Gentilly, New Orleans

Understand

In the first decade or two of the 20th century, most development in Gentilly was confined to Gentilly Ridge, a narrow stretch of higher ground around Gentilly Road. Most of the rest of the area was farm and pasture land, which tended to get marshy in heavy rains or when Lake Pontchartrain rose above its banks. Starting in the late 1920s, land reclamation projects and the construction of a flood wall along the lakefront opened the area to development. Whatever land that was still vacant in the 1940s was quickly filled with new housing in the post World War II boom.