LCV Winter 2012 - (Page 68)

THE HISTORIC NEW ORLEANS COLLECTION while much of the The American influence city’s direction of Faubourg St. Mary was growth hugged the marked by american higher, less flood-prone architecture from its start, and as ground near the river, early as 1819 English-born there was still much architect Benjamin Henry development extending Latrobe — first designer of the back from the river with u.S. Capitol — was critical of South Market in a direct this look. “The american line of urban expansion. suburb,” he wrote, “already exhibits From a few cottages, the the flat, dull, dingy character of Market Street in South Market’s streets Philadelphia, or Baltimore ... instead of the motley and became lined with brick townhouses for a burgeoning picturesque effect of the stuccoed French [Quarter] population which included many Irish and German buildings of the city.” families. an 1841 map of New Orleans by S. Pinistri shows as New Orleans boomed from the 1830s through the scattered building along the streets of the South Market 1850s, real estate speculators and builders descended, and District, which is a marked difference from the sparsely demand for real estate in the South Market District quickly developed area outlined on Ogden’s map of a dozen years picked up. By the Civil war, rows of two- and three-story earlier. anglo-american brick townhouses with clean, classic The former site of Gravier’s Duck Pond was transformed lines, elegant entrances and interior embellishments lined into the Poydras Market in 1838, providing an anchor for the streets between Poydras and Howard. These houses the area’s commercial development (and the namesake of were strictly residential — unlike French Quarter Creole the South Market District more than 170 years later). The townhouses with shops on the ground floor and living market was built along the neutral ground (median) of quarters above. South Market would have been indeed Poydras Street between Penn and Dryades recognizable in Philadelphia, or Baltimore, Streets. Its success prompted construction although with the fashionable New Orleans top: The Washington Artillery hall is of the Pilié Iron Market on the median touch of cast iron balconies. at center, while the American Fire across Dryades, and the market roof Company is to the far right in this while virtually all of these houses have straddling the street was topped with a scene of .Girod Street between St. been swept away, a few survivors provide Charles and Carondelet streets, cupola which could be seen up and down an idea of how the old neighborhood once looking toward the South Market the intersecting streets. looked. Several brick houses remain District. about 30 city-owned markets occupied bottom: A receipt from the Deutsche scattered along Lafayette Street between St. Apotheke (German Apothecary) of by vendors who rented stalls were built in Charles and O’Keefe streets, while a few J.N.W. Otto, South Rampart at New Orleans from the 1790s to 1911, blocks away from South Market a row of Gravier. Otto’s was typical of the many starting with the prototype French Market. family owned businesses that lined commercial buildings in the 300 block of the street in the late 19th century and These marketplaces represented the Lafayette evoke an earlier architectural reflects the large German population outward expansion of New Orleans, and in character. The 600 and 800 blocks of of the area. most cases other businesses opened nearby, Baronne Street also retain a handful of opposite page: The Domain creating thriving commercial areas. One of Companies, a real estate and residential examples from the 1840s to development firm, envisions new retail the most important of these grew up 1860s, while on Julia Street at the and residental complexes in a fivearound the Poydras Market. intersection of O’Keefe are several block area surrounding South 68 LOuISIaNa ENDOwMENT FOr THE HuMaNITIES • Winter 2012-13 THE HISTORIC NEW ORLEANS COLLECTIO N Rampart, O’Keefe and Girod streets. 

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