Bayou St. John is a narrow, slow-moving waterway that cuts through the city, distinguished by its calm, reflective surface and the green, grassy banks that separate it from the surrounding streets. This bayou provided the vital portage…
New Orleans Historical Timeline
I put this tour together to trace how New Orleans grew from an early Native American portage into a hub of colonial empires, conflict, and the Civil Rights movement. We will walk through centuries of history, following a chronological path across the city's most storied landmarks.
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1. Bayou St. John
2. Old Ursuline Convent Museum
The Old Ursuline Convent is the oldest building in the Mississippi River Valley, identifiable by its white stucco facade and a symmetrical exterior that features twelve bays and a steeply pitched roof. Completed in seventeen fifty-two, the…
3. The Cabildo Museum
The Cabildo is a heavy, cream-colored masonry building along Jackson Square, easily identified by the series of ground-floor Spanish arches and the third-floor French-style mansard roof. Built between seventeen ninety-five and seventeen…
4. Gallier Hall
Gallier Hall stands out on Saint Charles Avenue with its formal Greek Revival front, defined by two rows of fluted Ionic columns and a pediment crafted from white Westchester marble. Designed by the Irish architect James Gallier Senior and…
5. Plessy v. Ferguson Historical Marker (Press Street Railroad Yards)
The historical marker at the corner of Press and Royal Streets sits near the former site of the Press Street railroad yards. On June seventh, eighteen ninety-two, a thirty-year-old shoemaker named Homer Plessy arrived here to purchase a…
6. Dooky Chase Restaurant
Dooky Chase Restaurant is a corner brick building in the Tremé neighborhood, distinguished by its name written in a gothic font and an old-fashioned gas lamp by the front entrance. Established in nineteen thirty-nine, the business began as…