Canal Street (New Orleans)

Canal Street (french: rue du canal) is a major thoroughfare in the city of New Orleans. Forming the upriver boundary of the city's oldest neighborhood, the French Quarter or ''Vieux Carré'', it served historically as the dividing line between the colonial-era (18th-century) city and the newer American Sector, today's Central Business District.

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 the Midwest 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.

Shopping

For more than a century, Canal Street was the main shopping district of Greater New Orleans. Local or regional department stores Maison Blanche, D. H. Holmes, Labiche's, Kreeger's, and Krauss anchored numerous well-known specialty retailers, such as Rubenstein Men's Store, Adler's Jewelry, Koslow's, Rapp's, and Werlein's Music, as well as bookstores, drugstores, Kress, Woolworth's, and others. The department stores began as sellers of fabric, notions, and accessories, with extensive floor space and glass windows. As elevators and escalators allowed for multi-floor department stores, the stores were enlarged and made more elegant by incorporating adjoining buildings.

Although 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 other U.S. cities — and it received a boost in 1983 with the completion of Canal Place's retail component. 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).

One Canal Place has three lower levels which are occupied by The Shops at Canal Place. The mall contains a Saks Fifth Avenue, the Theatres at Canal Place, a food court, and approximately 45 high-end retailers including Anthropologie, Brooks Brothers, Michael Kors, and Morton's the Steakhouse. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, a fire inflicted heavy damage to the Saks Fifth Avenue store. The mall reopened in February 2006, and a completely-remodeled Saks reopened in November.

One Canal Place Office Tower is a Class A commercial office building managed by Corporate Realty. It is adjacent to the Westin New Orleans Hotel. The office space is made up of more than and includes a parking garage and health club facilities.

Entertainment

New Orleans has historically been a center for opera, theatre, and concerts. In 1871 the Varieties Theater opened on Canal Street between Dauphine and Burgundy streets. The building was renovated and renamed the Grand Opera House in 1881, which could be used as both a theater and ballroom. Theaters and movie houses were clustered around the intersection with Rampart Street, with the neon marquees of the Saenger, Loews State, Orpheum, and Joy casting multi-colored light nightly onto surrounding sidewalks.

It is said that the world's first movie theater (that is, the first business devoted specifically to showing films for profit) was "Vitascope Hall", established on Canal Street in 1896. By the 1910s there were several movie theaters on Canal, including the Alamo, the Plaza, and the Dreamworld. In 1912 the Trianon, the first "movie palace" in the city opened. The Tudor followed in 1914 and the Globe in 1918. By the 1950s they had become low-grade theaters, and in the 1960s they were closed.

Although most of the grand movie theaters have closed over the years, several cinemas on Canal Street operate today.

Hotels

In the 1830s, several hotels on Canal Street near the river were in operation, including the Union Hotel and the Planters Hotel. Although most of the grand 19th-century hotels were located in the French Quarter, the Perry House was on Canal Street. By the 1920s a growth was seen in the number of hotels on Canal Street. These included the LaSalle Hotel, the Hotel New Orleans, and the Jung Hotel with its rooftop ballroom. As convention industry began to grow in the 1960s, the Governor House Motor Hotel and the International Hotel were built. Almost a whole block was taken up by the Marriott Hotel which opened in 1972 as the tallest hotel in the city. Canal Street began to accommodate large convention hotels, such as the Sheraton New Orleans and the JW Marriott. The emergence of new hotels has since slowed, but continued operation of many on Canal Street indicate the sustained importance of the street in both business and entertainment. (See Redevelopment section below, for additional Canal Street hotels.)

Two of Canal Street's former department stores are now hotels. D. H. Holmes

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases