This is Where you are At
Carrollton is a neighborhood of uptown New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. It is the part of uptown New Orleans furthest up river from the French Quarter. It was formerly a separate town incorporated in 1833, and was annexed by New Orleans in 1874, but has long retained some elements of distinct identity.
The main street is broad Carrollton Avenue, lined with live oaks, with the St. Charles Avenue Streetcar running on the “neutral ground” or central median. The streetcar barn is a block off the avenue in Carrollton. The old Neoclassical Carrollton city hall building is on Carrollton Avenue near the Mississippi; today it houses Lusher Extension Middle School.
The neighborhood and Avenue are pronounced “Care-ol-ton” by residents and other uptowners, but many people from the downtown parts of New Orleans (especially those born in the mid 20th century and earlier) pronounce the names as “Karl- ton”.
In addition to Carrollton Avenue and Saint Charles Avenue, the neighborhood still retains two “neighborhood main streets” of mixed residential and commercial use. Lower Carrollton centers on Maple Street, with many restaurants, coffee houses, bars, and upscale shops. Upper Carrollton has Oak Street, formerly hosting somewhat larger businesses (such as Woolworths); current businesses there range from restaurants and a hardware store to the best known of the neighborhoods live music venues, the Maple Leaf Bar.
At the inland boundary of Carrollton on Claiborne Avenue is Palmer Park, which hosts some moderate sized live music festivals each year. The park has a monument to the Carrolltonians who died in World War I.
Most of Carrollton has long been ethnicaly mixed, with “free people of color” owning homes in other parts of the town before the American Civil War. Many immigrants from Germany, Ireland, and other parts of the United States settled here in the 19th century.
The post of “mayor of Carrollton” survived to the 1980s, although it was an informal one, representing the concerns of the neighborhood to the New Orleans city council.
As of 2004, the United States Postal Service still delivers mail addressed either as “Carrollton, Louisiana” or “New Orleans, Louisiana. The ZIP Code is 70118.
thanks to the City of New Orleans
July 3rd, 2006 at 12:55 am
[…] We are standing in line for $40-90 billion. We can’t get the $40-90 billion until we have a plan. That plan depends on neighborhood control of the planning process. Basically, the money waits until we have some idea of how it will be spent. Karen Gadbois said yesterday, this money has come to the city on the backs of people who have lost their homes, which sums it nicely. I ask you to help me wrap my head around this planning process, where it’s at, what it means, and alert me to the many ways in which I’ll be relieved of the burden of self-determination by those that are old hands at spending money that begins with a ‘B’. Katrina, New Orleans, Think New Orleans, We Are Not OK Posted by Alan Gutierrez Filed in Think New Orleans, New Orleans, Political, Aside […]
July 23rd, 2006 at 1:36 pm
Hi Karen, This is a great article. Can we add it to the thinknola wiki?