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The Daughters of Charity: From New Orleans to Carville
In 1896, the Daughters of Charity boarded a barge on the Mississippi River at Canal Street heading to Carville, Louisiana, about 70 miles upriver from New Orleans. Carville was the new site of the…
The Creation of the Battle of Liberty Place Monument
In September 1874, just two days after what would become known as the Battle of Liberty Place, the Daily Picayune suggested the creation of a monument to commemorate the event. In 1882 the city set…
The Clubhouse of the Louisiana Cycling Club: Completed 1890
In August of 1890, work was completed on the clubhouse of the Louisiana Cycling Club (LCC) at 1637 Octavia Street. The Queen Anne-style building still stands at that address. The party celebrating its…
The Church: Marie Laveau at St. Louis Cathedral
Marie Laveau was a devout Catholic throughout her life. Explore Laveau’s connections to the St. Louis Cathedral and Vodou’s relationship to the Catholic Church.
The Christopher Inn: Soaked After the Second-Line
Sometimes referred to as the Patron Saint of Frenchmen Street and local style icon “Uncle” Lionel Batiste was a patriarch of the famed Treme Brass Band and one of the so-called “Benchmen of…
The Cazelars: Wealth Preservation in a Racially Mixed Family
Jean Pierre Cazelar, a white man of French descent, was the wealthy patriarch of a prominent multi-racial family in 19th-century New Orleans. Though Cazelar intended his children to inherit his entire…
The Cabildo: The Archaeology of a Colonial-Era New Orleans Prison
The excavations at the Cabildo represented a rare opportunity to recover archaeological evidence of Colonial era governance, particularly in the realm of punishment. Modern conceptions of the prison…
The Cabildo: Home of the Louisiana Supreme Court, 1853-1910
Regarded as Louisiana’s most important historical building, the Cabildo is located at 701 Chartres Street, the corner of Chartres and St. Peter Streets. Viewed from Jackson Square across Chartres…
The Cabildo
Today, the Cabildo is a facility of the Louisiana State Museum, but the courtyard of the Cabildo was the location of a city prison complex for nearly two hundred years, across French, Spanish, and…
The Buildings of Shushan Airport
You are currently standing in front of the Lindbergh/Williams hangar. This hangar, the administration building behind you, and the Moffett hangar across the driveway were the airport’s original three…
The Broadway Campus Art Building
The art building is one of the four original buildings that were the Broadway campus when Newcomb moved there in 1918.
In 1997, the original art building underwent massive renovations, and the…
The Boré Plantation: Sugar Production and its Impact on Slavery in the 19th Century
Today’s Audubon Park was once the location of the Boré Plantation. In the late eighteenth century, Étienne de Boré converted his plantation crop from indigo to sugar cane due to significant financial…
The Bonne Carré Spillway
The Bonne Carré Spillway was constructed by the US Army Corps of Engineers in December 1935, with the aim of alleviating flooding pressure on the city of New Orleans by allowing the Mississippi River…
The Bench: The Unofficial Landmark of a Bygone Era
Since the 1970s, Frenchmen has been home to a smorgasbord of music venues that have birthed, incubated, and showcased various facets of the local music scene. We’ve asked hundreds of musicians about…
The Beaurepaire Family: Freedom to Slavery and Back Again
The house today marked 727-729 Burgundy Street, relatively unchanged since the early 1800s, has a history that reflects the tricky navigation of enslavement and freedom by a family called the…
The Barrooms and Brothels of Gallatin Street
Gallatin Street was once filled with barrooms, dance houses, and brothels — most institutions serving as all three. There was rarely a fee to enter, but men were encouraged to buy a drink for their…
The Arts Market, Holidays, and Playground in Palmer Park
The Arts Market, held the last Saturday of every month in Palmer Park, has a become a popular event. The market, sponsored by the non-profit Arts Council of New Orleans and held in Palmer Park since…
The Arcade
In 1896, Mrs. Newcomb contributed to both a pottery building and an arcade to connect the high school with College Hall.
The girls of Newcomb were thrilled with finally having their "missing link,"…
The Ancestors: Marie Laveau's Tomb
St. Louis Cemetery #1 on Basin Street, once outside the city limits, is the oldest existing cemetery in New Orleans. Towering above-ground tombs remind visitors of New Orleans’ high water table and…
The 1934 Pan-American Air Races
On February 9, 1934, the first Mardi Gras after Prohibition was repealed, hundreds of people crowded around the airport to see the Pan-American Air Races. Abraham Shushan, the Henderson brothers (air…
Termites and Historic Preservation
While termites have lived and thrived in the world for over two hundred million years, the truly destructive subterranean Formosan termites did not arrive in New Orleans until after World War II,…
Tennessee Williams' Early Days in New Orleans
In his over 40 years living in New Orleans, famed playwright Tennessee Williams resided in several French Quarter locations. Arriving in New Orleans in 1938, a 28-year-old Williams rented a room at…
Temple of the Innocent Blood
Today, nothing identifies the location in the Lower Ninth Ward where Mother Catherine Seals' “Temple of the Innocent Blood” once stood. This was true even before Hurricane Katrina devastated the area…
Taking the Elysian Fields Bus to UNO in 1958
Begin this tour by climbing aboard the 55 Elysian Fields bus, just as many black students did on their first day of classes in September 1958. The bus runs from Canal Street, through the French…