The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation’s Tremé Creole Gumbo Fest pays homage to one of New Orleans’ most historically significant neighborhoods—the Faubourg Tremé. While enjoying the live music and food and crafts on offer in Louis Armstrong Park, take time to imagine how this area would have looked, sounded, and tasted when it was home to Congo Square—the site where prior to the Civil War, enslaved Africans were permitted to congregate, sell goods in the open-air market, and sing and dance.
Congo Square: "Tremé's Town Square"
Originally Morand Plantation and brickyard, this plot on the north side (or the lake side) of the French Quarter was purchased by hat maker and real estate developer Claude Tremé near the end of the eighteenth century. By 1810, Tremé had sold most of the property, which was bordered by Rampart Street, Canal Street, Esplanade Avenue, and Broad Street. Two years later, it was subdivided into developments, and the Faubourg Tremé was incorporated into New Orleans. Early occupants included many immigrants and free people of color, and Congo Square served as the neighborhood’s “town square” throughout much of the nineteenth century.
Historic Homes, Churches, Museums, and Music Venues
Today, the Tremé Historic District contains many Creole cottages that date from the 1830s, townhouses from the 1840s, and double shotguns built in the 1880s and 1890s. St. Augustine Roman Catholic Church, built in 1841 as the City’s first racially integrated church, still stands as a testament to the neighborhood’s past.
Twelve former residential blocks of the original Faubourg Tremé are now occupied by the 31-acre Louis Armstrong Park. Home to the Mahalia Jackson Theater for the Performing Arts and countless statues and water features, the park is dedicated to New Orleans’ native son, Louis Armstrong, and the city’s jazz tradition. In fact, the Tremé neighborhood is the birthplace of many of the city’s most famous jazz and brass musicians.
The Backstreet Cultural Museum celebrates the Tremé’s unique musical and cultural heritage by housing the world’s most comprehensive collection of Mardi Gras Indian costumes and jazz funeral and social aid and pleasure club memorabilia. Stop by and you might see a second-line parading past or catch the North Side Skull and Bone Gang and Mardi Gras Indians congregate here on Mardi Gras day. Experience the best of the Tremé November 9 and 10, 2024, at the Tremé Creole Gumbo Fest.
