News Roundup

American Planners Rate St. Charles Avenue As Top 10 Boulevard

City Business
November 9, 2007

NEW ORLEANS — St. Charles Avenue, the “Jewel of America’s Grand Avenues,” has has been recognized as one of the top 10 avenues in America by the American Planning Association.

The gateway to New Orleans for nearly two centuries still runs through meticulously landscaped yards of the Garden District.

Since 1835 this oak-lined avenue has been home to the St. Charles Avenue streetcar * the oldest, continually operating line in the world. Since its inception, the streetcar line has shuttled workers between Carrollton and the heart of the Crescent City.

Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973, the streetcar line today brings together tourists, students, and commuters aboard its vintage cars. Partially closed since hurricane Katrina, the streetcar line is expected to be fully functional in 2008.

As the streetcar line evolved from mule power to steam to electric so, too, did this 6-mile stretch of street. It follows to some degree the curve of the Mississippi River yet St. Charles Avenue is an integral part of New Orleans’s rectangular street grid. The boulevard stops at the edge of the Vieux Carre, the city’s historic district.

St. Charles Avenue is home to historic Audubon Park, Loyola, and Tulane universities and many historic churches and synagogues. But it is best known as a place of residential grandeur where the most affluent and powerful once lived. The street also contains a magnificent collection of antebellum Greek Revival homes.

Following the Civil War, the more robust Italianate style replaced Greek Revival. In the early 1870s, Queen Anne and Eastlake styles became popular, creating an eclectic group of residences in the Garden District. Despite its reputation for opulence, the district features many working class double gallery and shotgun styles.

Following World War II, many historic houses were torn down and replaced by large-scale apartment and commercial buildings. The wave of redevelopment led the city in 1972 to adopt a moratorium on the demolition of older homes to determine whether a historic district commission was warranted. Extensions were granted over the next three years until in 1975 historic district status was granted to the area. Still, much of St. Charles Avenue is unprotected, causing a variety of incompatible development, including fast-food restaurants.

The boulevard was given historic district status between Jackson Avenue and Jena Street in 1976. Most homes along this segment of the avenue are frame constructed and set back from the front property line behind ornamental cast-iron fences. Pedestrians often notice the separation of the houses from one another and from the sidewalks adds to the perceived width of the street and provides additional landscaping options.

St. Charles Avenue is the historic New Orleans Carnival parade route. Virtually all major parades originate in the Uptown and Mid-City districts and follow a route along St. Charles Avenue.

Other premier American premier residential boulevards:

• Bull Street, Savannah, Ga.

• Canyon Road, Santa Fe, N.M.

• Delmar Loop, University City and St Louis, Mo.

• Main Street, Northampton, Mass.

• Monument Avenue, Richmond, Va.

• North Michigan Avenue, Chicago

• Ocean Drive, Miami Beach, Fla.

• 125th Street, New York

• St. Charles Avenue, New Orleans

• South Temple Street, Salt Lake City, Utah