Walking New Orleans. Barri Bronston
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Jean Bragg Gallery jeanbragg.com 600 Julia St., 504-895-7375
Old St. Patrick’s Church oldstpatricks.org, 724 Camp St., 504-525-4413
Martine Chaisson Gallery martinechaissongallery.com, 727 Camp St., 504-302-7942
Old St. Patrick’s Church oldstpatricks.org, 724 Camp St., 504-525-4413
John Minor Wisdom US Court of Appeals Building tinyurl.com/jmwbuilding, 600 Camp St., 504-310-7700
Lafayette Square nola.gov/parks-and-parkways/parks-squares/lafayette-square, bounded by St. Charles Ave., Camp St., N. Maestri St., and S. Maestri St.; 504-658-3200
Manning’s harrahsneworleans.com/restaurants.html, 519 Fulton St., 504-593-8118
Outlet Collection at Riverwalk riverwalkneworleans.com, 500 Port of New Orleans, 504-522-1555
Mulate’s mulates.com, 201 Julia St., 504-522-1492
Root rootnola.com, 200 Julia St., 504-252-9480
Emeril’s emerilsrestaurants.com, 800 Tchoupitoulas St., 504-528-9393
LeMieux Galleries lemieuxgalleries.com, 332 Julia St., 504-522-5988
Søren Christensen sorengallery.com, 400 Julia St., 504-569-9501
Jonathan Ferrara Gallery jonathanferraragallery.com, 400-A Julia St., 504-522-5471
Louisiana Children’s Museum lcm.org, 420 Julia St., 504-523-1357
Arthur Roger Gallery arthurrogergallery.com, 432 Julia St., 504-522-1999
Pêche Seafood Grill pecherestaurant.com, 800 Magazine St., 504-522-1744
National World War II Museum nationalww2museum.org, 945 Magazine St., 504-527-6012
ROUTE SUMMARY
1 Begin at Lee Circle and Andrew Higgins Drive.
2 Walk one block to Camp Street; cross Camp and turn left.
3 Walk five blocks to Lafayette Street and turn right.
4 Walk seven blocks to Convention Center Boulevard and turn right.
5 Walk three blocks to Julia Street and turn right.
6 Walk six blocks to Magazine Street and turn left.
7 Walk two blocks to Andrew Higgins and turn right.
8 Walk two blocks to Lee Circle.
Pêche Seafood Grill, known for its vast selection of coastal seafood, is an essential stop for any foodie traveling to New Orleans.
Photo: Donna Goldenberg
2 CANAL STREET: REVIVAL IN PROGRESS
BOUNDARIES: Canal St., Basin St., Convention Center Blvd.
DISTANCE: 1.93 miles
PARKING: Lots, garages, metered parking
PUBLIC TRANSIT: St. Charles Ave. Streetcar
Ask older natives of New Orleans about their memories of Canal Street, and you’ll likely see their eyes light up as they recall dressing up in their finest attire and heading downtown to what was once the city’s equivalent of Fifth Avenue. Back in the day, Canal Street—named for a canal that was never built—was the city’s primary shopping destination, home to such classic department stores as Gus Mayer, Godchaux’s, Kreeger’s, Holmes, Krauss, and Maison Blanche.
As enclosed shopping malls began sprouting up in the suburbs and many of these stores began opening multiple locations, Canal—which separates the French Quarter from the Central Business District—took a major hit. Crowds began to thin, opting for the convenience of the malls, near which New Orleanians were moving in droves. By the late 1990s, only a couple of specialty stores, Adler’s and Rubenstein Bros., remained.
To be sure, Canal Street was not the same—not that it had turned into a ghost town, but the quality of the shopping had been reduced to fast-food restaurants and discount stores peddling electronics, souvenirs, and T-shirts. Today, many of those outlets still exist, but a major revitalization effort has made Canal Street a destination once again, with upscale stores, luxury hotels and apartments, theaters, and restaurants now in the mix.
Begin at 333 Canal Street, home of The Shops at Canal Place and the Westin Hotel New Orleans. Stores at Canal Place include Saks Fifth Avenue, Brooks Brothers, and Tiffany and Co. The complex also features a luxury nine-screen movie theater, where you can dine on gourmet goodies from chef Adolfo Garcia’s Gusto in the comfort of plush stadium-style seating.
Walk one block. Between North Peters and Decatur Streets is the Audubon Butterfly Garden and Insectarium, one of the many museums of the Audubon Institute. Located in the historic US Custom House, it is the largest free-standing museum dedicated to insects in North America. Highlights include a butterfly exhibit in an Asian-inspired garden, a hilarious animated-bug movie featuring the voices of Joan Rivers and Brad Garrett, and up-close encounters with cockroaches, ants, and other creatures you love to hate. At the Bug Appetite Buffet, you can sample bug-inspired treats such as six-legged salsa and chocolate chirp cookies. Yes, the ingredients include edible insects.
Continue down Canal Street just past Chartres Street, where you’ll see the Palace Café, a Brennan family restaurant known for such contemporary Creole dishes as crabmeat cheesecake, duck-and-roasted-garlic gumbo, and white-chocolate bread pudding. The restaurant is housed in another historic structure: the old Werlein’s Building, which until 1990 was one of the places in New Orleans to buy sheet music, pianos, and other musical instruments.
As you continue walking down Canal Street, you’ll pass several luxury hotels, including the Ritz-Carlton, where jazz favorite Jeremy Davenport performs regularly in the Davenport Lounge. The Ritz opened in 2000 in what was once the headquarters of Maison Blanche, one of the city’s most popular department stores. Similarly, the Hyatt French Quarter is housed in the old D. H. Holmes building. Holmes, another of New Orleans’s legendary department stores, was known as much for its exterior clock as it was for its merchandise. If you were meeting friends downtown, you likely were meeting them “under the clock at D. H. Holmes”—a location immortalized in A Confederacy of Dunces, the beloved comic novel by John Kennedy Toole.
Walk two blocks and cross North Rampart Street. To the right is the venerable Saenger Theatre, home to the Broadway in New Orleans series. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Saenger opened in 1927 as a venue for silent movies and stage shows. The theater’s trademark feature was its European-style interior, designed by architect Emile Weil to resemble an Italian Baroque courtyard. As part of the design, Weil installed dozens of tiny lights in the