When alumnus Charles East came to LSU as a freshman in 1942, few students had cars, but students still managed to frequent a bustling downtown locale.
“It couldn’t be compared to Broadway, but nevertheless it was where the movies, theaters and restaurants were,” East said. “There was a natural line between LSU and downtown.”
One of the reasons was an efficient bus from campus to downtown that passed every five minutes, dropping students at Stroube’s Drugstore at Third Street. Today, members of the Downtown Development District hopes proposed trolley and bus systems from LSU campus to downtown Baton Rouge will revive interest in the area.
“It was an exciting several blocks,” East said. “It’s hard to believe now.”
The Paramount, which was knocked down about 20 years ago, was the major theater, East said. It received all the first-run movies and sometimes Broadway-quality shows, like the Saenger Theater in New Orleans shows today.
The Hart Theater on Convention and Lafayette Streets was also a popular theater, and The Gordon came later. Large, bright marquees lit up the streets and drew crowds, he said.
The first Piccadilly opened across the street from the Paramount. It started as a single restaurant in downtown Baton Rouge and became a 170-store chain across the South.
“You’d see a lot of students,” East said. “Even if it was just boys walking around looking for girls.”
While the theaters and restaurants were the major draw for students, the nightlife also attracted students to the area. In the Istrouma Hotel on Third and Lafayette Streets, “the circus bar” – a circus-themed lounge – was popular among students, East said.
In the Heildelberg Hotel, one bar and one more elaborate lounge gave students other options to go out, East said.
Downtown Baton Rouge was also the center of business and government.
Most of the major department stores were located downtown in the 1940s and 50s, said Bob Furlow, who worked at WLCS radio at the time.
Before Cortana or the Mall of Louisiana, Sears, J.C. Penney and Montgomery Ward lined Third Street to create six blocks of
shopping. Sweet scents from perfume counters would lure people into the department stores.
Cars parked on the side of the road, and people walked from shop to shop, creating foot and vehicle traffic similar to traffic that of the New Orleans French Quarter.
Furlow said he remembers growing up in Baton Rouge and watching ladies spiffed up in hats and dresses riding the bus downtown.
“You would ride the bus downtown and spend the day,” he said. “People worked during the week and when they wanted to go out they dressed up. Now it looks like we dress down to go out.”
Car dealerships lined Scenic Highway not Airline, Furlow said. At North and 19th Streets, people can still see the remnants of a Ford dealership in the building’s architecture.
Grocery stores on Main, North and Government Streets made downtown a viable place to live. And many people did.
Baton Rouge High School was considered so far out of town, people rode the bus to 19th and Government Streets then walked there, Furlow said.
Annabel Armstrong came to Baton Rouge fresh out of college in 1951 to work for The Advocate. The newspaper only had one car, but its downtown location made it easier for her to reach most of the people and places she needed.
“I used to walk my beat. It was that small,” she said. “There’s only one place I didn’t walk to and that was the school board office.”
The only library, the police station and bus stations were all located downtown, Furlow said.
LSU originally played football games on a piece of land called Bogan’s Pasture near the Pentagon Building.
“Now that tells you what the size of Baton Rouge was that people called it a pasture,” he said.
Furlow said downtown started to change as the interstate was constructed in the 1960s. The rapid expansion of government offices also contributed to the changing downtown scene, he said.
Furlow said he does not believe downtown Baton Rouge will return to being the way it was because people are more spread out and mobile today.
“It can come back to be something different, that can hold on to the past in our museums and government buildings,” he said. “I don’t think we ever lost the memory of what it was. It just moved out. It moved out to the shopping centers. Convenience became the word.”
East said he believes timing played a large part in creating the downtown he remembers. In the middle of World War II, soldiers from Harding Field – what later became the Metro Airport – and Fort Polk in Centreville, Miss. came through Baton Rouge before shipping out.
The number of soldiers and sailors downtown added to its liveliness, he said.
“I don’t think it would be quite the same,” he said. “But I’m hopeful that it will work its magic.”
Armstrong said she believes downtown will come alive again.
“I always knew it would come back,” Armstrong said. “Whenever you have water like that, it comes. You just need someone to spearhead it.”