The French Quarter | New Orleans

[NCB]

The morning after smell? Please tell me you're not talking about spilt beer and vomit.

Haha, that's exactly what I'm talking about, but you forgot urine.

[alon504]

Nice pics. I love the Quarter. Can't wait to go to the Krewe du Vieux tomorrow night (Feb. 11).

[NCB]

Can't wait to go to the Krewe du Vieux tomorrow night (Feb. 11).

Same here! I know it will be a great parade!

[Southernyank]

Those photos are absolutely amazing.If any good came out of the devistation, it is that at least this wonderful area was spared.

[UptownNewOrleans]

-Uptown New Orleans facing the CBD. Note: I didn't take this pic.

[NCB]

^I've always liked that picture. It gives a great view of the entire skyline and Uptown as well.

[NCB]

I may be heading into New Orleans again for a photo tour, does anyone have any requests for what they would like to see?

[dimebag1980]

Great pics... too bad I didn't see 'em sooner. I believe this is actually the first time I've clicked into the New Orleans forum. For some reason I always just bypassed it.

[convulso]

one of the great things (for me, anyway) about a forum as well-developed as UP is the discovery of old material you just haven't gotten around to seeing.

i find myself missing the south and new orleans in particular tonight, and then i stumble across this dormant photo thread.

man, what a gift. thanks, NCB.

[WRM2007]

^That's what I love about the French Quarter right now as well. When I went back for the first time after Katrina, I was more happy than I thought I would ever be to smell that morning-after smell.

[SlidellWX]

Parents were in town for the first time Post-K...and had a great time. We were in the Quarter every night, and they were surprised to see how good it looked. Port of Call was fantastic as usual...and Muriels was a treat. They promised to spread the word to friends back home that the city is a great place to visit. From what they said...all the press back home is very negative.

[jcoop]

Just had to say I have been down here for a conference and have had one of the best times of my life. Great hospitality and it's so good to see the city still plugging along. We are staying right next to the convention center and it's good to see that almost completely fixed back up. Last year at this same spot was just a horrible reminder of what happened.

[dan326]

The French Quarter is great. Sometimes people should think twice about trying to replicate it because a lot of the time it turns out

[UptownNewOrleans]

You get the true essence of the French Quarter by walking through at night.

[NCB]

My favorite time to walk through the Quarter is in the early morning, just around sunrise.

[nicolar]

Actually the French quarter architecture is mostly a mix of (french) creole and american styles.

First of all, in the whole quarter only 25 or so buildings go back to the spanish colonial era. And even those buildings which were built after the fires of 1788 and 1794 were built by french architects. Spanish administrators made new building codes, but the buildings were of french-creole design, (in a way similar to country houses one can find in normandy, adapted to a carribean climate). A handful of buildings are of typical spanish colonial architecture, like the cabildo, except for the french style mansard roof which was added in the 1850s.

Most of the quarter was built between the 1820s and 1850s. Creole style was dominant at the begining of this period (that is, french colonial architecture), but american townhouses and greek revival style were gaining strength as more and more americans were pouring to the city. At the turn of the century, shotgun houses were popular and built mainly in the rear of the quarter and in its lower part. Shotgun are of west african origins, transplanted in Louisiana by african slaves via Haiti.

So the quarter is not quite of spanish design, but rather derives from mostly french and american architecture, with a bit of spanish and african influences.

Concerning the balconies, a few houses had wrought iron balconies in the early 1800s, of a very sober design (the ones which go like this : TTTTTTTTTTTTT). In 1845, Pontalba countess built the Pontalba appartments on Jackson square, which had majestic cast iron balconies (a new technology at the time, easier to manipulate than wrought iron). This style (which was more ornamented like this %%%%%%%%) became very attractive to many, so almost all of the famous new orleans balconies originate from the late 1840s-1850s craze of iron cast.

As a result, what we see now in Jackson Square dates back from the 1850s : the roofs of the presbytere and the ones of the cabildo, but also the cathedral, the pontalba appartments... The quarter is not as old as it seems !

Richard Campanella, geographer at Tulane, has done a great deal of research about the quarter's architecture in his late book, Geographies of New Orleans : urban fabrics before the storm, 2006. I recommend it if you want to know for more information on this topic and others.