CLG Review of 917-919 N Tonti Street

The following is excerpted from the National Register of Historic Places Registration Form.  For additional information, see full report included below. 

The Castle Family House is a rectilinear, two bay, double shotgun house in the Craftsman Bungalow style. The home is a wood framed structure with an integrated front porch, raised on masonry piers, and covered by a gabled roof. The porch is framed by three masonry pedestals each topped by two square wooden columns extending to the roof line of the porch. The house at one point had a metal awning on the façade which was not original and has been removed. Other than the removal of the awning, and an updated bathroom on the 919 side, the house is substantially the same as during the Castle Family’s residency. The house sits on a rectangular lot that measures 33’ x 125’. There is a non-contributing outbuilding at the rear of the property approximately 15 feet from the house, which is the width of the property and extends to the rear lot line. The house is set within the city of New Orleans’ Tremé historic district. The house is also situated within the Esplanade Ridge National Historic District. The Castle family were deeply involved in both the local and national civil rights movement of the late fifties and early sixties. Their house was the birthplace of the New Orleans Congress on Racial Equality (C.O.R.E.).  Throughout this period the Castle House remained a refuge and safe house for participants in the Civil Rights movement from all over the country.  Despite superficial alterations like window changes and removal of the awning, the property remains eligible for NR listing.

The Castle Family House is nationally and locally significant under Criterion A in the areas of Social History, Politics and Government, and Ethnic Heritage: Black, due to the Castle family’s role in the local and national civil rights movement. The period of significance 1960 – 1965, reflects the years that the Castle family house was the headquarters, meeting place, and safe house for local and national civil rights leaders, largely via the New Orleans Chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), for which Oretha Castle Haley served as President from 1961-1964. Oretha Castle Haley’s impact on the civil rights movement has been recognized by the city of New Orleans which renamed a section of Dryades Street in her honor. Recognition of the role of the Castle Family and their home in the pursuit of civil rights will allow the house to stand again as it did in the 1960s, as a source of education and community connection, and will elucidate the Castle family’s and of the City of New Orleans’ vital role in the National Civil Rights Movement.

The Staff recommends that the Commission recommend that 917-19 North Tonti Street be listed on the National Register of historic places.