Canal Street, New Orleans
Encyclopedia
Canal Street is a major thoroughfare in the city of New Orleans. Forming the upriver boundary of the city's oldest neighborhood, the French Quarter
(Vieux Carré), it acted as the dividing line between the older French/Spanish Colonial-era city and the newer American Sector, today's Central Business District.
The name of the avenue comes from a planned canal
which was to have connected the Mississippi River
to the Congo Square
terminus of the Carondelet Canal
, but was never constructed. The wide median earmarked for the canal was referred to by early inhabitants as the "neutral ground
", due to the animosities amongst culturally distant residents on separate sides of the avenue. The term is still used by New Orleanians to refer to all street medians
.
One end of Canal Street terminates at the Mississippi River. Often called "The foot of Canal Street", at the riverfront the Canal Street Ferry
offers a connection to the Algiers Point
neighborhood, an older, 18th century portion of the larger Algiers
area across the river. Canal Street's other terminus is in Mid-City
at a collection of cemeteries
. Slightly offset from Canal Street's Mid-City end is the beginning of Canal Boulevard, which extends to the shore of Lake Pontchartrain
via the Lakeview
neighborhood.
The street has three lanes of traffic in both directions, with a pair of streetcar tracks in the center.
Canal Street is often said to be the widest roadway in America to have been classified as a street
, instead of the avenue
or boulevard
titles more typically appended to wide urban thoroughfares.
For more than a century, Canal Street was the main shopping district of Greater New Orleans. Local department stores
Maison Blanche
, D.H. Holmes, Godchaux's, Gus Mayer
, Kreeger's and Krauss
anchored numerous well-known specialty retailers, such as Rubensteins Men's Store, Adlers, Koslow's, Rapp's, and Werlein's Music. National retailers, like Kress, Woolworth, McCrory's and Walgreens
(the last of these listed that still exist) were present alongside local drugstore K&B
. Sears operated a large store one block off Canal, on Baronne Street. Theaters and movie palaces were centered around the intersection with Rampart Street
, with the neon marquees of the Saenger, Loews State
, Orpheum
, and Joy
casting multicolored light nightly onto surrounding sidewalks. Notably, the world's first movie theater
(that is, the first business devoted specifically to showing film
s for profit) was "Vitascope Hall", established on Canal Street in 1896.
Though Canal Street began to lose its primacy as a regional shopping destination in the late 1960s, it retained a robust mix of department stores and specialty shopping into the mid-1980s - somewhat later than main street shopping districts in most other major U.S. cities - and it received an ostensibly decisive boost in 1983 with the completion of Canal Place's
retail component, which included a Saks Fifth Avenue
department store and a Brooks Brothers
outlet. However, national trends disfavoring downtown retail finally caught up with Canal Street - with a key assist from the regional economic depression of the mid-80s (the Oil Bust
) - and apart from Canal Place, Rubensteins and Adler's, no high-end retail now remains.
For decades, the giant effigy of the character Mr. Bingle
on the façade of the Maison Blanche building was a sign of the Christmas
season.
Beginning in the 1970s with the completion of the New Orleans Marriott
, Canal Street began to accommodate large convention hotels, such as the Sheraton New Orleans
and the JW Marriott
.
Canal Street today is undergoing redevelopment along the lines called for in the Downtown Development District's 2004 Canal Street Vision and Development Strategy. In recent years the street has welcomed the addition of numerous new anchors, including the Ritz-Carlton New Orleans
, luxury apartments at 1201 Canal, the New Orleans BioInnovation Center, the Audubon Nature Institute's
Audubon Insectarium, and the Astor Crowne Plaza. In October 2011, the New Orleans City Council
granted approval for the construction 1031 Canal
, a 190 feet (57.9 m) multi-use highrise at the north-east intersection of Canal and North Rampart Streets.
Canal Street also remains the hub of the city's mass transit system
.
French Quarter
The French Quarter, also known as Vieux Carré, is the oldest neighborhood in the city of New Orleans. When New Orleans was founded in 1718 by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, the city was originally centered on the French Quarter, or the Vieux Carré as it was known then...
(Vieux Carré), it acted as the dividing line between the older French/Spanish Colonial-era city and the newer American Sector, today's Central Business District.
Canal
Canals are man-made channels for water. There are two types of canal:#Waterways: navigable transportation canals used for carrying ships and boats shipping goods and conveying people, further subdivided into two kinds:...
which was to have connected the Mississippi River
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...
to the Congo Square
Congo Square
Congo Square is an open space within Louis Armstrong Park, which is located in the Tremé neighborhood of New Orleans, Louisiana, just across Rampart Street north of the French Quarter. The Tremé neighborhood is famous for its history of African American music....
terminus of the Carondelet Canal
Carondelet Canal
The Carondelet Canal, also known as the Old Basin Canal, was a canal in New Orleans, Louisiana from 1794 through 1938.Construction of the canal began in June of 1794 on the orders of Governor of Louisiana Francisco Luis Hector de Carondelet, for whom the canal was named. The 1.6‑mile long canal...
, but was never constructed. The wide median earmarked for the canal was referred to by early inhabitants as the "neutral ground
Neutral ground
Neutral Ground may refer to:* A No Man's Land* The 30-mile-wide stretch of land between the British troops occupying New York City during the American Revolution and American-held territory in northern Westchester County, New York;...
", due to the animosities amongst culturally distant residents on separate sides of the avenue. The term is still used by New Orleanians to refer to all street medians
Central reservation
On divided roads, such as divided highways or freeways/motorways, the central reservation , median, parkway , median strip or central nature strip is the area which separates opposing lanes of traffic...
.
One end of Canal Street terminates at the Mississippi River. Often called "The foot of Canal Street", at the riverfront the Canal Street Ferry
Canal Street Ferry
The Canal Street Ferry, also known as the Algiers Ferry, is a ferry across the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana, connecting the foot of Canal Street in the Central Business District of New Orleans with Algiers on the West Bank...
offers a connection to the Algiers Point
Algiers Point
Algiers Point is a location on the Lower Mississippi River in New Orleans, Louisiana. In river pilotage, Algiers Point is simply one of the many points of land around which the river flows—albeit a significant one...
neighborhood, an older, 18th century portion of the larger Algiers
Algiers, Louisiana
Algiers is a neighborhood within the city of New Orleans. It is the portion of Orleans Parish on the West Bank of the Mississippi River.Algiers is also known as the 15th Ward, one of the 17 Wards of New Orleans.-History:...
area across the river. Canal Street's other terminus is in Mid-City
Mid-City New Orleans
Mid-City is a neighborhood of the city of New Orleans. A subdistrict of the Mid-City District Area, its boundaries as defined by the City Planning Commission are: City Park Avenue, Toulouse Street, North Carrollton and Orleans Avenues, Bayou St. John and St. Louis Street to the north, North Broad...
at a collection of cemeteries
Cemetery
A cemetery is a place in which dead bodies and cremated remains are buried. The term "cemetery" implies that the land is specifically designated as a burying ground. Cemeteries in the Western world are where the final ceremonies of death are observed...
. Slightly offset from Canal Street's Mid-City end is the beginning of Canal Boulevard, which extends to the shore of Lake Pontchartrain
Lake Pontchartrain
Lake Pontchartrain is a brackish estuary located in southeastern Louisiana. It is the second-largest inland saltwater body of water in the United States, after the Great Salt Lake in Utah, and the largest lake in Louisiana. As an estuary, Pontchartrain is not a true lake.It covers an area of with...
via the Lakeview
Lakeview, New Orleans
Lakeview is a neighborhood of the city of New Orleans. A subdistrict of the Lakeview District Area, its boundaries as defined by the City Planning Commission are: Robert E. Lee Boulevard to the north, Orleans Avenue to the east, Florida Boulevard, Canal Boulevard and I-610 to the south and...
neighborhood.
The street has three lanes of traffic in both directions, with a pair of streetcar tracks in the center.
Canal Street is often said to be the widest roadway in America to have been classified as a street
Street
A street is a paved public thoroughfare in a built environment. It is a public parcel of land adjoining buildings in an urban context, on which people may freely assemble, interact, and move about. A street can be as simple as a level patch of dirt, but is more often paved with a hard, durable...
, instead of the avenue
Street name
A street name or odonym is an identifying name given to a street. The street name usually forms part of the address...
or boulevard
Boulevard
A Boulevard is type of road, usually a wide, multi-lane arterial thoroughfare, divided with a median down the centre, and roadways along each side designed as slow travel and parking lanes and for bicycle and pedestrian usage, often with an above-average quality of landscaping and scenery...
titles more typically appended to wide urban thoroughfares.
Department store
A department store is a retail establishment which satisfies a wide range of the consumer's personal and residential durable goods product needs; and at the same time offering the consumer a choice of multiple merchandise lines, at variable price points, in all product categories...
Maison Blanche
Maison Blanche
.Maison Blanche was a department store in New Orleans and later also a chain of department stores. It was founded in 1897 by Isidore Newman, an immigrant from Germany....
, D.H. Holmes, Godchaux's, Gus Mayer
Gus Mayer
Gus Mayer is a Birmingham, Alabama based, family-owned, upscale specialty department store that caters to upper-end clientele and is known for its high-end fashions. The two-store chain is owned by the Pizitz Management Group...
, Kreeger's and Krauss
Krauss building
The Krauss Building is a landmark building in New Orleans, Louisiana, at the downtown lake corner of Canal Street and Basin Street. It housed one of the city's leading department stores for over 90 years...
anchored numerous well-known specialty retailers, such as Rubensteins Men's Store, Adlers, Koslow's, Rapp's, and Werlein's Music. National retailers, like Kress, Woolworth, McCrory's and Walgreens
Walgreens
Walgreen Co. , doing business as Walgreens , is the largest drugstore chain in the United States of America. As of August 31st, the company operates 8,210 locations across all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Founded in Chicago, Illinois in 1901, and has since expanded...
(the last of these listed that still exist) were present alongside local drugstore K&B
K&B
K&B was a drug store chain headquartered in New Orleans. Founded in 1905, it expanded to have stores in the United States Gulf Coast region until it was purchased by Rite Aid in 1997....
. Sears operated a large store one block off Canal, on Baronne Street. Theaters and movie palaces were centered around the intersection with Rampart Street
Rampart Street
Rampart Street is a historic avenue located in New Orleans, Louisiana.The upper end of the street is in the New Orleans Central Business District...
, with the neon marquees of the Saenger, Loews State
State Palace Theatre (New Orleans, Louisiana)
State Palace Theatre is a performing arts venue located in New Orleans, Louisiana. Constructed in 1926 for the Loew's Theatre circuit, it had a seating capacity of 3,335 and also contained a 3/13 Robert Morton organ....
, Orpheum
Orpheum Theater (New Orleans)
The Orpheum Theater is a theater in the Central Business District of New Orleans, Louisiana.Also known as RKO Orpheum, it was esigned by G. Albert Lansburgh, built in 1918, and opened for vaudeville in 1921. The Beaux Arts style building has 1800 seats. Soon after opening it became a movie house...
, and Joy
Joy Theater
The Joy Theater is a theater and historic landmark built in 1947 on Canal Street in downtown New Orleans, Louisiana. Renovations in 2011 transformed the former movie palace into a multipurpose theater for live music, stand-up comedy, private functions, and corporate events...
casting multicolored light nightly onto surrounding sidewalks. Notably, the world's first movie theater
Movie theater
A movie theater, cinema, movie house, picture theater, film theater is a venue, usually a building, for viewing motion pictures ....
(that is, the first business devoted specifically to showing film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
s for profit) was "Vitascope Hall", established on Canal Street in 1896.
Though Canal Street began to lose its primacy as a regional shopping destination in the late 1960s, it retained a robust mix of department stores and specialty shopping into the mid-1980s - somewhat later than main street shopping districts in most other major U.S. cities - and it received an ostensibly decisive boost in 1983 with the completion of Canal Place's
One Canal Place
One Canal Place, located at 365 Canal Street in the Central Business District of New Orleans, Louisiana, is a 32-story, -tall skyscraper. The building contains The Shops at Canal Place shopping mall and is attached to The Westin New Orleans Canal Place, with which it shares a parking garage...
retail component, which included a Saks Fifth Avenue
Saks Fifth Avenue
Saks Fifth Avenue is a luxury American specialty store owned and operated by Saks Fifth Avenue Enterprises , a subsidiary of Saks Incorporated. It competes in the high-end specialty store market in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, i.e. 'the 3 B's' Bergdorf, Barneys, Bloomingdale's and Lord & Taylor...
department store and a Brooks Brothers
Brooks Brothers
Brooks Brothers is the oldest men's clothier chain in the United States. Founded in 1818 as a family business, the privately owned company is now owned by Retail Brand Alliance, also features clothing for women, and is headquartered on Madison Avenue in Manhattan, New York City.-History:On April 7,...
outlet. However, national trends disfavoring downtown retail finally caught up with Canal Street - with a key assist from the regional economic depression of the mid-80s (the Oil Bust
1980s oil glut
The 1980s oil glut was a serious surplus of crude oil caused by falling demand following the 1970s Energy Crisis. The world price of oil, which had peaked in 1980 at over US$35 per barrel , fell in 1986 from $27 to below $10...
) - and apart from Canal Place, Rubensteins and Adler's, no high-end retail now remains.
For decades, the giant effigy of the character Mr. Bingle
Mr. Bingle
Mr. Bingle is a fictional character, a snowman assistant to Santa Claus. Originating as a mascot of the Maison Blanche department store in New Orleans, Louisiana, the character was later marketed by Dillard's and remains part of the pop-culture of the Greater New Orleans area.-History:Mr. Bingle...
on the façade of the Maison Blanche building was a sign of the Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
season.
Beginning in the 1970s with the completion of the New Orleans Marriott
New Orleans Marriott
New Orleans Marriott, located at 555 Canal Street in the Central Business District of New Orleans, Louisiana, is a 42-story, -tall skyscraper.-External links:*...
, Canal Street began to accommodate large convention hotels, such as the Sheraton New Orleans
Sheraton New Orleans
Sheraton New Orleans, located at 500 Canal Street in the Central Business District of New Orleans, Louisiana, is a 48-story, -tall skyscraper.-Location:500 Canal Street New Orleans, LA-External links:*...
and the JW Marriott
JW Marriott Hotel New Orleans
The JW Marriott Hotel New Orleans is a high-rise building in the Central Business District of New Orleans, Louisiana. The building rises 331 feet . It contains 30 floors, and was completed in 1984; originally named Le Meridien Hotel. The JW Marriott Hotel New Orleans currently stands as the...
.
Canal Street today is undergoing redevelopment along the lines called for in the Downtown Development District's 2004 Canal Street Vision and Development Strategy. In recent years the street has welcomed the addition of numerous new anchors, including the Ritz-Carlton New Orleans
Ritz-Carlton
The Ritz-Carlton is a brand of luxury hotels and resorts with 75 properties located in major cities and resorts in 24 countries worldwide...
, luxury apartments at 1201 Canal, the New Orleans BioInnovation Center, the Audubon Nature Institute's
Audubon Nature Institute
The Audubon Nature Institute is family of museums and parks dedicated to nature based in New Orleans, Louisiana. It consists of the Audubon Zoo, Aquarium of the Americas, Audubon Louisiana Nature Center, Audubon Park, Woldenberg Riverfront Park, Freeport-McMoRan Audubon Species Survival Center,...
Audubon Insectarium, and the Astor Crowne Plaza. In October 2011, the New Orleans City Council
New Orleans City Council
The New Orleans City Council is the legislative branch of the City of New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. There is one city council member for each of the five council districts, as well as two at-large council members. The council members are elected to four-year terms using the two-round...
granted approval for the construction 1031 Canal
1031 Canal
1031 Canal, to be located at 1031 Canal Street, in the Central Business District of New Orleans, Louisiana, is a proposed -tall multi-use high rise. After months of controversy, on September 22, 2011 the New Orleans City Council voted 5-2 to approve the necessary height variances with provisions...
, a 190 feet (57.9 m) multi-use highrise at the north-east intersection of Canal and North Rampart Streets.
Canal Street also remains the hub of the city's mass transit system
New Orleans Regional Transit Authority
The New Orleans Regional Transit Authority is a body established by the Louisiana State Legislature in 1979; since 1983 it has controlled bus and streetcar service in the City of New Orleans....
.
Further reading
- Canal Street: New Orleans' Great Wide Way by Peggy Scott Laborde and John Magill, Pelican Publishing, 2006. ISBN 978-1-58980-337-4