Neighborhood of New Orleans, United States
Neighborhood in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States
The
Central Business District
(
CBD
) is a
neighborhood
of the city of
New Orleans
,
Louisiana
,
United States
.
A subdistrict of the French Quarter/CBD area, its boundaries, as defined by the City Planning Commission, are Iberville,
Decatur
and
Canal Streets
to the north; the
Mississippi River
to the east; the
New Orleans Morial Convention Center
, Julia and
Magazine Streets
, and the
Pontchartrain Expressway
to the south; and
South Claiborne Avenue
, Cleveland Street, and South and North Derbigny Streets to the west. It is the equivalent of what many
cities
call their
downtown
, although in New Orleans
"downtown" or "down town"
was historically used to mean all portions of the city downriver from Canal Street (in the direction of flow of the Mississippi River). In recent decades, however, use of the catch-all "downtown" adjective to describe neighborhoods downriver from Canal Street has largely ceased, having been replaced in usage by individual neighborhood names (such as
Bywater
).
[
citation needed
]
Originally developed as the largely-residential
Faubourg
Ste. Marie (
English:
St. Mary Suburb) in the late 18th century, the modern Central Business District is today a dynamic, mixed-use neighborhood, the home of professional offices in skyscrapers, specialty and neighborhood retail stores, numerous restaurants and clubs, and thousands of residents inhabiting restored, historic commercial and industrial buildings.
A part of the area is listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
as the
New Orleans Lower Central Business District
.
History
[
edit
]
Streets in the Central Business District (originally
Faubourg Ste. Marie
) were initially platted in the late 18th century, representing the first expansion of
New Orleans
beyond its original French Quarter footprint. Significant investment began in earnest following the
Louisiana Purchase
of 1803, as people from other parts of the
United States
flocked to the city. Consequently, the district began to be referred to as the
American Sector
.
While traditionally
Canal Street
was viewed as the dividing line between the
French Quarter
and the American Sector, legally both sides of Canal Street are today considered part of the Central Business District for zoning and regulatory purposes. Through the 19th and into the 20th century, the Central Business District continued developing almost without pause. By the mid-20th century, most professional offices in the region were located downtown, the hub of a well-developed
public transit system
.
Canal Street was the primary retail destination for New Orleanians, as well as for residents of the surrounding region. Local and regional
department stores
Maison Blanche
,
D.H. Holmes
, Godchaux's,
Gus Mayer
, Labiche's, Kreeger's, and
Krauss
anchored numerous well-known specialty retailers, such as
Rubenstein Bros.
,
Adler's Jewelry
, Koslow's, Rapp's, and
Werlein's Music
. National retailers, like
Kress
,
Woolworth
, and
Walgreens
were present alongside local drugstore
K&B
.
Sears
operated a large store one block off Canal, on Baronne Street.
Bookstores, theaters, and movie palaces also abounded, with the neon marquees of the
Saenger
,
Loews State
,
RKO Orpheum
,
Joy
, and
Civic
theaters nightly casting multi-colored lights onto surrounding sidewalks.
In the 1950s, six-lane
Loyola Avenue
was constructed as an extension of Elk Place, cutting a swath through a low-income residential district and initially hosting the city's new civic center complex. The late-1960s widening of
Poydras Street
was undertaken to create another six-lane
central area circulator
for vehicular traffic, as well as to accommodate modern high-rise construction. The City of New Orleans partook in transforming the district from 1973 to 1993, in a collaboration between public and private sectors to spark active community participation.
[1]
The portion of the CBD closer to the Mississippi River and upriver from Poydras Street is known as the
Warehouse District
, because it was heavily devoted to
warehousing
and manufacturing before shipping became
containerized
. The
1984 World's Fair
drew attention to the then semi-derelict district, resulting in steady investment and redevelopment from the mid-1980s onward. Many of the old 19th-century warehouses have been converted into
hotels
,
restaurants
,
condominiums
, and
art galleries
. For further information:
Loft 523
, a boutique hotel.
Notable structures in the CBD include the
Greek Revival
Gallier Hall
(the city's former
city hall
);
Caesars Superdome
; the
Smoothie King Center
; the city's present-day,
International style
city hall; and
Hancock Whitney Center
, the city's tallest building and headquarters for
Royal Dutch Shell
's Gulf of Mexico Exploration and Production. Other significant attractions include the postmodern
Piazza d'Italia
,
Harrah's Casino
, the
World Trade Center New Orleans
, the
U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals
,
St. Patrick's Church
, the
Hibernia Bank Building
, and the former
New Orleans Cotton Exchange
.
The principal public park in the CBD is
Lafayette Square
, upon which face both Gallier Hall and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Other public spaces include Duncan Plaza, Elk Place, the Piazza d'Italia,
Lee Circle
, Mississippi River Heritage Park, Spanish Plaza, and the Richard and Annette Bloch Cancer Survivors Plaza.
Museums
include the
National World War II Museum
, the
Ogden Museum of Southern Art
, the Louisiana Children's Museum, the New Orleans Contemporary Arts Center and
Confederate Memorial Hall Museum
.
New Orleans CBD was one of the few areas of New Orleans that escaped the
catastrophic flooding
of 2005's Hurricane Katrina.
[
citation needed
]
Geography
[
edit
]
The Central Business District is located at
29°56′59″N
90°04′14″W
/
29.94972°N 90.07056°W
/
29.94972; -90.07056
[2]
and has an elevation of 3 feet (0.9 m).
[3]
As is true of most of
metropolitan New Orleans
, the parts of the district nearer the river are higher in elevation than areas further removed from it. According to the
United States Census Bureau
, the district has a total area of 1.18 square miles (3.1 km
2
). 1.06 square miles (2.7 km
2
) of which is land and 0.12 square miles (0.3 km
2
) (10.17%) of which is water.
Adjacent neighborhoods
[
edit
]
Boundaries
[
edit
]
The City Planning Commission defines the boundaries of the Central Business District as these streets: Iberville Street, Decatur Street,
Canal Street
, the
Mississippi River
, the
New Orleans Morial Convention Center
, Julia Street, Magazine Street, the Pontchartrain Expressway, South Claiborne Avenue, Cleveland Avenue, South Derbigny Street and North Derbigny Street.
[4]
Demographics
[
edit
]
As of the
census
[5]
of 2000, there were 3,435 inhabitants of the census tracts best corresponding to the boundaries of the New Orleans Downtown Development District. The
population density
was 1,692 /mi
2
(664 /km
2
). Another 4,142 inhabitants of the adjacent
French Quarter
neighborhood were recorded in the 2000 Census. The CBD, its subdistricts (e.g., the Warehouse District), and the bordering neighborhoods of
Treme
, the French Quarter, and the
Lower Garden District
possessed 21,630 residents, according to the 2000 Census.
Government and infrastructure
[
edit
]
The New Orleans City Hall and surrounding structures, including the
circa
-1960, architecturally award-winning Main Branch of the
New Orleans Public Library
face Duncan Plaza, an exercise in 1950s-style
urban renewal
embodying then-mayor
Chep Morrison's
desire to create a modern
civic center
. The New Orleans Civic Center is today much diminished, with the
Louisiana Supreme Court
building having been torn down in the wake of the court's 2004 departure for the
French Quarter
,
[6]
the Louisiana State office building having suffered the same fate, and Duncan Plaza itself having been fenced off.
The
United States Postal Service
operates the New Orleans Main Post Office at 701 Loyola Avenue in the CBD.
[7]
The
Union Passenger Terminal
is the
terminus
for three of
Amtrak's
long-distance trains, the
City of New Orleans
, the
Crescent
and, since 2005, the
Sunset Limited
(with the elimination, due to
Katrina
damage, of the eastbound portion of the Sunset Limited route), and also offers inter-city bus service via
Greyhound Lines
.
Interstate Highway
access is provided by
I-10
, via the Claiborne and
Pontchartrain
Expressways. When I-10 curves to the east by the Louisiana Superdome and becomes the Claiborne Expressway, elevated above N. Claiborne Avenue, the Pontchartrain Expressway continues as
U.S. Route 90 Business
and crosses the Mississippi River on the twin-bridge
Crescent City Connection
.
Significant thoroughfares in the CBD include
St. Charles Avenue
, Camp Street,
Carondelet Street
, Gravier Street, Poydras Street,
Tchoupitoulas Street
, Howard Avenue, and
Canal Street
. Prior to the 1980s, the intersection of Gravier and Carondelet streets was the
de facto
heart of the city's financial district. Though still a vibrant area, that part of the CBD witnessed the migration of much business slightly upriver to Poydras Street, as many modern
high-rise office towers
were constructed there in the 1970s and 1980s. The widening of Loyola Avenue, Poydras Street and O'Keefe Avenue aimed to simultaneously create an effective
downtown circulator
high capacity road network for automobile traffic and make room for large-scale redevelopment (e.g., Duncan Plaza,
Superdome
). However, many of the development sites created in the wake of these improvements were never built upon, leaving a noticeable and unfortunate quantity of surface parking lots along these widened streets.
Economy
[
edit
]
Entergy
, the region's sole
Fortune 500
firm, maintains its headquarters in the CBD, as does
Reily Foods Company
, which markets
Luzianne
products and Standard Coffee.
[8]
[9]
Other local companies headquartered downtown include McMoRan Exploration, Pan American Life Insurance, Superior Energy Services, TurboSquid, iSeatz, Historic Restoration Inc. (HRI Properties),
Tidewater Marine
, Energy Partners Ltd., Intermarine, IMTT, International Coffee Corp., and The Receivables Exchange.
The CBD also hosts the New Orleans I.P., an "Intellectual Property", home to numerous
creative industries
firms, and numerous bioscience companies are established at the New Orleans BioInnovation Center, located within BioDistrict New Orleans.
The regional economic alliance Greater New Orleans, Inc. (GNO Inc.),
the New Orleans metropolitan area's
lead economic development entity for the ten-parish New Orleans region, is also headquartered downtown, as is the New Orleans Business Alliance (NOLA BA), the public-private partnership agency leading economic development efforts for the city proper.
The
World Trade Center of New Orleans
(WTCNO) has been located in the CBD since its establishment in 1943. The WTCNO facilitates the addition of wealth and jobs in Louisiana through international trade, economic development, and allied activities by supporting a prosperous international business climate in Louisiana.
Diplomatic missions
[
edit
]
The
Consulate of Mexico
in New Orleans is located in the CBD.
[10]
The consulate re-opened in that location in 2008 because of the dramatic increase in the local Mexican immigrant population, many of whom arrived in the
wake of Hurricane Katrina
to assist in the city's rebuilding.
[11]
In addition to Mexico,
France
maintains a consulate in downtown New Orleans, a reflection of the long-standing ties between that nation and Louisiana, and of
France
's role as the founder of New Orleans in 1718.
At one time the
Consulate-General of Japan in New Orleans
was located in the
Entergy Tower
.
[12]
In 2006 Japan announced that it was moving the consulate to
Nashville, Tennessee
.
[13]
The Japanese Government relocated the mission to be close to industries and operations owned by Japanese companies.
[14]
Honorary consuls for numerous other nations may also be found within the CBD.
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Brooks, Jane S.; Young, Alma H. (1993-01-01). "Revitalising the Central Business District in the Face of Decline: The Case of New Orleans, 1973-1993".
The Town Planning Review
.
64
(3): 251?271.
doi
:
10.3828/tpr.64.3.k4464042269x8222
.
JSTOR
40113232
.
- ^
"US Gazetteer files: 2010, 2000, and 1990"
.
United States Census Bureau
. 2011-02-12
. Retrieved
2011-04-23
.
- ^
"US Board on Geographic Names"
.
United States Geological Survey
. 2007-10-25
. Retrieved
2008-01-31
.
- ^
- ^
"U.S. Census website"
.
United States Census Bureau
. Retrieved
2008-01-31
.
- ^
History of the Louisiana Supreme Court
Archived
2020-01-27 at the
Wayback Machine
, retrieved 16 April 2017.
- ^
"
Post Office Location - N O MAIN OFC WINDOW SVE
."
United States Postal Service
. Retrieved on May 5, 2009.
- ^
"
Contact Us
Archived
2018-01-08 at the
Wayback Machine
."
Reily Foods Company
. Retrieved on January 21, 2010.
- ^
"
Entergy Corporate Headquarters Return to New Orleans
Archived
2011-07-10 at the
Wayback Machine
." Entergy. April 20, 2006. Retrieved on January 21, 2010.
- ^
"
Bienvenidos Consulado de Mexico en Nueva Orleans
Archived
2010-05-10 at the
Wayback Machine
."
Consulate of Mexico in New Orleans
. Retrieved on March 7, 2010.
- ^
Hammer, David. "
Mexican Consulate opens Monday
."
New Orleans Times Picayune
. April 18, 2008. Retrieved on March 7, 2010.
- ^
"
"Overseas Establishments in the U.S."
"
. Archived from the original on March 23, 2004
. Retrieved
2004-03-23
.
{{
cite web
}}
: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (
link
)
Embassy of Japan in Washington, D.C.
Retrieved on March 7, 2010. "New Orleans Consulate-General of Japan, Suite 2050, One Poydras Plaza, 639 Loyola Avenue, New Orleans, Louisiana 70113, U.S.A."
- ^
"Another hit for Nashville: Japan's consulate"
.
The Kansas City Star
. December 30, 2006. p. 2. Archived from
the original
on 4 March 2016
. Retrieved
March 7,
2010
.
- ^
"
Japan will close New Orleans consulate
." (
Archive
)
The Times-Picayune
. November 30, 2007. Accessed June 21, 2008.
External links
[
edit
]
Neighborhoods of the French Quarter/Central Business District of
New Orleans
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