Nola Streets: Magazine

This marks the first in what I hope will be a long running series about New Orleans streets. The life of a city takes place in its streets, and as cities go Nola's are conspicuously lively places to be, and not just in the French Quarter where the tourists hang out.

One of the marks of a great city is great streets, and while Nola has quite a few, and many of then far better know, Magazine is my favorite. Bourbon may be the living embodiment of "laissez les bon temps rouler," St. Charles may be the most romantic and iconic, and Canal may be the aging face of the former "Queen City," but Magazine, for me at least, is where Nola lives.

To show you just why Magazine is such a fantastic urban space I thought I'd show it to you the way I typically experience it, by bike.

Before we get rolling, however, there is one other thing I would like to touch upon in this post, and that is the use of tiles at intersections to write street names here in Nola. These are one of the truly unique features of New Orleans streets, and while they are only a small part of the overall experience, they are a unique touch which gives streets an added bit of personality.

As I will show, condition and design can vary somewhat:

Pristine

Damaged

Oy vey

I particularity like the final set that has lost the first half of its letters, but is left in place all the same. I bring this topic up mostly because it is interesting, but also because it is a nifty framing device for taking you from one end of Magazine to the other, we will begin with the first set of tiles, and end with the last.

One final thing I wish to address is that I don't exactly recomend biking along Magazine like I did. I'll get into some other specifics later on, but for the moment lets just say that biking in the street is not recommended, and the sidewalks, well...

... lets just say that Nola's infrastructure occasionally leaves something to be desired. But, enough with the introductions, lets get biking.

I began at Canal Street, where Decatur ends and Magazine begins. Canal marks an important transition in the city. At Canal the ancient grid pattern of the Vieux Carré adjusts to the bend in the Mississippi, marking the beginning of the American city. The street names also change from French to their English counterparts: Decatur to Magazine, Charters to Camp, Royal to St. Charles etc.

The old customs house

The first set of street tiles. Well, not tiles exactly, but same idea in any event

The Canal Street streetcar, heading towards the Mississippi

Heading downriver away from Canal Street you first enter the Central Business Distrct (CBD). The CBD is fairly underwhelming as business districts go, essentially it just a series of indistinguishable glass and concrete canyons with very little of architectural note. Poydras Street serves as the CBD's spine, creating the nexus of the city's tall buildings at its intersection with St. Charles.

Poydras, looking East

About two or three blocks past Poydras the CBD gives way to the Warehouse District, and it is here that the first real signs of life and vitality which define Magazine start to be made manifest. Because I chose to bike down Magazine on a Saturday I was lucky enough to grab a few shots of the Crescent City Farmers Market, just as it was closing for the day.

The Farmers Market is located at Magazine and Girod

It is operates from 8-noon

Nola's farmers markets haven't fully come back since Katrina, but there are still a suprising number which take place throughout the week and in different parts of the city. The Warehouse District is a neighborhood that you might call "in transition." Old, in some cases abandoned, warehouses exist side by side with glittering, new developments, the most prominent of which is the new World War II Museum. The Museum, which I haven't gotten a chance to visit yet, is located, at least in part, at Magazine and Andrew Higgins.

The Museum reuses a number of preexisting buildings

Apparently Tom Hanks hosts the '4D' film experience

 Despite the redevelopment efforts a number of buildings continue to maintain what must have been the original character of the district.

Just a block or two past the Museum Magazine passes under the Pontchartrain Expressway, which marks an important tranistion. While neighborhoods and larger parts of the cities can be difficult things to nail down and often have very fluid boarders, as far as I'm concerned the Expressway marks the end of Downtown, and the beginning of Uptown or Central City, depending on where you come out. Uptown has a very different feel from Downtown, the buildings decrease in height and density, the building materials switch from primarily brick, glass, and concrete to wood, and the streets are mostly tree-lined.

Looking back towards Downtown

The area immediately past the Expressway is probably the least active part of Magazine, but even here there are still a variety of businesses, as well as a particularly interesting look back into the past along Erato Street, which still has cobblestones and a set of abandoned streetcar tracks.

This double shotgun is fairly typical for Nola. Note the shreds of blue tarp, left over from Katrina

Old streetcar tracks on Erato Street

At Felicity Street Magazine bends to the West to follow the curve of the Mississippi. By now the street has started to resemble what it will look like for the majority of its Uptown run, mixed residential and commercial buildings closely packed together. Few buildings exceed two stories, and many are only one, giving the street a very human scale. Porches are a common feature of Nola architecture and Magazine is no exception. On good days they bring people out and help to blur the line between the public and private spheres of the the street. Wrought iron balconies like those in the French Quarter are also common along Magazine, and along with the occasional tree they help to shade the sidewalk for the street's pedestrians.

Two story houses with porches

Brick commercial buildings with wrought iron balconies

Feelings about the BP oil spill are still pretty raw in Nola

One of the things that imidiately strikes you about this stretch of Magazine and others is the density of businesses, and the vast array of colorful, creative signs which hang either above their doors or from the underside of balconies. The diversity of businesses, from fossil exchanges to Mexican restaurants, and the shade provided by the balconies make strolling and window shopping along these parts of Magazine quite fun, although these stretches rarely last for more than a block, and are separated from each other by a pretty good distance.

I haven't been yet, but rest assured I will go eventually

Jackson Avenue marks the beginning of the boarder Magazine shares with the Garden District. After the Louisiana Purchase Americans began moving into Nola, however the old Creole families wouldn't let them move into the Vieux Carré, so the Garden District was created as the American answer to the French Quarter. Magazine doesn't have many of the grand mansions or gardens which define this part of the city, but there are a number of old beautiful buildings from the 19th century.

I have never been to this restaurant at First and Magazine, but I love the building

Mayan Imports: it has a walk in humidor, and was once an orphanage

Window display in an antique hardware store

More signs. Slim Goodies was among the first restaurants to come back following Katrina

One other thing you begin to notice about Magazine is that there are a number of coffee houses and other restaurants which have outdoor seating. These establishments help to make Magazine a destination as opposed to a thoroughfare and greatly increases the pedestrian friendliness of the street. It also lends Magazine a kind of European feel that is very appealing.

Another po'boy shop

They were pretty busy when I biked by

This image and the next are from earlier on Magazine

   

Dense concentrations of business greatly enhance the walking experience and bring diverse crowds to people together

Napoleon Avenue marks more or less the midpoint of Uptown and is also where Magazine starts to become less dense an more residential. There are also a number of antique shops in this area.

Destination of choice for Halloween and Mardi Gras revelers

St. Stephens Catholic Church, a prominent Uptown landmark

I get my bike fixed here, a lot

Le Bon Temps Roule at Magazine and Bordeaux. A great place for live music, or so I have been told

 By Jefferson Avenue you have reached the homestretch when it comes to the "urban" part of Magazine. 10 blocks after Jefferson Magazine enters Audubon Park where it takes on an almost pastoral air. One of the interesting features of Magazine is that it tends to reflect the architectural vernacular of the neighborhood it happens to be passing through, giving you a nice sampling of the variety of architectural styles which make up the city, and Uptown in particular.

Coffee shop at Magazine and Jefferson

Where I do much of my food shopping

Brightly painted double and single shotguns that have been re-purposed as stores are typical along Magazine

My art store

Audubon Park marks what is more or less the end of Magazine. Audubon occupies a slice Uptown which runs from South Claiborne Avenue to the Mississippi and includes Tulane and Loyola Universities. Audubon itself is occupied mostly by a golf coarse, however it also houses the Zoo and features a wonderful circular bike path. The moss covered boughs of the ancient, gnarled oak trees which dominate the park set a slower, more contemplative pace, and the shade they provide is a welcome relief from the congested bustle of Magazine's cramped two lane roadway.

One aspect of Magazine that is somewhat less than ideal is the fact that it is so busy with road traffic. Cars move by at a constant pace for most of the day, and there is no bike path. Furthermore, at 5.34 miles, the street is a little too long to encourage active walking, and while it does have some dense, eminently walkable stretches, they are disconnected from one another. This detracts from the walk-ability of the street, and as a result those individuals who use Magazine tend to head directly for the place they intended to go, as opposed to wandering the street with no predetermined agenda.

Beautiful Spanish Moss

The last open snowball stand in Nola...

...I couldn't resist

Loyola, as seen from Magazine

Entrance to the Zoo

After leaving Audubon Park Magazine Street lasts for approximately two blocks before it runs into the Mississippi River levee and makes a sharp turn to the North, where it becomes Leake Street. In a sense it is a shame that such a fantastic street comes to such an unimpressive end, but then again it is in a sense fitting that it ends with the Mississippi, since it was the sharp bends in the river which set the street's curved course in the first place. One thing I did find quite heartening was the presence of one final set of street tiles to mark the end of Magazine. As I showed you at the beginning of this post these tiles, while ubiquitous in Nola, are not regularly maintained, and I had little hope that one would even exist in such an obscure corner of the city, but sure enough, at the corner of Leake and Magazine there it was, the last set Magazine street tiles.

The final set of street tiles

What was even more interesting was that the tiles that were used have a slightly different design and are clearly newer than those along the rest of the street. This indicates to me that there was most likely an original set on this corner that, for one reason or another, was destroyed and then replaced, since I don't expect they'd think to place tiles were they had not originally existed. That the original tiles would no longer exist is not in an of itself remarkable, but what is interesting is that someone would bother to replace them. Someone, somewhere in the city public works department took the time to make sure that in this lonely, obscure corner of the city the end of Magazine was acknowledged, and this proves, at least to me, that I am not the only one with a soft spot for the street.

The last few houses

I was almost hit by cars several times while trying to get across to the last set of tiles

I also found one of the beautiful water meter covers with the radiating stars and crescent moon

Apparently they ran out of "G's"

I hope you all have enjoyed this little experiment, as I said before it will most likely not be the last. I'll probably be doing quite a bit of experimenting during the early stages of this blog to see what works and what doesn't, and of course to see what people find interesting and what they don't. Don't forget next week on Wednesday will mark the official beginning of Frigestravaganza 2010! Five days and hopefully 15 or so shows, it's going to be great.

I'll also be going to the Po'boy Preservation Festival tomorrow on Oak Street, so I'll be sure to tell you all how that was and bring back plenty of tasty, tasty pictures.

Until next time gentle readers,

Ignatius