Uptown New Orleans - Cityscape

Cityscape

Uptown was built along the higher ground along an old natural river levee of a wide gradual bend of the Mississippi. Streets were laid out either roughly paralleling the River's curve or perpendicular to it, resulting in what has been called a "wheel with spokes" street pattern (with the hub inland from Uptown, in the Broadmoor and Mid City areas).

Major roadways echoing the river's crescent include Tchoupitoulas Street closest to the river. Formerly heavily devoted to river shipping commerce, as shipping became more containerized in the later 20th century more of Tchoupitoulas became devoted to residential and other commercial uses. The next major street back is Magazine. While Magazine Street has only one lane of traffic in both directions, it is a major commercial district, known for its many locally owned shops, restaurants, and art galleries. Prytania Street is the next major street inland, although it extends only up to Jefferson Avenue as a major thoroughfare. Next is famous St. Charles Avenue, home to the St. Charles Avenue Streetcar line. St. Charles was the city's "millionaire's row" in the 19th century, and a good number of the architecturally significant old mansions still stand along St. Charles, but much of it has more recently built apartment buildings and commercial establishments as well, and some of the old mansions have been converted into apartments. Further back, the streets Simon Bolivar, La Salle, and Freret form another parallel with the river. Furthest back is wide Claiborne Avenue, which until the early 20th century had a canal running down its neutral ground, and in much of Uptown was the back boundary of developed area until the drainage pumps designed by A. Baldwin Wood were installed (see: Drainage in New Orleans).

Major "spokes" perpendicular to the river include Melpomene/Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, Jackson, Washington, Louisiana, Napoleon, Jefferson, Nashville Avenues, Broadway, Carrollton Avenue, and Leonidas Street. Many of these were formerly the main streets of, or boundary lines between, the various early 19th-century towns which were absorbed into the city.

Near the upper end of Uptown, on and around the land used for the 1884 World's Fair "World Cotton Centennial", are Uptown landmarks Audubon Park, Tulane University, and Loyola University New Orleans.