Zeke Bonura
Henry John Bonura was a first baseman in Major League Baseball. From 1934 through 1940, he played for the Chicago White Sox, Washington Senators, New York Giants and Chicago Cubs. Bonura threw right-handed, he was born in New Orleans. In a seven-season career, Bonura posted a.307 batting average with 119 home runs and 704 RBI in 917 games played. Defensively, he was a good first baseman. One of Zeke Bonura's more noteworthy athletic accomplishments has nothing to do with the sport of baseball. In June 1925, at the age of sixteen, Bonura became the youngest male athlete to win an event at the National Track and Field Championships. Young Zeke threw the javelin 65.18 meters to claim the title. Bonura's winning effort was a meet record by nearly twenty-feet. During World War II, Bonura was posted to Algeria, he organized large-scale baseball operations. Playoffs among the teams narrowed them to two finalists – the Casablanca Yankees, consisting of medics, the Algiers Streetwalkers, consisting of MPs.
The North African World Series was a best two-out-of-three-game championship played on October 3 and 4, 1943, at Eugene Stadium in Algiers, between the two teams. The Casablanca Yankees won the series in two straight games; the winners were presented with baseballs autographed by General Eisenhower, the winning team received a trophy made from an unexploded Italian bomb. Bonura received the Legion of Merit award while serving in the US Army during World War 2, for his work as athletic director for the Army in Algeria in 1943 in 1944. Hit.300 or more in four of his seven major league seasons, with a career-high.345 in 1937, fourth in the American League, behind Charlie Gehringer, Lou Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio. Averaged 17 home runs per season, with a career-high 27 in his 1934 rookie season, setting a White Sox team record; the record was tied by Joe Kuhel in 1940 and surpassed by Gus Zernial in 1950 with 29. Led American League first baseman in fielding percentage in 1934, 1936, 1938. Is a member of the Italian American Sports Hall of Fame Bonura didn't play baseball at Loyola New Orleans because the university did not field a team.
Instead he lettered in basketball and track and field. List of athletes on Wheaties boxes Career statistics and player information from Baseball-Reference, or Fangraphs, or The Baseball Cube, or Baseball-Reference Baseball Library List of National Champions: Men's Javelin Throw Zeke Bonura at Find a Grave
New York Yankees
The New York Yankees are an American professional baseball team based in the New York City borough of the Bronx. The Yankees compete in Major League Baseball as a member club of the American League East division, they are one of two major league clubs based in New York City, the other being the New York Mets of the National League. In the 1901 season, the club began play in the AL as the Baltimore Orioles. Frank Farrell and Bill Devery purchased the franchise and moved it to New York City, renaming the club the New York Highlanders; the Highlanders were renamed the Yankees in 1913. The team is owned by Yankee Global Enterprises, an LLC controlled by the family of the late George Steinbrenner, who purchased the team in 1973. Brian Cashman is the team's general manager, Aaron Boone is the team's field manager; the team's home games were played at the original Yankee Stadium from 1923 to 1973 and from 1976 to 2008. In 1974 and 1975, the Yankees shared Shea Stadium with the Mets, in addition to the New York Jets, New York Giants.
In 2009, they moved into a new ballpark of the same name after the previous facility was closed and demolished. The team is perennially among the leaders in MLB attendance; as arguably the most successful sports club in the United States, the Yankees have won 40 AL pennants, 27 World Series championships, all of which are MLB records. The Yankees have won more titles than any other franchise in the four major North American sports leagues. Forty-four Yankees players and eleven Yankees managers have been inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, including Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford. In pursuit of winning championships, the franchise has used a large payroll to attract talent during the Steinbrenner era. According to Forbes, the Yankees are the second highest valued sports franchise in the United States and the fifth in the world, with an estimated value of $4 billion; the Yankees have garnered enormous popularity and a dedicated fanbase, as well as widespread enmity from fans of other MLB teams.
The team's rivalry with the Boston Red Sox is one of the most well-known rivalries in U. S. sports. From 1903-2018, the Yankees overall win-loss record is 10275-7781. In 1900, Ban Johnson, the president of a minor league known as the Western League, changed the Western League name to the American League and asked the National League to classify it as a major league. Johnson held that his league would operate in friendly terms with the National league, but the National league ridiculed the plan. Johnson declared official major league status for his league in 1901. Plans to add a team in New York City were blocked by the NL's New York Giants. A team was instead placed in Baltimore, Maryland in 1901. Between 1901 and 1903, many players and coaches on the Orioles roster jumped to the Giants. In January 1903, a "peace conference" was held between the two leagues to settle disputes and try to coexist. At the conference, Johnson requested that an AL team be put in New York, to play alongside the NL's Giants.
It was put to a vote, 15 of the 16 major league owners agreed on it. The Orioles' new owners, Frank J. Farrell and William S. Devery moved the team to New York in 1903; the team's new ballpark, Hilltop Park, was constructed in one of Upper Manhattan's highest points—between 165th and 168th Streets. The team was named the New York Highlanders. Fans believed the name was chosen because of the team's elevated location in Upper Manhattan, or as a nod to team president Joseph Gordon's Scottish-Irish heritage; the team was referred to as the New York Americans. The team was referred to as the "Invaders" in the Evening Journal. New York Press Sports Editor Jim Price coined the unofficial nickname Yankees for the club as early as 1904, because it was easier to fit in headlines; the Highlanders finished second in the AL in 1904, 1906, 1910. In 1904, they lost the deciding game to the Boston Americans, who became the Boston Red Sox; that year, Highlander pitcher Jack Chesbro set the single-season wins record at 41.
At this time there was no formal World Series agreement wherein the AL and NL winners would play each other. The original Polo Grounds burned down in 1911 and the Highlanders shared Hilltop Park with the Giants during a two-month renovation period. From 1913 to 1922, the Highlanders shared the Polo Grounds with the Giants. While playing at the Polo Grounds, the name "Highlanders" fell into disuse among the press. In 1913 the team became known as the New York Yankees. By the middle of the decade, Yankees owners Farrell and Devery had become estranged and in need of money. At the start of 1915, they sold the team to Colonel Jacob Ruppert, a brewer, Captain Tillinghast L'Hommedieu Huston, a contractor-engineer. All the games of the 1921 and 1922 World Series were played in the Polo Grounds, when the Yankees squared off against their intracity rivals, the Giants. In the years around 1920, the Yankees, the Red Sox, the Chicago White Sox had a détente; the trades between the three ballclubs antagonized Ban Johnson and garnered the teams the nickname "The Insurrectos".
This détente paid off well for the Yankees. Most new players who contributed to the team's success came from the Red Sox, whose owner, Harry Frazee, was trading them for large sums of money to finance his theatrical productions. Pitcher-turned-outfielder Babe Ruth was the most talented of all the acquisition
Mercedes-Benz Superdome
The Mercedes-Benz Superdome referred to as the Superdome, is a domed sports and exhibition venue located in the Central Business District of New Orleans, United States. It serves as the home venue for the New Orleans Saints of the National Football League, the home stadium for the Sugar Bowl, New Orleans Bowl in college football and the longtime rivalry football game of the SWAC Conference’s Southern University and Grambling State University, known as the Bayou Classic, it houses their schools’ Battle of the Bands between The Southern University "The Human Jukebox" and Grambling State’s Tiger Marching Band. Plans were drawn up in 1967 by the New Orleans modernist architectural firm of Curtis and Davis and the building opened as the Louisiana Superdome in 1975, its steel frame covers a 13-acre expanse and the 273-foot dome is made of a lamellar multi-ringed frame and has a diameter of 680 feet, making it the largest fixed domed structure in the world. It is adjacent to the Smoothie King Center.
Because of the building's size and location in one of the major tourist destinations of the United States, the Superdome hosts major sporting events, including the Super Bowl, College Football Championship Game, the Final Four in college basketball. The stadium was the long-time home of the Tulane Green Wave football team of Tulane University until 2014 and was the home venue of the New Orleans Jazz of the National Basketball Association from 1975 until 1979; the Superdome gained international attention of a different type in 2005 when it housed thousands of people seeking shelter from Hurricane Katrina. The building suffered extensive damage as a result of the storm, was closed for many months afterward, it was decided the building would be refurbished and reopened in time for the Saints' 2006 home opener on September 25. On October 3, 2011, it was announced that German automaker Mercedes-Benz purchased naming rights to the stadium; the new name took effect on October 23, 2011. The Superdome is located on 70 acres including the former Girod Street Cemetery.
The dome has an interior space of 125,000,000 cubic feet, a height of 253 feet, a dome diameter of 680 feet, a total floor area of 269,000 square feet. The Superdome has a listed football seating capacity of 76,468 or 73,208 and a maximum basketball seating capacity of 73,432. However, published attendance figures from events such as the Super Bowl football game have exceeded 79,000; the basketball capacity does not reflect the NCAA's new policy on arranging the basketball court on the 50-yard line on the football field, per 2009 NCAA policy. In 2011, 3,500 seats were added, increasing the Superdome's capacity to 76,468; the Superdome's capacity was 78,133 for WWE WrestleMania 34. The actual capacity is 73,208 people; the chronology of the capacity for football is as follows: The Superdome's primary tenant is the NFL's New Orleans Saints. The team draws capacity crowds; the NFL has hosted seven Super Bowls at the Superdome, most Super Bowl XLVII in 2013. The Superdome is scheduled to host its eighth Super Bowl in 2024.
The 1976 Pro Bowl was held at the Superdome on Monday, January 26, 1976. It was the NFL's 26th annual all-star game. Tulane University played their home games at the stadium from 1975 to 2013 before moving to on-campus Yulman Stadium; the BCS National Championship Game was played at the Superdome four times. The College Football Playoff semifinal game is played every three years in the stadium. Two other bowl games are played there annually: the Sugar Bowl and New Orleans Bowl; the Superdome hosts the Bayou Classic, a major regular-season game between two of the state's black colleges and universities, Grambling State and Southern. In 2013, the Arena Football League New Orleans VooDoo played their last six home games of the season at the stadium. From 1991 to 1992, the New Orleans Night of the AFL played at the stadium; the annual Louisiana Prep Classic state championship football games organized by the Louisiana High School Athletic Association have been held at the Superdome since 1981, except in 2005 following the extreme damage of Hurricane Katrina.
The first state championship game in the stadium matched New Orleans Catholic League powers St. Augustine and Jesuit on December 15, 1978; the Purple Knights won their second Class AAAA title in four seasons by ousting the Blue Jays, 13–7, in front of over 42,000 fans. Home field advantageSince the Superdome's reopening in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and the increased success of the New Orleans Saints, the Superdome has developed a reputation for having a strong home field advantage. While all domed stadiums possess this quality to some degree, the Superdome is known to get loud during games during offensive drives by the visiting team. During a pregame interview before the Minnesota Vikings' opening game of the 2010 NFL season against the Saints, Brett Favre, reflecting on the Vikings' loss to the Saints in the 2009–10 NFC Championship Game, said of the Superdome: "That was, by far, the most hostile environment I've been in. You couldn't hear anything." It was during that loss. It was the first game of the season.
When the plaza level seats remained moveable, the capacity for baseball was 63,525 and the field size was as followed: 325 feet to both left field and right field, 365 feet to both left-center field and right-center field, 421 feet to center field, 60 feet to the backstop. The bowl
Mid-City New Orleans
Mid-City is a neighborhood of the city of New Orleans. A sub-district of the Mid-City District Area, its boundaries as defined by the City Planning Commission are: City Park Avenue, Toulouse Street, North Carrollton, Orleans Avenue, Bayou St. John and St. Louis Street to the north, North Broad Street to the east, the Pontchartrain Expressway to the west, it is a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places. In common usage, a somewhat larger area surrounding these borders is also referred to as part of Mid-City. Mid-City has an elevation of 0 feet. According to the United States Census Bureau, the district has a total area of 1.66 square miles, all land. Mid-City is located, as the name indicates, in the middle of New Orleans on what was once the backslope of the Mississippi River natural levee, a declining section of the river's flood plain; as such, it was not settled as early as adjacent neighborhoods and was called the "back of town"—the city ended at the swamp, unlike today, when the city reaches the lake.
The Esplanade Ridge and the adjoining Metairie Ridge formed a natural spur from the River. Navarre City Park Bayou St. John Tulane/Gravier Gert Town Dixon Lakewood The City Planning Commission defines the boundaries of Mid-City as these streets: City Park Avenue, Toulouse Street, North Carrollton Avenue, Orleans Avenues, Bayou St. John, St. Louis Street, North Broad Street and the Pontchartrain Expressway; as of the census of 2000, there were 19,909 people, 5,830 households, 2,939 families residing in the neighborhood. The population density was 11,993 /mi²; as of the census of 2010, there were 14,633 people, 5,258 households, 2,318 families residing in the neighborhood. Mid-City is one of New Orleans most racially diverse neighborhoods with its proximity to uptown and the suburbs contributing to its integrated diversity. Mid-City is the home of a number of city landmarks. Canal Street, one of the most important thoroughfares of the city, bisects the neighborhood down the middle. Tulane Avenue, the terminus of U.
S. Route 61 runs just upriver from Canal Street. An important cross-street is Jefferson Davis Parkway, named for the president of the Confederate States of America, who died in New Orleans's Garden District during an 1889 visit; the Orleans Parish Criminal Court, the Dixie Brewery, Jesuit High School, Warren Easton High School, the Falstaff Brewery are physically among the most prominent buildings scattered across Mid-City, in addition to a number of churches and large houses along Canal Street. Tulane Avenue in particular shows some remnants of the area's industrial past. However, more characteristic of Mid-City today are the many shotgun houses and larger houses that make up most of this residential neighborhood. Mid-City is a local, middle-class neighborhood in that it contains fewer tourist destinations than other parts of the city. Restaurants and bars rely on local clientele, giving the area a quirky local flavor. In the period before Hurricane Katrina on New Year's Eve, residents of Mid-City placed their Christmas trees in an area in Orleans Avenue and created a bonfire with the trees.
They threw fireworks into the bonfire. Joanna Weiss of the Boston Globe reported that "a fire truck waited down the street as an afterthought." Mid-City experienced extensive flooding in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and has been involved in an ongoing rebuilding effort. Repopulation and reconstruction are concentrated along major thoroughfares. New Orleans Public Schools and Recovery School District operate the public school system. Warren Easton Senior High School is in Mid-City. New Orleans Public Library operates the Mid-City Branch. Neighborhoods in New Orleans Mid-City New Orleans Neighborhood Organization Neighborhood snapshot
Minor League Baseball
Minor League Baseball is a hierarchy of professional baseball leagues in the Americas that compete at levels below Major League Baseball and provide opportunities for player development and a way to prepare for the major leagues. All of the minor leagues are operated as independent businesses. Most are members of the umbrella organization known as Minor League Baseball, which operates under the Commissioner of Baseball within the scope of organized baseball. Several leagues, known as independent baseball leagues, do not have any official links to Major League Baseball. Except for the Mexican League, teams in the organized minor leagues are independently owned and operated but are directly affiliated with one major league team through a standardized Player Development Contract; these leagues go by the nicknames the "farm system", "farm club", or "farm team" because of a joke passed around by major league players in the 1930s when St. Louis Cardinals general manager Branch Rickey formalized the system, teams in small towns were "growing players down on the farm like corn".
Major League Baseball and Minor League Baseball teams may enter into a PDC for a two- or four-year term. At the expiration of a PDC term, teams may renew their affiliation, or sign new PDCs with different clubs, though many relationships are renewed and endure for extended time periods. For example, the Omaha Storm Chasers have been the Triple-A affiliate of the Kansas City Royals since the Royals joined the American League in 1969, but the Columbus Clippers changed affiliations, after being associated with the New York Yankees from 1979, to the Washington Nationals in 2007, have been affiliated with the Cleveland Indians since 2009. A few minor league teams are directly owned by their major league parent club, such as the Springfield Cardinals, owned by the St. Louis Cardinals, all of the Atlanta Braves' affiliates except the Florida Fire Frogs. Minor League teams that are owned directly by the major league club do not have PDCs with the parent club and are not part of the reaffiliation shuffles that occur each year.
Today, there are 14 MLB-affiliated minor leagues with a total of 160 revenue-generating teams, located in large and small cities and suburbs across the United States and Canada, there are three MLB-affiliated rookie leagues with a total of 80 teams, located in Arizona and the Dominican Republic, though these teams do not generate revenue. The Mexican League, with 16 teams, is independent but tied with MLB. Several more independent leagues operate in the United States and Canada; the earliest professional baseball league, the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players of 1871 to 1875, comprised all professional teams. This system proved unworkable, however, as there was no way to ensure competitive balance, financially unsound clubs failed in midseason; this problem was solved in 1876 with the formation of the National League, with a limited membership which excluded less competitive and financially weaker teams. Professional clubs outside the NL responded by forming regional associations of their own.
There was a series of ad hoc groupings, such as the New England Association of 1877 and the Eastern Championship Association of 1881. These were loose groups of independent clubs which agreed to play a series of games over the course of one season for a championship pennant; the first true minor league is traditionally considered to be the Northwestern League of 1883 to 1884. Unlike the earlier minor associations, it was conceived as a permanent organization, it along with the NL and the American Association, was a party to the National Agreement of 1883. Included in this was the agreement to respect the reserve lists of clubs in each league. Teams in the NL and the AA could only reserve players, paid at least $1000. Northwest League teams could reserve players paid $750, implicitly establishing the division into major and minor leagues. Over the next two decades, more minor leagues signed various versions of the National Agreement; the minor leagues joined together to negotiate jointly. In the late 1890s, the Western League run by Ban Johnson decided to challenge the NL's position.
In 1900, he changed the name of the league to the American League and vowed to make deals to sign contracts with players who were dissatisfied with the pay and terms of their deals with the NL. This led to a nasty turf war that heated up in 1901 enough to concern Patrick T. Powers, president of the Eastern League, many other minor league owners about the conflict affecting their organizations. Representatives of the different minor leagues met at the Leland Hotel in Chicago on September 5, 1901. In response to the NL–AL battle, they agreed to form the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues, called the NAPBL, or NA for short; the purpose of the NAPBL at the time was to maintain the independence of the leagues involved. Several continued to work independently. Powers was made the first president of the NAPBL, whose offices were established in Auburn, New York. In 1903, the conflict between the AL and NL ended in the National Agreement of 1903; the NAPBL became involved in the stages of the negotiations to develop rules for the acquisition of players from their leagues by the NL and the AL.
The 1903 agreement ensured that teams would be compensated for the players that they had taken the time and effort to scout and develop, no NA team was required to sell their players, although most did because the cash was an important source of revenue for most teams. The NA leagues were still fiercely
Shoeless Joe Jackson
Joseph Jefferson Jackson, nicknamed "Shoeless Joe", was an American star outfielder who played Major League Baseball in the early 1900s. He is remembered for his performance on the field and for his alleged association with the Black Sox Scandal, in which members of the 1919 Chicago White Sox participated in a conspiracy to fix the World Series; as a result of Jackson's association with the scandal, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, Major League Baseball's first commissioner, banned Jackson from playing after the 1920 season despite exceptional play in the 1919 World Series, leading both teams in several statistical categories and setting a World Series record with 12 base hits. Since Jackson's guilt has been fiercely debated with new accounts claiming his innocence, urging Major League Baseball to reconsider his banishment; as a result of the scandal, Jackson's career was abruptly halted in his prime, ensuring him a place in baseball lore. Jackson played for three Major League teams during his 12-year career.
He spent 1908–1909 as a member of the Philadelphia Athletics and 1910 with the minor league New Orleans Pelicans before joining the Cleveland Naps at the end of the 1910 season. He remained in Cleveland through the first part of 1915. In life, Jackson played ball under assumed names throughout the south, including the 71st Service squadron in 1934 and winning the league title. Jackson, who played left field for most of his career has the third-highest career batting average in major league history. In 1911, Jackson hit for a.408 average. It is still the sixth-highest single-season total since 1901, which marked the beginning of the modern era for the sport, his average that year set the record for batting average in a single season by a rookie. Babe Ruth said. Jackson still holds the Indians and White Sox franchise records for both triples in a season and career batting average. In 1999, he ranked number 35 on The Sporting News' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players and was nominated as a finalist for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team.
The fans voted him as the 12th-best outfielder of all-time. He ranks 33rd on the all-time list for non-pitchers according to the win shares formula developed by Bill James. Jackson was born in South Carolina, the oldest son in the family, his father George was a sharecropper. A few years afterwards the family moved to a company town called Brandon Mill, on the outskirts of Greenville, South Carolina. An attack of measles killed him when he was 10, he was in bed for two months, paralyzed. Starting at the age of 6 or 7, Jackson worked in one of the town's textile mills as a "linthead", a derogatory name for a mill hand. Family finances required Joe to take 12-hour shifts in the mill, since education at the time was a luxury the Jackson family couldn't afford, Jackson was uneducated, his lack of education became an issue throughout Jackson's life. It affected the value of his memorabilia in the collectibles market. Anything autographed by Jackson himself brings a premium when sold, including one autograph, sold for $23,500 in 1990.
In restaurants, rather than ask someone to read the menu to him, he would wait until his teammates ordered and order one of the items that he heard. In 1900, when he was 13 years old, his mother was approached by one of the owners of the Brandon Mill and he started to play for the mill's baseball team, he was the youngest player on the team. He was paid $2.50 to play on Saturdays. He was placed as a pitcher, but one day he accidentally broke another player's arm with a fastball. No one wanted to bat against him, his hitting ability made him a celebrity around town. Around that time he was given a baseball bat, he was compared to another player from the mills who made it to the Majors. He moved from mill team to mill team in search of better pay, playing semi-professional baseball by 1905. According to Jackson, he got his nickname during a mill game played in South Carolina. Jackson had blisters on his foot from a new pair of cleats, which hurt so much that he took his shoes off before he was at bat.
As play continued, a heckling fan noticed Jackson running to third base in his socks, shouted "You shoeless son of a gun, you!" and the resulting nickname "Shoeless Joe" stuck with him throughout the remainder of his life. 1908 was an eventful year for Jackson. He began his professional baseball career with the Greenville Spinners of the Carolina Association, married 15-year-old Katie Wynn, signed with Connie Mack to play Major League Baseball for the Philadelphia Athletics. For the first two years of his career, Jackson had some trouble adjusting to life with the Athletics, he spent a great portion of that time in the minor leagues. Between 1908 and 1909, Jackson appeared in just 10 games. During the 1909 season, Jackson played 118 games for the South Atlantic League's Savannah Indians, he batted.358 for the year. The Athletics traded him to the Cleveland Naps, he spent most of 1910 with the New Orleans Pelicans of the Southern Association, where he won the batting title and led the team to the penn
Pontchartrain Expressway
The Pontchartrain Expressway is a parallel 6-lane section of Interstate 10 and U. S. Route 90 Business in New Orleans, Louisiana, U. S. A; the designation begins on I-10 near the Orleans–Jefferson parish line at the I-610 Split. The expressway follows I-10 into the Central Business District of New Orleans and follows US 90 Bus. to the Crescent City Connection. The expressway takes its name from Pontchartrain Boulevard, for which the expressway overtook in some areas; the Pontchartrain name is derived from Lake Pontchartrain, which New Orleans' northern border traverses. Construction of the Pontchartrain Expressway began in the 1950s, it would be incorporated into Interstate 10. I-10 enters Orleans Parish after crossing the 17th Street Canal. At the vicinity of West End Boulevard/Florida Avenue exit, the expressway turns to the southeast along the right-of-way for the former New Basin Canal, filled in between 1937 and 1947; the expressway continues along this right-of-way as I-10 until a stack interchange with U.
S. 90 in the CBD. At this interchange, I-10 breaks off to the northeast and Business U. S. 90 begins. The expressway continues southeast along the upriver side of the CBD as an elevated highway that leads to the Crescent City Connection; this section was completed by 1958 opening of the Crescent City Connection. The Business U. S. 90 portion of the expressway was expanded in the mid 1980s to accommodate the second span of the Crescent City Connection which opened in 1988. This stretch of the expressway and the stack interchange of I-10 and U. S. 90 received further reconstruction in the early 1990s, including two reversible HOV lanes that stretch from the intersection of Earhart Boulevard and Magnolia Street across the Crescent City Connection to the Westbank Expressway. Reconstruction of the northern end of the expressway in the I-610 Split vicinity was undertaken in the late 1990s. In the late 1990s, further work was done on the expressway as two ramps were constructed, connecting West I-10 to West Business U.
S. 90 and westbound Claiborne Avenue, replacing an earlier, more dangerous ramp. The direct ramp from 90B East to I-10 East was completed by 1989; the Norfolk Southern Railway has an overpass crossing near the Metairie Cemetery between the City Park Avenue and West End Boulevard/Florida Avenue exits. The expressway dips down to 12 feet below sea level to allow for the rail line to pass overhead; this area once experienced flooding on a regular basis in tropical systems. The problem was so common, a depth meter was painted on the overpass support columns to warn drivers of the water's depth. A new pumping station was completed adjacent to the expressway in 2004 to keep this area dry and allow the interstate to remain open in the event of an evacuation. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, this pumping station was overwhelmed and the railroad underpass and the entire I-610/West End Boulevard interchange was extensively flooded. In fact, the 17th Street Canal breach is about one mile north of this area.
This flooding cut Orleans Parish off from most areas to the west, making the Crescent City Connection one of the few clear routes into the east bank of Orleans Parish. Areas under the elevated portions of the expressway in the CBD area saw flooding in the vicinity of the Superdome but for the most part remained dry and undamaged; some evacuees trapped in the city for days after Katrina attempted to use the expressway and the Crescent City Connection to walk to dry ground on the west bank. The Business U. S. 90 portion of the Pontchartrain Expressway is designated as Interstate 910, however it is not signed as such. This is a temporary designation that overlaps all freeway portions of Business U. S. 90. When Interstate 49 is completed from Lafayette to New Orleans, Business U. S. 90/Interstate 910 will be re-signed as Interstate 49
