2023-09-13 07:00:00
It pays to look up while walking the streets of New Orleans.
In addition to taking in some truly wonderful architecture, those who cast their gaze skyward will be treated to an all-star list of once-prominent New Orleans companies and brands.
Over the main entrance to the Ritz Carlton on Canal Street, for example, one can still spot the old Kress standard and its “5 • 10 • 25¢” ethos.
On Harmony Circle, the K&B logo is still perched atop the revered local pharmacy chain’s eponymous building.
Built in 1925, the four-story brick building at 630 Camp St. has tasteful terra cotta ornamental embellishments and sidewalk-level granite skirting Staff photo by Chris Granger NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune▲
And there, at the roofline of the four-story structure at the corner of Camp and Capdeville in Faubourg St. Mary, the graceful cursive logo of Eli Lilly & Co. still calls out to passersby.
Wait, what?
What in the wacky world of Dr. Morgus is the logo of the Indianapolis-based pharmaceutical giant doing on a New Orleans building?
From the beginning
Good question. For the answer, we’ll have to turn back the clock to summer 1854 and the decision by a 16-year-old Eli Lilly to sign on as an apprentice at the Good Samaritan Drugstore in Lafayette, Indiana.
It was there that Lilly was bitten by the pharmaceutical bug. By 1861, and following jobs with other druggists, he was ready to open his own pharmacy in Greencastle, Indiana.
Lights provide useful decoration on both sides of the main entrance. Staff photo by Chris Granger NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune▲
Shortly following, Lilly’s burgeoning entrepreneurial spirit was replaced by a patriotic one when President Abraham Lincoln issued a call to arms for the Union effort in the Civil War. Lilly signed up. By the time he mustered out in 1865 — and following being stationed briefly in an occupied New Orleans — he had achieved the rank of colonel.
After the war, Lilly returned to Indiana and his interrupted pharmaceutical career. By 1876, he had once more hung out a shingle for himself. It was the start of Eli Lilly and Co.
The man behind the now-familiar firm would die a millionaire in 1898 at 59, but he left behind a fast-growing company fueled by innovation in both the pharmaceutical and manufacturing realms.
Branches in urban centers
To speed products to market, it expanded beyond its Indianapolis headquarters and established “branch houses” in New York, Chicago, Kansas City and, by 1906, New Orleans. According to an Eli Lilly and Co. spokesperson, these branch houses essentially served as warehouses and points of distribution, with manufacturing taking place in Indianapolis.
As the company continued to grow, so did its need for more space. And so, in 1925, it traded its previous building at 114 Common St. for a new, purpose-built structure at 630 Camp St.
A close-up of the sign atop 630 Camp Street in New Orleans. Staff photo by Chris Granger NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune▲
Built on a pile foundation by R.P. Farnsworth and Co. for $132,553, the four-story brick building would boast modest but tasteful terra cotta ornamental embellishments and tidy, sidewalk-level granite skirting.
The cursive “Lilly” logo would adorn the roofline of the building’s Camp Street side, with the words “Eli Lilly and Company” engraved prominently in the masonry atop its Capdeville Street façade.
It was no slapdash affair. Among other things, the new building boasted such modern conveniences as central hot water, elevators and a sprinkler system.
A short residency
Lilly would occupy it for only 22 years, selling it for $190,000 in 1947 to the Lighthouse for the Blind, which was also in need of more space, having outgrown its previous headquarters at 743 Camp St.
Air-conditioned and spacious, the Lilly building served the Lighthouse’s needs for the next five years.
The sprinkler system came in particularly handy in December 1949 when a welder working in an elevator shaft between the second and third floors accidentally sparked a fire among a store of mops constructed by the Lighthouse’s blind workers.
A canopy over the Camp Street entrance was damaged and subsequently removed — and some $500 in handmade mops and brooms went up in smoke — but, fortunately, none of the 65 blind workers on duty at the time were injured.
By 1952, the Lighthouse was on the move once more, selling the building — and realizing a tidy $25,000 profit in the process — to businessman Louis Rousell, who converted it into office space.
Ornamental details add interest to the building, which went on to be used as a Lighthouse for the Blind site and, later, office space. Staff photo by Chris Granger NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune▲
A 1980 renovation overseen by architects Errol Barron, Michael Toups and Bob Biery — and recognized with an award by the Louisiana Architects Association — modernized the interior of the building by placing offices at the perimeter of each floor, with an airy, skylit common area.
“Each floor has been designed for maximum openness and each lobby is connected to an open space running the length of the building,” read a description of the work published in January 1979 in The Times-Picayune.
That story went on to note its 12-foot ceilings, large concrete columns with capitals shaped like inverted cones, and a “distinctive curving staircase with oak steps and handrail” connecting the upper three floors.
The 1920s exterior was also freshened up with the construction of a canopy over the Camp Street entrance to replace the one lost in the 1949 fire.
By then home to law offices, it was renamed the Lafayette building — although the Lilly name was left on its exterior, in a nod to the building’s history.
Today, the now 98-year-old Lilly building still stands proudly, catercorner from Lafayette Square, although, in an ironic twist, it is now occupied by an organization at the opposite end of the health care spectrum as Lilly: the Louisiana State Medical Examiner’s Board.
Sources: The Times-Picayune archive; Eli Lilly & Co.; IN.gov; The Southern Pharmaceutical Journal, Vol. 1 No. 11; Tile and Till, November 1918.
Thanks to reader Byron Cornelison for suggesting today’s topic. Do you know of a New Orleans building worth profiling in this column, or are you just curious regarding one? Contact Mike Scott at [email protected].
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