In 1946 Robert Moses proposed to the city fathers of New Orleans that a forty-foot-high, ninety-foot-wide interstate highway be built through the French Quarter district (Vieux Carré), a portion of the city that would later be declared a national historic landmark. In 1969 Secretary of Transportation John Volpe announced that, so far as the federal government was concerned, the expressway would not be built, and declared further that his decision “marked the beginning of a new tradition on the Department of Transportation regarding the preservation of the nation’s heritage.”

Volpe’s decision brought to an end two decades of heated debate between those in favor of some sort of riverfront expressway and those opposed. Those in favor included persons interested in making it easier to move vehicular traffic to and from the city’s main business district. Those opposed included persons interested in preserving the Vieux Carré as a livable neighborhood and as a historic district and in continuing an ongoing effort to restore the area.

Baumbach and Borah have provided a well-documented account of the expressway controversy in all its twists and turns, its ambiguities, its acrimony – a story interesting not only for itself but also as an illustration of the planning processes in operation. It reveals how things get done or don’t get done in a major municipality and dramatizes the interplay of conflicting interests (both public and private).

Long out of print, with used copies selling on the internet for hundreds of dollars (if you can find them), this new edition affords a new generation the opportunity to learn the lessons of the battle. Added are a wealth of photographs and a new foreword by award winning author and editor Jed Horne – that help to bring the story into today’s context.