427 S Rampart St
New Orleans, LA 70163, USA

Karnofsky Tailor Shop-House (Model Tailors) - National Register of Historic Places

Statement of Significance:

The building at 427-431 South Rampart is locally significant within the context of New Orleans’ African-American history as a rare survivor to represent a once flourishing entertainment/business district which stretched for several blocks along South Rampart, from roughly Canal to Howard. Sadly, the area today is one of surface parking lots, and in some stretches, modern buildings. There are about a dozen historic buildings remaining, sprinkled here and there. Most of these are vacant and have been threatened with demolition over the years. Collectively and individually these buildings have survived against considerable odds. The period of significance spans from c.1910, the date of construction, to the current fifty-year cutoff of 1952. (South Rampart’s decline as a commercial and entertainment hub began in the late 1950s/early ‘60s.)
In the first half of the twentieth century. South Rampart Street was a happening place lined with drugstores, saloons, barber shops, clubs (live music venues), combination grocery stores/saloons, secondhand stores, pawn shops, etc. Seniors who knew South Rampart first-hand in its heyday used phrases like “hub of black life” or “main street for blacks in New Orleans” when they were interviewed for this nomination. One man remarked “it had everything we needed.” In an era of rigid segregation South Rampart was the home of three hotels, the Astoria, the Patterson, and the Page, plus a few rooming houses. [None of the hotels survive.] The Astoria had a cocktail lounge, a restaurant, a gambling hall in the back, and a legendary club, the Tic-Toc, upstairs. (Various greats played the Tic-Toc during the historic period, including Ray Charles and Louis Armstrong.) Particularly prominent was the corner of South Rampart Street and Perdida with its three-story Odd Fellows/Masonic Hall complex, with the Eagle Saloon below. (In the 1930s and ‘40s the ground floor front was occupied first by the Dixie Beer Parlor and then the Main Liquor Store, per city directories.) And as can be imagined, a street with so many entertainment venues and saloons had its share of characters. Interviewees recall “Overall Bill” and “Alabama Slim” - both of whom earned their living gambling.

South Rampart was part of “back of town,” one of the city’s most important neighborhoods in the development of early jazz. Immortalized with the 1930s tune South Rampart Street Parade, the several block long strips were the fairly respectable edge of so-called “black Storyville,” a neighborhood immediately to the rear known for it brothels, honkytonks, and violence. The other commercial hub for the city’s large African American population was just upriver, along Dryades Street. But each occupied a special niche. If you wanted manufactured clothes and furniture, you went to the large stores (some chains) along Dryades. South Rampart businesses were more varied and tended to be small mom-and-pop places. The street was particularly known for its numerous tailor shops and entertainment venues. Having a custom-made suit was particularly important - it was a sign that you had “made it,” so-to-speak. In contrast to the welcoming environment along Dryades and South Rampart, blacks could make purchases in the large white-owned stores of New Orleans but they were not allowed to try anything on.

A New Orleans television producer, in a recent retrospective piece, capsulized South Rampart’s importance thusly: “They came to shop, they came to promenade, they came dressed up, but for whatever reason they came to South Rampart Street. It was their Canal [shopping] and their Bourbon [entertainment].” The “they” were mostly African-Americans with a healthy mixture of Jews, Italians and Chinese. Many Jews were proprietors of South Rampart’s tailor shops and pawn shops. (The latter, known then as “loan offices” and/or “pledge shops,” were the favorite haunts of musicians who pawned their instruments between gigs.) Grocery stores tended to be owned and/or operated by Italians.

An important component of South Rampart’s clientele was the “excursion” crowd (as they were termed by interviewees). These were people from nearby rural areas who were drawn like magnets to South Rampart on Friday evening and Saturday, typically arriving by train or bus, and often staying the night in a hotel or rooming house. For country folks coming to town took on a holiday air. As one observer noted, referring to the crowds, “You couldn’t get on this street [South Rampart] on Friday evening and Saturday.”

Like other traditional shopping areas. South Rampart’s decline began in the late 1950s/early ‘60s. Add to this general trend the street’s location on the edge of the New Orleans CBD, making it a natural for parking. The surface parking mania was fueled with the destruction in the late 1950s of “black Storyville” for a municipal complex and other government buildings. Today, of the over 1(X) brick party wall buildings that once lined a several block stretch, only about a dozen remain, scattered here and there. And, as noted above, almost all are vacant and periodically threatened with outright demolition. (Demolition by neglect is a constant.) The three being nominated in the 4(X) blocks are the subject of a cooperative endeavor among three parties: Jerome “PopaGee” Johnson, executive director. New Orleans Music Hall of Fame, Inc, who acquired an exclusive lease/purchase agreement in January 2002; the New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park; and the New Orleans Jazz Commission, whose members are appointed by the Secretary of the Department of the Interior. The latter two are working with Mr. Johnson to formulate plans and secure funding for the buildings’ restoration and re-use as educational museums/tourist attractions.

Historical background on 427-31 South Rampart:

The exact construction date of the building at 427-31 South Rampart has not been documented. A different building is in its location on the 1908 Sanborn map. The next map for New Orleans is not until 1935, by which time, of course, the candidate has appeared. Given the architectural character of the building, the LA SHPO staff has dated it early in that range (c. 1910). While it has had various occupants over the years, the most famous in local jazz circles are the Karnofskys, a Jewish family that has attained almost mythical status for befriending a young Louis Armstrong, who was born and grew up in violence and vice-ridden “black Storyville.”

Armstrong relates in unpublished memoirs that as a youngster he worked for Louis Karnofsky’s junk business. He recalls quite lovingly the nurturing atmosphere of the Karnofsky home, where he was made welcome, asked to stay for dinner, etc. Very importantly, he writes of blowing a “small tin horn” as he worked on the Karnofsky wagon and the Karnofskys loaning him money on his salary to buy a “real horn” he’d seen in a pawn shop window. As tempting as it is to link these compelling remembrances to the candidate, it cannot be documented. In fact, the home that provided Armstrong such nurturing could just as easily have been a previous Karnofsky residence. The Karnofskys lived in a tenement on Girod Street, a few blocks from Armstrong’s own home, until 1913, when they moved to 427 South Rampart (as documented in city directories). By this time Armstrong was 12. He spent the better part of 1913 and 1914 in the Colored Waifs Home. Presumably he renewed his friendship with the Karnofskys at their new home, for he kept up with them during his career, but a strong Armstrong connection with the candidate cannot be documented at present. In particular the LA SHPO is aware of no documentation for the suggestion that Armstrong worked for the Karnofskys in their business at 427 South Rampart.


Photo by Donna Fricker