Streetcar Named Desire No. 952 back in its hometown of New Orleans, Louisiana.

In New Orleans, "Desire" was no different than Jackson, Freret, or a score of other New Orleans car line names, until Tennessee Williams immortalized it in 1947 (just a year before its streetcars gave way to buses). Desire’s only operating distinction was running its entire length in mixed street traffic. (Most other lines ran in exclusive medians known in New Orleans as "neutral ground.") The route went through the famed French Quarter on Royal and Bourbon Streets, as well as Desire Street.

This car, No. 952, was one of 73 identical cars in the "900-class" built in 1923-24, mostly by the Perley Thomas Company. Traditional and spartan in design, it would have seen service on most of the two dozen lines in pre-war New Orleans. After World War II, as elsewhere in America, New Orleans’ trolleys began giving way to buses. Car No. 952 was shuffled to surviving lines, eventually working the line on Canal Street—which once shared with our Market Street the distinction of being the only two main streets in America with four streetcar tracks. But in 1964, Canal joined the bus parade, leaving only the St. Charles line in operation. The best cars were selected to remain, and No. 952 lost out. Saved from scrap by a hotel operation in Chattanooga, No. 952 soldiered on in semi-retirement until it returned to New Orleans in 1984 to serve on the new Riverfront line. That line—not historically protected as is St. Charles—was converted in 1997 to use new cars built to resemble the old ones. Since St. Charles’ historic fleet already has ample spare cars, No. 952 and two other Riverfront retirees were put into storage, with no apparent future in New Orleans. Then, at the initiative of Mayors Willie Brown of San Francisco and Marc Morial of New Orleans, No. 952 began a new career as a rolling ambassador for its home town on Muni’s F-line.