The Official Promenade Towers history

In the case of New Orleans in 1801, it appears that drunkenness sabotaged efforts to convert public walks into promenades [Fig.

Following an economic downturn due to poor harvest in 1821, Reverend Lewis Way decided to raise funds with his compatriots to finance the construction of the famous stretch of seafront and to provide work for many jobless Niçois.

Jump up ↑ J. C. (John Claudius) Loudon, An Encyclopaedia of Gardening; Comprising the Theory and Practice of Horticulture, Floriculture, Arboriculture, and Landscape-Gardening, 4th ed. (London: Longman et al., 1826), view on Zotero.

Jump up ↑ Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language, 2 vols. (New York: S. Converse, 1828), view on Zotero.

Jump up ↑ Frances Milton Trollope, Domestic Manners of the Americans, 2 vols (London: Wittaker, Treacher & Co., 1832), view on Zotero.

Then in 1837, the City constructed a roadway along the Promenade from Fore Street to Washington Avenue.

Note, for example, Fanny Kemble’s desperate search in 1839 for a promenade at one of her husband’s plantations at Butler Island, Georgia.

Jump up ↑ John Warner Barber and Henry Howe, Historical Collections of the State of New York. . . with Geographical Descriptions of Every Township in the State (New York: S. Tuttle, 1841), view on Zotero.

David Landreth (Philadelphia: Lea and Blanchard, 1847), view on Zotero.

Thomas S. Sinclair, "Plan of the Pleasure Grounds and Farm of the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane at Philadelphia," 1848 (detail). A promenade is visible at 10: “Gentlemen’s private yard”.

Jump up ↑ J. C. (John Claudius) Loudon, An Encyclopaedia of Gardening; Comprising the Theory and Practice of Horticulture, Floriculture, Arboriculture, and Landscape-Gardening, new ed. (London: Longman et al., 1850), view on Zotero.

A. J. Downing, Plan Showing Proposed Method of Laying Out the Public Grounds at Washington, 1851.

Early citations of prom link it to the annual Ivy League tradition of "'presentation week,' during which formal dress and dancing accompanied a promenade concert," and include mention in a 1879 issue of the Harvard Crimson, wherein their Yalie rivals are made fun of for being cheap (how apropos):

Around 1880, an elegant Moorish-style casino, la Jetée Promenade, was built off-shore.

The City purchased the Fort Allen site in 1890 for use as a public park; it was followed by the acquisition of more land, initiated by Mayor James P. Baxter.

There's also a widely referenced 1894 diary entry of a student from the then all-male Amherst College, which gave his account of being invited to and attending a prom at nearby women's school, Smith College.

In a piece on the etymology of prom, Slate featured this cool chart pulled from the Google Books Ngram Viewer that plots the prevalence of prom-related terminology since 1900.

1768), A Prospective View of part of the Commons, 1902.

In 1905, the City acquired 21 acres of open space on the ocean side of the Promenade and commissioned the Olmsted Brothers firm to design a plan for the park.

Built in 1912, Hotel Negresco takes its name from the Romanian self-made man Henri Negrescou, and is the most memorable Belle Epoque building in Nice.

Sliced bread hit the shelves in 1928 thanks to Otto Rohwedder's groundbreaking invention — a good 50 years after prom sashayed into the American zeitgeist!

Opened in 1929, the hotel has attracted outstanding personalities to its casino and theatre.

President Kennedy rescheduled a 1963 $1,000-a-plate fundraiser at the Beverly Hilton to accommodate a local school whose prom had been booked for the same time.

Jump up ↑ Wilcomb E. Washburn, “Vision of Life for the Mall,” AIA Journal 47 (1967): 52–59, view on Zotero.

↑ Jump up to: 3.0 3.1 Eugene L. Schwaab and Jacqueline Bull, Travels in the Old South (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1973), view on Zotero.

In 1975, President Ford's daughter Susan held her high school's senior prom at possibly the best prom location ever: the White House.

And despite the two South Dakota boys who in 1979 became one of the first known same-sex couples to openly attend a prom, some schools still have anti-gay bans in place.

Jump up ↑ Dell Upton, “The Master Street of the World, The Levee,” in Critical Perspectives on Public Space, eds. Çelik Zeynep, Diane Favro, and Richard Ingersoll (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 277–88, view on Zotero.

In 2004, the City mandated preparation of a master plan for the Eastern Promenade, along with a program to encourage community support, advocacy and public education.

A 2010 Time article, "Brief History: The Prom," was decidedly negative about how slowly prom was catching up to the shift in cultural mores.

Along this famous path several events take place every year, including the Nice Marathon and the elegant ‘Battle of Flowers’ during the February Carnival (which has been moved for security reasons this year). In 2015 the Promenade was even submitted as a candidate for UNESCO World Heritage status.

In February 2016, the mall's owner Cadillac Fairview announced that it had put the Promenade up for sale.