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New Orleans circa 1906. "Haunted House (Warrington House), Royal and Hospital Streets." 8x10 inch glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size.
Between 2006 and 2009, this building was one of actor Nicolas Cage's fifteen homes around the world. Deep in debt to banks and the IRS, Cage lost the mansion through a foreclosure. The sheriff's sale price in 2009 was about $1 million less than Cage's real-estate business paid for it in the 2006 pre-real-estate-crash market.
Cumberland Telephone Company bought out its competitor Public Telephone in 1900, becoming the only phone company in New Orleans. They advertised rates as low as $1 a month for homes and $2 for businesses. Their ads didn't mention pay calls, however, which were 15¢ per. If that was still the charge when this photo was taken, calling home to tell the wife you were running late would have cost about $3.89 in today's dollars.
What the name of the telephone company on the Pay Station sign?
It looks like it is part of the Bell System. The breakup of the original AT&T must have erased a lot of local phone company names. In the Washington, D.C. area the AT&T-owned phone company used to be C&P, Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone. With the AT&T breakup it became part of Bell Atlantic and the name was lost. Bell Atlantic became Verizon. C&P seems like a lot friendlier name than Verizon.
Such wonderful memories! Grandparents lived in Belle Chase; shopping trips to the City, by ferry, with stop for oysters and hot sauce with Regal Beer in Gretna on the way home. Wonderful.
Hospital Street has been renamed Governor Nicholls Street. You can read the history of the building here.
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