Esplanade Avenue: The Creole Champs-Élysées of New Orleans

Esplanade Avenue: The Creole Champs-Élysées

Esplanade Avenue is the other grand boulevard of New Orleans—the Creole answer to the American St. Charles Avenue. Where St. Charles was built by Anglo-American newcomers showing off their wealth in the Garden District, Esplanade was the promenade of the old Creole families, stretching from the river to Bayou St. John through some of the most historically layered terrain in the city. Lined with massive oaks and elegant nineteenth-century mansions, Esplanade is one of the most beautiful streets in the American South.

History

Esplanade was established as the downriver boundary of the original French Quarter. In the early 1800s, as wealthy Creole families sought space outside the increasingly crowded Vieux Carré, they built grand homes along this wide avenue. Esplanade became the Creole equivalent of St. Charles—a boulevard of social standing, Sunday promenades, and architectural ambition. The houses along Esplanade are a mix of Greek Revival, Italianate, and Victorian styles, many of them built by free people of color who were among the wealthiest residents of antebellum New Orleans.

The Neighborhoods

Esplanade begins at the river, forming the border between the French Quarter and the Faubourg Marigny. As it moves away from the river, it passes through Tremé—the oldest African-American neighborhood in the United States—and into Esplanade Ridge, a quiet residential area of grand homes. The avenue terminates at Bayou St. John, one of the most picturesque waterways in the city, where it meets the entrance to City Park. Along the way it crosses Claiborne Avenue and Broad Street, touching some of the most diverse and culturally significant ground in New Orleans.

Key Landmarks

The Degas House at 2306 Esplanade is where the French Impressionist painter Edgar Degas stayed with his Creole relatives in 1872 and 1873, producing some of his most important works. The New Orleans Jazz Museum sits at the river end of Esplanade in the old U.S. Mint. Terranova's Supermarket, a beloved Italian grocery, operated for decades near the Bayou St. John end. Café Degas, a charming French bistro, sits beneath the oaks near Mystery Street. And where Esplanade meets Bayou St. John, you will find one of the most peaceful spots in the city—a bridge, a bayou, and the live oaks of City Park spreading out before you.

The Other Grand Boulevard

Esplanade has never gotten the same tourist attention as St. Charles, and that is precisely its charm. No streetcar runs its length. No parades roll down it during Mardi Gras. It is a boulevard for walking, for biking, for sitting on a porch and watching the light filter through two hundred years of live oak canopy. For those who know New Orleans, Esplanade is where you go when you want the city at its most quietly magnificent.