June 2024. For our first visit to the United States of America since the COVID-19 pandemic, we flew to New Orleans via London Heathrow with British Airways. After two days of exploring NOLA, Amtrak‘s Crescent overnight train brought us from Louisiana to New York, where we we stayed one night only before flying home. 

Ask people what they now about New Orleans, and chances are high they will name the French Quarter, Bourbon Street and Mardi Gras, NOLA’s carnival celebrations. 

The French Quarter is also known as Vieux Carré (Old Square) and is  the oldest and most famous neighborhood in New Orleans. It’s a vibrant and culturally rich neighbourhood renowned for its unique blend of French, Spanish, Creole, and American influences. Most of the extant historic buildings were constructed either in the late 18th century, during the city’s period of Spanish rule, or were built during the first half of the 19th century, after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 and statehood. 

After New Orleans was founded as Nouvelle-Orléans in 1718 by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, the city developed around the Vieux Carré, a central square. 

The district as a whole has been designated as a National Historic Landmark, with numerous contributing buildings that are separately deemed significant. 

It is a prime tourist destination in the city, as well as attracting local residents. Because of its distance from areas where the levee was breached during Hurricane Katrina in 2005 as well as the strength and height of the nearest Mississippi River Levees in contrast to other levees along the canals and lakefront, it suffered relatively light damage from floodwater as compared to other areas of the city and the greater region.

The French Quarter is home to numerous historical landmarks and museums. The Cabildo and the Presbytère, both located adjacent to Saint Louis Cathedral, offer insights into Louisiana’s history and culture. 

The Historic New Orleans Collection provides a deep dive into the city’s past through its extensive archives and exhibitions. Jackson Square, a historic park and the heart of the French Quarter, is surrounded by these architectural and historical treasures.

History

In 1721, the royal engineer Adrien de Pauger designed the city’s street layout. He named the streets after French royal houses and Catholic saints, and paid homage to France’s ruling family, the House of Bourbon, with the naming of Bourbon Street.

New Orleans was ceded to the Spanish in 1763 following the Seven Years’ War. The Great New Orleans Fire of 1788 and another in 1794 destroyed 80 percent of the city’s buildings, and so nearly all the French Quarter dates from the late 1790s onwards.

The Spanish introduced strict new fire codes that banned wooden siding in favor of fire-resistant brick, which was covered in stucco, painted in the pastel hues fashionable at the time. 

The old French peaked roofs were replaced with flat tiled ones, but the still largely French population continued to build in similar styles, influenced by colonial architecture of the Caribbean, such as timber balconies and galleries. 

In southeast Louisiana, a distinction is made between “balconies”, which are self-supporting and attached to the side of the building, and “galleries,” which are supported from the ground by poles or columns.

When Anglophone Americans began to move in after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, they mostly built on available land upriver, across modern-day Canal Street. This thoroughfare became the meeting place of two cultures, one Francophone Creole and the other Anglophone American. 

Local landowners had retained architect and surveyor Barthelemy Lafon to subdivide their property to create an American suburb. 

The median of the wide boulevard became a place where the two contentious cultures could meet and do business in both French and English. As such, it became known as the “neutral ground”, and this name is still used for medians in the New Orleans area.

During the 19th century, New Orleans was similar to other Southern cities in that its economy was based on selling cash crops, such as sugar, tobacco and cotton produced by enslaved labor. 

By 1840, newcomers whose wealth came from these enterprises turned New Orleans into the third largest metropolis in the country.The city’s port was the nation’s second largest, with New York City being the largest.

The development of New Orleans famous ornate cast iron ‘galleries’ began with the two storey examples on the Pontalba Buildings on Jackson Square, completed in 1851. 

As the most prominent and high class address at the time, they set a fashion for others to follow, and multi-level cast iron galleries soon replaced the old timber French ones on older buildings as well as gracing new ones.

Even before the Civil War, French Creoles had become a minority in the French Quarter.

In the late 19th century the Quarter became a less fashionable part of town, and many immigrants from southern Italy and Ireland settled there. From 1884 to 1924 an estimated 290,000 Italian immigrants, a great deal of them from Sicily, arrived in New Orleans and settled in the French Quarter, which acquired the nickname Little Palermo.

In 1917, the closure of Storyville sent much of the vice formerly concentrated therein back into the French Quarter, which chased French Creole families away. This, combined with the loss of the French Opera House two years later, provided a bookend to the era of French Creole culture in the Quarter. Many of the remaining French Creoles moved to the university area.

In the early 20th century, the Quarter’s cheap rents and air of decay attracted a bohemian artistic community, a trend which became pronounced in the 1920s. Many of these new inhabitants were active in the first preservation efforts in the Quarter, which began around that time. As a result, the Vieux Carré Commission (VCC) was established in 1925, spearheaded by Elizabeth Werlein.

Although initially only an advisory body, a 1936 referendum to amend the Louisiana constitution afforded it a measure of regulatory power. It began to exercise more power in the 1940s to preserve and protect the district.

Meanwhile, World War II brought thousands of servicemen and war workers to New Orleans as well as to the surrounding region’s military bases and shipyards. Many of these sojourners paid visits to the Vieux Carré. 

Although nightlife and sexual activity had already begun to coalesce on Bourbon Street in the two decades following the closure of Storyville, the war produced a larger, more permanent presence of exotic, risqué, and often raucous entertainment on what became the city’s most famous strip. 

Years of repeated crackdowns on vice in Bourbon Street clubs, which took on new urgency under Mayor deLesseps Story Morrison, reached a crescendo with District Attorney Jim Garrison‘s raids in 1962, but Bourbon Street’s clubs were soon back in business.

The plan to construct an elevated Riverfront Expressway between the Mississippi River Levee and the French Quarter consumed the attention of Vieux Carré preservationists through much of the 1960s. In 1965, the Vieux Carre Historic District was designated a National Historic Landmark.

Throughout the 1960s, new hotels opened regularly, often replacing large sections of the French Quarter. The VCC approved these structures as long as their designers adhered to prevailing exterior styles. 

Opponents, fearing that the Vieux Carré’s charm might be compromised by the introduction of too many new inns, lobbied successfully for passage in 1969 of a municipal ordinance that forbade new hotels within the district’s boundaries. 

However, the ordinance failed to stop the proliferation of timeshare condominiums and clandestine bed and breakfast inns throughout the French Quarter or high-rise hotels just outside its boundaries.

In the 1980s, many long-term residents were driven away by rising rents, as property values rose dramatically with expectations of windfalls from the planned 1984 World’s Fair site nearby.

More of the neighborhood was developed to support tourism, which is important to the city’s economy. But, the French Quarter still combines residential, hotels, guest houses, bars, restaurants and tourist-oriented commercial properties. 

Bourbon Street

Named after the French royal family, Bourbon Street runs 13 blocks from Canal Street to Esplanade Avenue. Although the street’s history dates back to the early 18th century, it has evolved significantly over the years. Initially, it was a residential area, but it began transforming into an entertainment district in the early 20th century. Today, Bourbon Street is synonymous with nightlife, music, and revelry.

Bourbon Street is renowned for its electric atmosphere, especially after dark. The street is lined with bars, clubs, restaurants, and shops, many of which feature neon signs and live music. 

Despite its reputation for debauchery, Bourbon Street also boasts several historic buildings and landmarks, such as the Old Absinthe House and Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop, one of the oldest bars in the United States.

Bourbon Street is the epicenter of New Orleans’ nightlife. It is famous for its lively bars and clubs, many of which feature live music ranging from jazz and blues to rock and electronic dance music. 

Popular spots include Pat O’Brien’s, known for its signature Hurricane cocktail and dueling pianos, and the historic Maison Bourbon, a jazz club that continues to celebrate the legacy of the genre. During major events like Mardi Gras and New Year’s Eve, Bourbon Street becomes a carnival of lights, music, and festivity.

All That Jazz

The French Quarter is the birthplace of jazz, and its musical heritage is celebrated throughout the district. Street performers, jazz bands, and brass ensembles can be heard playing on street corners and in various venues. 

The Preservation Hall, a legendary music venue, offers nightly performances of traditional New Orleans jazz. Additionally, the French Quarter hosts numerous music festivals, including the French Quarter Festival and Satchmo SummerFest.

How we experienced the French Quarter and Bourbon Street

The French Quarter was our go-to area for restaurants. On the first night, we had dinner at Curio, where I ate an alligator po’boy. 

On the second night we had a more upscale dinner at Muriel’s Jackson Square, where we had a ‘Blue Crab and Creole Tomato Menu‘ as it was the Creole Tomato Festival on 8 and 9 June at the French Market.

We did walk a part of Bourbon Street. We found it to be noisy, rowdy and full op people under influence of drinks and drugs.  Not our cup of tea. 

What struck us, is how more mature people at Bourbon Street were. We’d associate party street with teens and twenty-somethings. On Bourbon Street, we saw people older than that age group. 

From New Orleans to New York on Amtrak’s Crescent – USA 2024

1. REVIEW | British Airways Brussels to London Heathrow.
2. REVIEW | British Airways World Traveller London Heathrow to New Orleans.
3. NEW ORLEANS | Streetcars, Garden District, Algiers Point, Riverfront, Jackson Square.
4. REVIEW | Louisiana State Museums – the Presbytère and the Cabildo, in New Orleans.