This venerable building, its triple steeples towering above its historic neighbors, the Cabildo (the site of the Louisiana Purchase) and the Presbytere (site of Capuchin monks’ residence {presbytère}, built for commercial use, became a courthouse, and now a museum), looks down benignly on the green of the Square and General Andrew Jackson on his bronze horse and on the block-long Pontalba Buildings with their lacy ironwork galleries. Truly, this is the heart of old New Orleans.

The Cathedral-Basilica of St. Louis King of France is the oldest Catholic cathedral in continual use in the United States. 

Details: (Source: http://www.stlouiscathedral.org/our-history)

Since 1727 New Orleanians have worshipped in churches on this site. Half a dozen years earlier, the French engineer, Adrien De Pauger, who arrived in the newly founded city on March 29, 1721, designated this site for a church in conformity with the plan of the Engineer-in-Chief of Louisiana, LeBlond de la Tour, who was at the capital, Biloxi.

The new parish church, dedicated to Louis IX, sainted King of France, was thus perhaps the first building in New Orleans of “brick between posts” (briques entre poteaux) construction, an effective method of building that continued to be used in Louisiana until at least the middle of the nineteenth century. De Pauger, unfortunately, died on June 21, 1726, before his church was completed. In his will he requested that he be buried within the unfinished building, a request presumably granted.

During the six decades that the church stood, there worshipped within its walls French Governors Perier, Bienville, Vaudreuil and Kerlerec and Spanish Governors Unzaga, Galvez and Miro. In this first little church were baptized the children of the colonists and the children of the slaves. Here were married the lowly and the highborn, and through its doors were borne the mortal remains of the faithful for the burial rites of Holy Mother Church on the last journey to the little cemetery on St. Peter Street.

11 people are buried under the church, before and since it was built.

The Year of Calamity

A fire on March 21, 1788, started when a candle ignited the lace draperies of an altar in the home of the military treasurer of the colony, Vincente Jose Nunez, on Chartres Street. Among the buildings burned to the ground where the Church of St. Louis, the priests’ residence, and the Casa Principal, which housed the Cabildo.

In a letter written on March 28, 1788, Father Antonio de Sedella (Pere Antoine), who was pastor of the church, described the rapidity with which the fire made headway. He wrote that he had sent some of the church records to the home of the tobacco director, “distant from the Presbytere about two rifle shots,” but they were lost when that house caught fire.

Nearly a year elapsed before the charred remains of the church were cleared away and construction of a new church began in early 1789. More than five years were to pass before the new church was completed in December, 1794.

The second Church of St. Louis was the gift of the wealthy Don Andres Almonester y Roxas, a native of Andalusia who had acquired numerous properties since his arrival in New Orleans in the wake of Governor Alejandro O’Reilly.

As Louisiana and the Floridas had been created a diocese in 1793, and Luis Pefialver y Cardenas appointed first bishop with New Orleans as his See city, the new church was dedicated as a Cathedral and put into service on Christmas Eve, 1794.

Shortly before the completion of the Cathedral, on April 25, 1793, the diocese of Louisiana and the Floridas was created by Pope Pius VI. Don Luis Ignacio Maria de Pefialver y Cardenas of Havana was appointed the first bishop.

He arrived in New Orleans in July, 1795 to take formal possession of his seat and begin his episcopal duties.

In 1819 a New Orleans clockmaker, Jean Delachaux, was authorized by the trustees to obtain a suitable clock to be placed in the facade of the Cathedral.

As this was a project of general civic interest, the City Council agreed to the expense of buying the clock and its bell and also to share in the cost of erecting a central tower to house them. Delachaux brought the clock and bell with him from Paris and Latrobe records in his journal an incident which occurred when he was about to place the clock’s bell in the tower:

When the new bell was ready to be put into the tower, I wrote him (Pere Antoine) a letter in Latin to apprise him of the circumstance, in order that, if the rites of the Church required any notice of it, he might avail himself of the occasion and do what he thought necessary. He thanked me, and I had the bell brought within the Church. After High Mass, he arranged a procession to the bell and regularly baptized her by the name of Victoire, the name embossed upon her by the founder.

The caretakers of the Historic place of worship, constantly battle the elements and the aging of the Cathedral with ongoing conservation and restoration. You are invited to become a “Friend of the St. Louis Cathedral” and help this national historic landmark remain the centerpiece in the great history of New Orleans!

          Beignets (French doughnuts) paired with French Café au Lait (o-LAY) are a NOLA staple and served in the French Quarter at Café du Monde (open 24/7 every day). After partying all night, Beignets with coffee at 3 a.m. are the perfect sugary treat.

Beignets were brought to the U.S. by the Acadians, the early French Canadian settlers during the 18th century. Beignet means “fritter” in French and were associated with Mardi Gras in France as early as the 16th century. Today, they’re normally served under heaps of powdered sugar in orders of three.

So, why is café au lait or coffee with chicory so popular in New Orleans? It too has its history that dates back to the 1800s. The French began putting chicory in their coffee as a way to stretch rations during Napoleon’s Continental Blockade of 1808. Today, coffee in New Orleans usually has a touch of chicory for taste. Many say chicory gives coffee a more robust, smooth flavor. Café au lait is equal parts of coffee and milk – served hot it goes well with beignets.

The divine duo of café au lait and beignets was popularized at Café du Monde, a coffee stand in the New Orleans French Market which opened in 1862. Today, Café du Monde is a New Orleans institution and they’re open 24 hours, every day of the year except Christmas, doling-out beignets, under mounds of sugar, and café au lait to locals and tourists alike.

(Source: www.hotelstpierre.com)

What began as a Native American trading post on the banks of the mighty, muddy Mississippi River on the site chosen for the City by the French, has become a cultural, commercial and entertainment treasure which the Crescent City proudly shares with the world.

Today, America’s oldest public market has assumed a leading role in the local economy as well, providing consistently increasing revenues for city government while putting millions of dollars back into the local economy.

(Source: http://www.frenchmarket.org)

Up until the early 1800s, it was the Creoles who lived in the Vieux Carré. After the Louisiana Purchase (1803), a large influx of other cultures began to find their way into the city via the Mississippi River. A number of Americans from Kentucky and other Midwestern states moved into the city and settled uptown. Along the division between these two cultures, a canal was planned. The canal was never built but the street which took its place received the name. Furthermore, the median of the street became known as the neutral ground, acknowledging the cultural divide. To this day, all medians of New Orleans streets are called neutral grounds.

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 section of New Orleans. Canal Street’s other terminus is in Mid-City at a collection of cemeteries. Slightly offset from the Mid-City end is the beginning of Canal Boulevard, which extends to the shore of Lake Pontchartrain via the Lakeview neighborhood. Throughout its length, Canal, which runs east and west, serves as a dividing line for cross streets running north and south; although the New Orleans layout follows the Mississippi River.

The street has three lanes of traffic in both directions, with a pair of streetcar tracks in the center. Canal Street’s downtown segment serves as the hub of the city’s public transit system or RTA, with numerous streetcar and bus route terminals. (Of note, it is the home of the Canal Streetcar Line, operated by the RTA.)

Canal Street is often said to be the widest roadway in America to have been called a street, instead of the avenue or boulevard titles more typically appended to wide urban thoroughfares

      The Warehouse District, known today as the New Orleans Arts District, was originally established as an industrial area in the 19th century to store grain, coffee and produce shipped through the Port of New Orleans. As commerce, trade and industry practices evolved over time, the area’s prosperity faded and the once busy streets became eerily quiet.The transformation from an urban wasteland to what many have called “the SoHo of the South” began in 1976 with the opening of the Contemporary Arts Center (CAC). The 10,000-square-foot complex is still entertaining and enlightening visitors today with cutting edge-artwork and an eclectic array of music, theatre and dance performances.