Dew Drop Social and Benevolent Hall

The Dew Drop is the oldest surviving Jazz & Social Hall in America. On May 5, 1885 a group of civic-minded African American residents of the village of Mandeville, led by the late Olivia Eunio, created the Dew Drop Social and Benevolent Association. A decade later the organization laid a cornerstone and in 1895 constructed a small wooden building on Lamarque Street in what is now called Old Mandevillee, 3 1/2 blocks north of the north shoreline of Lake Pontchartrain. The Association, like many created among African American residents following the end of the Civil War, had chiefly benevolent goals — to care for the sick with food and attention; to provide help in funeral arrangements; to provide food for needy and temporary housing — all during a period of time when black residents could not obtain various types of insurance. After the early 1940s when activity ceased at the Dew Drop — replaced by a new organization and a new hall called the Sons and Daughters Hall on Marigny Avenue — the now 113-year-old building has been virtually unused. However, in 2000 the City of Mandeville obtained the building as a civil donation from then owner Jacqueline Vidrine, a Mandeville businesswoman, who also sold the city the plot of ground on which the building stands. But fortunately, the re-emergence of interest in the long neglected historic treasure did not stop there. In August of 2006 two members of the Mandeville City Council, Zella Walker and Trilby Lenfant, led an effort to create the Friends of the Dew Drop and get the organization registered as a non-profit. That board, composed of citizens of the area with knowledge about musical history of the region and commitment and energy to make the old building a vibrant social, benevolent and educational force again, began meeting and planning in earnest by mid-2007. It produced three standing room only jazz shows in October, November and December of 2007 and is in the midst of planning for a full schedule of events in 2008 and beyond. Many who attend now attest to feeling spirits of former jazz greats who played in the building at the turn of the century and, with the large shutters thrown open and fans sitting on ancient church pew like wooden benches with a spirited jazz band crammed onto the small stage, it is easy to let oneself be transported in time back to the early years of America’s most enduring cultural gift to the world — traditional New Orleans jazz.