New Orleans: The Garden District

The French sold Louisiana to the USA in 1803. The increasing American presence thereafter was resented by the culturally French original inhabitants, so the wealthy Americans decided to establish a new area two miles to the west of the French quarter. This has come to be known as the Garden District due to the extensive gardens and mansions built there in the 19^th and 20^th centuries. Here are three photos just to give and idea of what they built.

 

 

The next one is unusual because it has two entrance stairs. This is down to 19^th century modesty where the men used one staircase and the ladies the other so that the men wouldn’t catch a glimpse of a bare ankle. However, ladies at that time wore low-cut dresses. Race you to the top of the stairs, chaps!

More modest in a different way is the next home. It’s called a shotgun house and these are found all over the south eastern States, ranging in size from quite large to very small. Why shotgun?   Well, if you fired a shotgun through the front door, the blast would go straight out of the back door without hitting anything- apart from the doors, that is. In other words there was a passage running from front to back in order to funnel air through the house during the humid, very hot summer months (May through October).

There were hundreds of magnificent houses, mostly beautifully manicured. This area also avoided the flooding that affected 80% of the city following Katrina: it's a few feet above sea level, just enough to matter.