Banks' Arcade was a multi-use commercial structure in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. The building stood on the block bounded by Gravier Street, Tchoupitoulas Street, Natchez Street, and Magazine Street, in the district then known as Faubourg Sainte Marie, later known as the American sector and now called the

Central Business District A central business district (CBD) is the commercial and business centre of a city. It contains commercial space and offices, and in larger cities will often be described as a financial district. Geographically, it often coincides with the "city ...

. The building's central axis, originally called Banks' Alley or the Arcade Passage, is now a walk street called Arcade Place within Picayune Place Historic District.

History

Banks' Arcade was constructed in 1833, by Thomas Banks, a heavily leveraged local businessman. Prussian immigrant engineer and surveyor

Charles Zimpel Charles Friedrich Zimpel (December 11, 1801 - June 26, 1879) was a German architect who designed buildings in New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S. from 1830 to 1837; and later, in 1864, the plan for the Jaffa to Jerusalem railway line. In particular, he de ...

was the building's architect; he also designed the City Hotel and the Bank of Orleans. The building consisted of two commercial blocks connected by a central promenade covered in a glass ceiling. For many years the three-story building fronting Magazine was a landmark that served as a combination of office space, "auction-mart, ndbar-room". According to architectural historian

Dell Upton Dell Thayer Upton (born Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, 1949) is an architectural historian. He is emeritus professor at the department of art history at University of California, Los Angeles, and Professor Emeritus of Architecture at the University o ...

, "The ground floor contained stores, John Hewlett's restaurant, and the offices of notaries, newspapers, architects, commodity brokers, auctioneers, attorneys, and slave dealers. On the second floor were offices, billiard rooms, and the Washington Guards armory, while the third floor provided 'sleeping rooms for gentlemen.'" There was also a hotel within the building. Banks' Arcade was one of many slave markets in New Orleans before the American Civil War. Banks was a supporter of the paramilitary action that became the Texas Revolution; two companies of soldiers known as the New Orleans Greys were recruited and organized at the Arcade's coffeehouse. The coffee room was not a 19th-century café with baristas and a couple of tables, but a grand meeting room, reportedly large enough to host 5,000 people at a time. Banks ran into financial trouble during the

Panic of 1837 The Panic of 1837 was a financial crisis in the United States that touched off a major depression, which lasted until the mid-1840s. Profits, prices, and wages went down, westward expansion was stalled, unemployment went up, and pessimism abound ...

and declared bankruptcy in 1842. The building was heavily damaged in a fire in 1851, although not wholly destroyed. There was another, minor fire at the site in 1859, at which time the "new Arcade Hotel" was under construction. The surviving portion of the building was renovated after the American Civil War and about a third of original footprint survives today as the St. James Hotel.

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* {{Cite web , title=Bank's Arcade Historical Marker , url=https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=102527 , website=www.hmdb.org , language=en Slave markets in the United States History of slavery in Louisiana 1833 establishments 1851 fires Hotels in New Orleans Defunct hotels in Louisiana Commercial buildings in Louisiana

History

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External links