the film rebate along the left edge, and the record's title calls the exposure Facade from the east (View No. 1). The record does not say what hour the exposure was made, what the temperature was, who the two men on the pavement were, or what the passing car was. It does name the men who put the building together: Don Gilberto Guillemard as architect and Don Andres Almonester y Rojas as builder. It also names Louis Surgi for the mansard roof, dated 1847. The documentation was compiled after 1933. The image is a federal survey photograph, public domain.

The two men under the arcade

The frame shows a working New Orleans street in June, though season has to be read from clothing and light rather than from anything in the catalogue. The men under the arcade wear shirtsleeves, the flag hangs in full cloth, the pavement is white with sun. The car on the left moved fast enough to blur; the parked cars, truck, and boy in the road date the street to the 1930s. By 1936 the building behind them was the Louisiana State Museum, and the site had a longer history than the negative records. The Cabildo was the Spanish council house, put up in 1799, and in December 1803 the transfer of Louisiana took place inside it.

The arcade forms a covered walk along the east side of Chartres, and the two men are walking in its shade while the car passes in open sun. Farther down, the boy in the road stands in the middle of the street, and the man at the corner waits by the street sign. The far-side galleries repeat the vertical rhythm of the Cabildo's columns, so the street reads as a line of iron and plaster before it narrows into the office blocks and haze.

What the photograph does not show is the interior where that transfer happened, or the full height of the mansard roof, or the square and cathedral that stand beside the building. The frame is pointed down Chartres Street, not toward them. It takes the east facade and the street in front of it, then lets the block end in office towers and haze. The record gives the street, the month, and the maker; it says nothing about the weather, the time, or the identities of the two men. The car on the left is a dark streak, anonymous. What the negative preserves is the length of the arcade, the flag over the gallery, and the way the pavement holds the light. The Cabildo rises in the top right corner of the frame, where the mansard roof cuts against the pale sky.

Louisiana State Museum