blake
PONTCHARTRAIN™
NEW ORLEANS KNOW-IT-ALL
Questions for Blake: askblake@gambitweekly.com
5 Course Dinner Paired with Veuve Clicquot Champagnes
1st Course:
May 4th - 31 st
Quatre Crudités
celery root remoulade; roasted beets & orange blossom vinegar; cucumber & yogurt salad; carrot & cilantro vinaigrette Veuve Clicquot “Yellow Label” NV Brut 2nd Course:
Creole Tomato & Gulf Fish Soup
Gulf shrimp, sweet chili dumpling, garlic & olive oil crouton Veuve Clicquot Rosé 3rd Course:
Lobster & Crab Cassolette
Maine lobster, jumbo lump crabmeat, popcorn rice, aromatic Americaine sauce Veuve Clicquot Vintage Blanc 2002 4th Course:
Sautéed Veal & Louisiana Crawfish
assorted mushrooms, white wine, tomato, tarragon, English peas, roasted cauliflower flan Veuve Clicquot Rosé 2004
Gambit > bestofneworleans.com > maY 10 > 2011
5th Course:
08
Double Berry Trifle
Louisiana strawberries & blueberries, lemon angel food cake, passionfruit custard Veuve Clicquot Demi-Sec NV
$65 / $95 with Veuve Clicquot Pairings
Reservations 504.488.1000 ~ Free Valet Parking 900 City Park Avenue ~ Dinner 7 Nights ~ Lunch Wed-Fri ~ Sunday Brunch
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Gypsy Moth training Retired silent movie plane he was using for ABOUT 25 YEARS AGO, WE LIVED star Marguerite a flying lesson crashed. AT 922 BURDETTE ST. IN NEW Clark Williams When Harry PalmORLEANS. ACROSS THE STREET AT rented this house erston Williams was on Burdette Street 925 BURDETTE IS A LARGE, TWOborn in Patterson in STORY FRAME HOUSE THAT SITS ON during the 1930s. 1889, his family owned ABOUT A QUARTER OF THE BLOCK. the local cypress mill and had made a FOR YEARS IT HAS BEEN OCCUPIED BY fortune exporting the processed lumber EDWARD J. IRELAND FAMILY, AND IT IS around the world. RUMORED THE HOUSE WAS BUILT BY Wedell and Williams made a good WEEDLE WILLIAMS OF AVIATION FAME team. Williams, a millionaire, put up the 100 YEARS AGO. BUT NO ONE, INCLUDmoney and Wedell designed the planes. ING THE IRELAND FAMILY, KNOWS FOR The Wedell-Williams Air Service may have SURE. HOW DO I FIND THE ANSWER? had the largest private fleet of aircraft in MILTON HILBERT the world at the time. In 1918, Williams married Marguerite DEAR MILTON, Clark, a glamorous and popular silentmovie star. She gave up fame and attenYou ask Blake, of course. The person you refer to as Weedle tion from her adoring fans to live in the Williams was actually Jimmie Wedell and relative obscurity of Patterson. However, Harry Williams, who formed a famous she and Williams spent much time in aviation partnership — but did not build New Orleans and stayed at the home of the house on Burdette Street. Williams’ Harry’s father, Frank B. Williams, at 5120 widow, Marguerite Clark Williams, did St. Charles Ave. Harry Williams died on May 19, 1936, lease the home for a while during the late when his plane crashed near Baton 1930s, however. James Robert “Jimmie” Wedell was born Rouge. As a tribute to her late husband, in Texas City, Texas, in 1900. He dropped Marguerite donated the Harry P. Williams out of school, but had a keen interest in Memorial Airport in Patterson to the mechanics and aviation. Wedell learned to state of Louisiana, but served as president fly but was not allowed to be a pilot in the of Wedell-Williams Aviation Company, U.S. Army because of an accident that left which she inherited when her husband him blind in one eye. Nevertheless, during died, until it was sold to Eastern Airlines. She also made New Orleans her home, the 1920s he earned money barnstorming across the state and giving flying lessons. moving in to her father-in-law’s mansion In 1927, Wedell moved to New Orleans, on St. Charles. When the house was sold, and in 1929, he collaborated with wealthy she rented two houses, including the one Louisiana businessman Harry Williams on Burdette Street, where she lived until to form Wedell-Williams Air Service in she moved to New York City in 1939 to live Patterson, La. The company built high- with her sister Cora. Marguerite Williams died on Sept. 24, speed planes, gave flying lessons and operated passenger, charter and mail ser- 1940, from complications following a heart attack, and her ashes are entombed vices. It also established an airport. Wedell flew planes in a number of races in the Williams’ family vault in Metairie and gained a reputation for his piloting Cemetery. She was 57 years old when she ability as well as the speed of his planes. died and left an estate worth $565,563. The former Williams mansion on St. In fact, The Wedell-Williams 44 won more Charles Avenue is now the Milton H. races than any other plane of its day. Wedell died on June 24, 1934, when the Latter Memorial Library. HEY BLAKE,