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French Quarter
There's no denying the Quarter's appeal. It's walkable, picturesque, always busy, and filled with an extraordinary range of great restaurants, bars, nightclubs, courtyard cafés, art galleries, rummage shops and quirky museums. A visitor can walk these blocks time and time again and on each occasion notice something new.
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Gallier Hall
Architect James Gallier Sr designed this monumental Greek Revival structure, which was dedicated in 1853. It served as New Orleans' city hall until the 1950s, and it far outclasses the city's current city hall (a few blocks away). Gallier Hall is a focal point for MG parades, most of which promenade past the grandstand that is put up along St Charles Ave.
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Gallier House Museum
New Orleans owes much of its architectural heritage to James Gallier Sr and James Gallier Jr, architects renowned for their Greek-revival designs. In 1857 Gallier Jr began work on this impressive French Quarter town house, incorporating numerous innovations - such as interior plumbing, skylights and ceiling vents - into the design. A cistern provided fresh water to the kitchen, which in turn provided hot water to the upstairs bath.
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George Schmidt Gallery
New Orleans artist George Schmidt describes himself as a 'historical' painter. Indeed, his canvasses evoke the city's past, awash in a warm romantic light. His Mardi Gras paintings are worth a look.
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Goodrich-Stanley House
This historic home was built in 1837 by jeweller William M Goodrich. He then sold the house to British-born cotton factor Henry Hope Stanley, whose adopted son, Henry Morton Stanley, went onto gain fame for finding the missing Scottish missionary, Dr David Livingston. It was Stanley who first uttered the legendary question, 'Dr Livingston, I presume?' He was subsequently knighted and founded the Congo Free States.
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Grace King House
Behind a handsome wrought-iron fence, this papaya-hued house was named for the Louisiana historian and author who lived here from 1905 to 1932. It was built in 1847 by banker Frederick Rodewald and features both Greek Ionic columns on the lower floor and Corinthian columns above.
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Harouni Gallery
Artist David Harouni is a native of Iran who has lived and worked in New Orleans for the past several decades. He creates works of absorbing depth by painting and scraping multiple layers.
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Heriard-Cimino Gallery
Established contemporary artists from across the US are represented in this elegant space. The emphasis is on abstract and figurative paintings, but you might also encounter photography and sculpture here.
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Hermann-Grima House
Samuel Hermann, a Jewish merchant who married a Catholic, introduced the American-style Federal design to the Quarter in 1831. Hermann sold the house in 1844 to Judge Grima, a slaveholder, after he reportedly lost around US$2 million during the national financial panic of 1837. Cooking demonstrations in the authentic open-hearth kitchen are a special treat on Thursday from October to May.
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Historic New Orleans Collection
Ensconced in several exquisitely restored buildings, the Historic New Orleans Collection displays thoughtfully curated exhibits with an emphasis on archival materials, like the original transfer documents of the Louisiana Purchase.
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Historic Voodoo Museum
This fascinating museum explores the history of voodoo, the exotic form of spiritual expression first brought to New Orleans by West African slaves who came on ships via Haiti. Tours of the museum are self-guided, so carefully read the handout as you pass through the rooms; otherwise, there is little to explain the exhibited arcana.
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Hogan Jazz Archive
A specialized research library, this is worth visiting if you're writing a book about jazz, or are seriously into jazz history. Most of its great wealth of material is not on exhibit; the librarian will retrieve items from the stacks for you. The collection includes stacks of 78rpm recordings, including early sides recorded by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band in 1917, and you can ask to listen to rare tracks if you like. There's also a wealth of oral histories, photos and early concert posters.
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House of Broel
The House of Broel has a dollhouse museum that appeals primarily to girls with very frilly taste. The collection includes 15 large houses that are architecturally impressive (hey, don't look at Dad, he doesn't have time to make one of these). Some of the houses are miniature vignettes of antebellum life, populated by mini Rhetts and Scarletts.
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Hula Mae's Laundry
Cossimo Matassa's J&M Music shop, where New Orleans musicians recorded some of the biggest R&B hits in the 1950s, closed down years ago, but the site, now a busy laundry mat, contains a few items of interest to music fanatics. The pebby J&M sign is still inlaid on the front threshhold. Inside, by the dryers and folding tables, one wall is dedicated to a photo and history exhibit that tells some of the story behind this historic spot.
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Jackson Square
Lively, bustling Jackson Square is an impeccably landscaped traditional public square with a cathedral overlooking it. With its surrounding architecture and concentration of artisans, fortune tellers and entertainers who share the stone paved walkway with pedestrian traffic, it's one of the USA's finer public spaces.
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Jean Bragg Gallery Of Southern Art
This is a good source for the Arts and Crafts-style Newcomb Pottery, which originated at New Orleans' own Newcomb College. Bragg also deals in classic landscapes by Louisiana painters, and every month she features the work of a contemporary artist.
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K&B Plaza
A modish office tower dating to 1963 with an indoor/outdoor sculpture gallery. The outdoor sculptures, featuring Isamu Noguchi's The Mississippi, can be viewed anytime.
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Kurt E Schon Ltd Gallery
For monied art collectors and the rest of us, who just like to look at great art, Kurt E Schon is an immense gallery and storehouse that purveys fine 19th-century paintings. It's like a small museum showcasing the works of the lesser-known contemporaries of the master Impressionists, and most of the works shown here are of remarkable beauty.
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Lafayette Cemetery No 1
Established in 1833 by the former City of Lafayette, this cemetery is divided by two intersecting footpaths that form a cross. Fraternal organizations and groups, such as the Jefferson Fire Company No 22, took care of their members and their families in large shared crypts. Some of the wealthier family tombs were built of marble, with elaborate detail rivaling the finest architecture in the district. But most tombs were constructed simply of inexpensive plastered brick.
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Lee Circle
Called Place du Tivoli until it was renamed to honor Confederate General Robert E Lee after the Civil War, Lee Circle has lost some of its earlier cachet. Just a few dozen paces away, an elevated freeway structure disturbs some of the traffic circle's symmetry, and gas stations occupy two of its corners. Nevertheless, the Robert E Lee monument at its center, dedicated in 1884, still refuses to turn its back on the North - for that's the direction the statue faces.
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Lemieux Galleries
Gulf Coast art is the emphasis in this nationally recognized gallery, and it's a good place to get a handle on the impressive breadth of the regional arts scene. Paintings here include Kate Samworth's sardonic grotesqueries and Jesse Poimbeuf's colorful depictions of birds.
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Louis Armstrong Park
The Tremé district was originally populated by French-speaking African American Creoles, and modern residents still retain great pride in the neighborhood's history and traditions. Louis Armstrong Park encompasses Congo Square, an American cultural landmark. Now a brick open space, it was the one place where enslaved people were allowed to congregate and play the music they had carried over the seas - a practice outlawed in most other slave-holding societies.
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Louisiana Artworks
A promising new addition to the Arts District, this 90,000 square foot space was established by the Arts Council of New Orleans to bring working artists and lovers of art together. By providing artists with affordable studio spaces, the project hopes to foster a continuation of the city's growing arts scene, even as rents go up around town. The Arts Council hopes to promote the local arts by keeping the facility to the public, thus giving visitors the opportunity to witness art being created.
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Louisiana Children's Museum
This educational museum is like a high-tech kindergarten. Corporate sponsors have helped create hands-on exhibits like a supermarket, complete with stocked shelves and check-out registers, and a TV news studio, where young anchors see themselves on monitors as they forecast a snowstorm in New Orleans. In the rush to build newer, bigger and better exhibits, the museum has failed to maintain some of the existing displays - 'Mayday!' calls on the tugboat radio go unheard and most kids abandon ship.
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Louisiana State Museum
Many museums and historic homes in the Quarter have been hit hard by the drop in tourism post-Katrina. At the time of research, the Louisiana State Museum was operating only two sites. The 1911 Cabildo (701 Chartres St), on the left of the cathedral, is a Louisiana history museum and has a Katrina exhibit. Its sister building, on the right of the church, the 1813 Presbytère (751 Chartres St), is an excellent Mardi Gras museum, with vibrant displays of costumes, parade floats and royal jewelry.
