French Quarter

"It's the most embracing, sophisticated, accepting place on earth."  

"Not just a tourist attraction.  It's a great neighborhood where everyone there feels like family."  

"There's literally no place else that's anything like the French Quarter."

Description
Truman Capote once described New Orleans as "of all secret cities, the most secretive, the most unlike, in reality, what an outsider is permitted to observe."  And New Orleans' French Quarter may be its most secretive neighborhood.  Here in an area famous for its raucous night life and hedonistic abandon, there lives a community in love with the area's timelessness, its beautiful buildings with handcrafted details, its proximity to the river, and its quality as a great, walkable neighborhood of world-class restaurants and vibrant street life.  

If you like the pulse of great music coming to you on the coffee-scented air; if you enjoy walking down an ancient street where overhanging balconies spill pools of mysterious shadow; if stepping off of a crowded sidewalk into a secret garden makes your heart skip a beat, then you 'get" the French Quarter.  Here in one of the oldest communities in the United States, history isn't distant...it isn't even the past.  Here, where the ravages of Hurricane Katrina touched so lightly, artists, writers and performers are back in business living with successful businessmen, street urchins, restaurateurs and the descendants of French aristocrats.  They've created a culture that's unlike anything anywhere else:  part Venice, part Venice Beach, part magic, and purely and inimitably the French Quarter.

History
The Vieux Carre, or "Old Square", was the first settled section of New Orleans, and for a hundred years it survived alone as an outpost against fires, floods, disease, and successive changes of government.   Built by the French and largely rebuilt by the Spanish in the late 18th century, it was already an area with a history and a culture all its own when America purchased Louisiana in 1803.  Since then, the French Quarter has withstood yellow fever, American occupation, The Great Depression and 20th century developers to remain one of the wonders of New Orleans.  Of course it will survive Katrina...in fact, it already has.

Landmarks
Café du Monde
Madame John's Legacy
The Cabildo
St. Louis Cathedral
Jackson Square
French Market
Audubon's Aquarium of the Americas & IMAX Theatre
Woldenberg Riverfront Park
JAX Brewery

Public Transportation

New Orleans Regional Transit Authority

City Council Representative

James Carter - District C
City Hall Room 2W70
1300 Perdido Street
New Orleans, LA 70112
Telephone: 504-658-1030
Fax:  504-658-1037
E-Mail:  JCarter@cityofno.com

Police District

New Orleans Police Department  - Eighth District

Demographics

Primarily well-to-do, many part-time condo residents as well as long-term, full-time homeowners.  Extremely diverse in terms of race, ethnicity and sexual orientation.

Architecture

Creole architecture, French and Spanish predominates, with modifications adapted to the climate like the deep balconies which shade pedestrians beneath.

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