Central Business District, New Orleans

The Central Business District (CBD) is a neighborhood of the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, United States.

A subdistrict of the French Quarter/CBD area, its boundaries, as defined by the City Planning Commission, are Iberville, Decatur and Canal Streets to the north; the Mississippi River to the east; the New Orleans Morial Convention Center, Julia and Magazine Streets, and the Pontchartrain Expressway to the south; and South Claiborne Avenue, Cleveland Street, and South and North Derbigny Streets to the west. It is the equivalent of what many cities call their downtown, although in New Orleans "downtown" or "down town" was historically used to mean all portions of the city downriver from Canal Street (in the direction of flow of the Mississippi River). In recent decades, however, use of the catch-all "downtown" adjective to describe neighborhoods downriver from Canal Street has largely ceased, having been replaced in usage by individual neighborhood names (such as Bywater).

Originally developed as the largely-residential Faubourg Ste. Marie (''English:'' St. Mary Suburb) in the late 18th century, the modern Central Business District is today a dynamic, mixed-use neighborhood, the home of professional offices in skyscrapers, specialty and neighborhood retail stores, numerous restaurants and clubs, and thousands of residents inhabiting restored, historic commercial and industrial buildings.

A part of the area is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the New Orleans Lower Central Business District.

History

Streets in the Central Business District (originally ''Faubourg Ste. Marie'') were initially platted in the late 18th century, representing the first expansion of New Orleans beyond its original French Quarter footprint. Significant investment began in earnest following the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, as people from other parts of the United States flocked to the city. Consequently, the district began to be referred to as the American Sector.

While traditionally Canal Street was viewed as the dividing line between the French Quarter and the American Sector, legally both sides of Canal Street are today considered part of the Central Business District for zoning and regulatory purposes. Through the 19th and into the 20th century, the Central Business District continued developing almost without pause. By the mid-20th century, most professional offices in the region were located downtown, the hub of a well-developed public transit system.

Canal Street was the primary retail destination for New Orleanians, as well as for residents of the surrounding region. Local and regional department stores Maison Blanche, D.H. Holmes, Godchaux's, Gus Mayer, Labiche's, Kreeger's, and Krauss anchored numerous well-known specialty retailers, such a
Rubenstein Bros.
Adler's Jewelry, Koslow's, Rapp's, and Werlein's Music. National retailers, like Kress, Woolworth, and Walgreens were present alongside local drugstore K&B. Sears operated a large store one block off Canal, on Baronne Street.

Bookstores, theaters, and movie palaces also abounded, with the neon marquees of the Saenger, Loews State, RKO Orpheum, Joy, and Civic theaters nightly casting multi-colored lights onto surrounding sidewalks.

In the 1950s, six-lane Loyola Avenue was constructed as an extension of Elk Place, cutting a swath through a low-income residential district and initially hosting the city's new civic center complex. The late-1960s widening of Poydras Street was undertaken to create another six-lane central area circulator for vehicular traffic, as well as to accommodate modern high-rise construction. The City of New Orleans partook in transforming the district from 1973 to 1993, in a collaboration between public and private sectors to spark active community participation.

The portion of the CBD closer to the Mississippi River and upriver from Poydras Street is known as the Warehouse District, because it was heavily devoted to warehousing and manufacturing before shipping became containerized. The 1984 World's Fair drew attention to the then semi-derelict district, resulting in steady investment and redevelopment from the mid-1980s onward. Many of the old 19th-century warehouses have been converted into hotels, restaurants, condominiums, and art galleries.

Notable structures in the CBD include the Greek Revival Gallier Hall (the city's former city hall); Caesars Superdome; the Smoothie King Center; the city's present-day, International style city hall; and Hancock Whitney Center, the city's tallest building and headquarters for Royal Dutch Shell's Gulf of Mexico Exploration and Production. Other significant attractions include the postmodern Piazza d'Italia, Harrah's Casino, the World Trade Center New Orleans, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, St. Patrick's Church, the Hibernia Bank Building, and the former New Orleans Cotton Exchange.

The principal public park in the CBD is Lafayette Square, upon which face both Gallier Hall and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Other public spaces include Duncan Plaza, Elk Place, the Piazza d'Italia, Lee Circle, Mississippi River Heritage Park, Spanish Plaza, and the Richard and Annette Bloch Cancer Survivors Plaza.

Museums include the National World War II Museum, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, the Louisiana Children's Museum, the New Orleans Contemporary Arts Center and Confederate Memorial Hall Museum.

New Orleans CBD was one of the few areas of New Orleans that escaped the catastrophic flooding of 2005's Hurricane Katrina.

Geography

The Central Business District is located at and has an elevation of . As is true of most of metropolitan New Orleans, the parts of the district nearer the river are higher in elevation than areas further removed from it. According to the United States Census Bureau, the district has a total area of . of which is land and (10.17%) of which is water.

Adjacent neighborhoods

* Iberville Development (north)
* French Quarter (north)
* Lower Garden District (south)
* Central City (south)
* Tulane/Gravier (west)

Boundaries

The City Planning Commission defines the boundaries of the Central Business District as these streets: Iberville Street, Decatur Street, Canal Street, the Mississippi River, the New Orleans Morial Convention Center, Julia Street, Magazine Street, the Pontchartrain Expressway, South Claiborne Avenue, Cleveland Avenue, South Derbigny Street and North Derbigny Street.

Demographics

As of the census of 2000, there were 3,435 inhabitants of the census tracts best corresponding to the boundaries of the New Orleans Downtown Development District. The population density was 1,692 /mi² (664 /km²). Another 4,142 inhabitants of the adjacent French Quarter neighborhood were recorded in the 2000 Census. The CBD, its subdistricts (e.g., the Warehouse District), and the bordering neighborhoods of Tremé, the French Quarter, and the Lower Garden District possessed 21,630 residents, according to the 2000 Census.

Government and infrastructure

The New Orleans City Hall and surrounding structures, including the ''circa''-1960, architecturally award-winning Main Branch of the New Orleans Public Library face Duncan Plaza, an exercise in 1950s-style urban renewal embodying then-mayor Chep Morrison's desire to create a modern civic center. The New Orleans Civic Center is today much diminished, with the Louisiana Supreme Court building having been torn down in the wake of the court's 2004 departure for the French Quarter, the Louisiana State office building having suffered the same fate, and Duncan Plaza itself having been fenced off.

The United States Postal Service operates the New Orleans Main Post Office at 701 Loyola Avenue in the CBD.
The Union Passenger Terminal is the terminus for three of Amtrak's long-distance trains, the City of New Orleans

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