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warrior of the year
continued from page 59 Veterans' Association newsletters, American Legion Posts and even word-of-mouth. First there was a trickle of answers, then a cascade. Eventually he compiled oral histories from hundreds of American soldiers.
He not only learned the details of their lives, but he also made new friends. ?I really enjoy those guys. They?re great,? he says.
Not everyone thinks Ambrose is great. Like all prominent writers, he has his critics. There are those who disagree with the conservative tone he has taken for the last several years.
?I think it's natural to become conservative as you get older,? Ambrose says. He goes on to expand what his college landlord told him. ?As your car gets bigger and your income tax does too, what those Republicans are saying about tax cuts begins to have appeal.?
Some Vietnam veterans, some of them students at UNO, take issue with his opposition to that war, despite the fact that he does not voice opposition to the soldiers themselves. And there are history buffs who oppose the very concept of oral history; pointing out that people?s memories are
julia street
continued from page 10
Dear Julia,
My 150-year-old home at 730 Napoleon Ave. has an old house number 82 in the sidewalk in front of my picket iron gate. Some think that when the house was built, it may have been the 82nd house from the river, but that does not seem plausible. Is this possible, or is there another explanation?
Thanks for your consideration.
George C. Koffskey New Orleans
From at least the early 1850s until 1894, when the city adopted its present addressing system, your home?s municipal address was #82 Napoleon Ave. The old system counted from a street?s beginning, assigning odd numbers on one side and even numbers across the street. Discrepancies occurred when lots were subdivided and new homes were erected, modified or demolished. Maps from the late 1870s and early 1880s show your neighborhood as being sparsely developed, so
unreliable and that it is human nature to revise stories in the telling.
And there has been some comment about what has been called the ?jingoistic? thesis of the World War II books - that the children of democracy prove to be more resourceful in adversity than those who are ruled by a dictatorship.
But the fact is, the Americans did win.
The latest controversy involves the ongoing creation of the New Orleans D-Day museum. Its seeds were planted in 1983, when Ambrose founded the UNO Eisenhower Center of American Studies, which has sponsored scholarly conferences and brought distinguished speakers to the school. In 1992, the center sponsored a D-Day re-enactment on Lake Pontchartrain, which included volunteers playing Nazis and GIs storming the beach.
The center also did the bulk of the work in transcribing World War II veterans? oral histories. And then Ambrose got the idea of building a D-Day museum - a place to display some of the fruits of the center's research. The project foundered for years for lack of funding and because Ambrose and certain members of
it seems unlikely that the address indicated an uninterrupted line of single homes between your site and the river and more likely that the building was on the 82nd lot.
Dear Julia,
I have two questions about New Orleans, please. First, was River Road in Orleans Parish named Leake Avenue as a joke? Is or was there someone named Leake?
Second, is it true that, as claimed by a bed-and-breakfast operator, that the owner of the now-gone St. Louis Hotel in the Vieux Carre attempted to contribute to the Civil War effort by patching together women?s petticoats to build a hot-air balloon? If so, did it work? Was it useful?
John Louis Cook-Moulin Kenner
On March 12,1902, Ordinance #1127 of the New Council Series decreed that the road the Illinois Central Railroad had created between Peniston and Protection streets was to be known as Leake. Although the reasoning
the board of directors were arguing about where the museum should be. Ambrose wanted it near UNO. He was taken by the fact that the landing crafts built by New Orleans? Higgins shipyard were tested on Lake Pontchartrain.
In the end, Ambrose decided the opposition was right - people were more likely to visit a museum in the Warehouse District than on the lakefront. Now it?s planned to be near Lee Circle. The Eisenhower Center has already moved from the UNO campus to 923 Magazine St., and the museum is to be next door. Builders raided archives for blueprints of the landing craft that is being replicated for the museum.
The opening date, which he'd originally hoped would be June 6, 1994, was pushed back to 1997, then 1999 and is now set for 2000, the 56th anniversary of the Normandy invasion. But with the resurgence of interest in the war thanks to the Spielberg movie, it looks likely this date will become a reality.
If so, Ambrose may be forgiven if he once more becomes lost in that moment. This will be his D-Day, and he will be leading the charge. o(c
behind the naming is not explained, it seems to be a safe bet that the street was named for Hunter C. Leake, a prominent local attorney who had worked for the Illinois Central Railroad for more than half a century. Well-known in social circles, Leake was Rex 1910.
I?m not quite so certain about the veracity of the ballooning tale. Although I am aware of a number of local ballooning stories, I was unable to verify the story about the St. Louis Hotel and the petticoats. Although it?s a great story, I would not put much faith in it. Think about it.
New' Orleans, at that time, was one of the country?s busiest ports. Sails would have been in plentiful supply and would have been much more suitable balloon material than petticoats could have been, even if the hotel manager had borrowed unmentionables from a large number of generously proportioned lady guests. One would also assume that the St. Louis, as one of the city?s more prominent hostelries, would have access to bed sheets and tablecloths. Furthermore, there are better places to launch a spy balloon than the top of a downtown hotel.	rip
116 NEW ORLEANS DECEMBER 1998