Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
square feet and four stories. It was built over three years in the early 20th
century by cotton magnate W. P. Brown, founder of Hibernia Bank, as a
wedding gift for his wife. In 2011, two floors of the house were open to the
public for the first time as part of a tour to benefit the New Orleans Museum
of Art.
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Walk one block to St. George's Episcopal Church (4600 St. Charles), which
got its start as a diocesan mission just before the Civil War at the corner of
Berlin (now General Pershing Street) and Magazine Streets. The present-day
church was dedicated in 1900, its architecture and stained-glass windows
among its most noted features. In 1969, church leaders opened St. George's
Episcopal School on nearby Camp Street. One of the school buildings is loc-
ated on the site of the original mission. Among other programs, the church
hosts the Dragon Café, which serves free breakfast every Sunday morning to
the hungry and poor.
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Walk another block to 4534 St. Charles. The stone Mediterranean-style villa
was built in 1906 for William Mason Smith, president of the New Orleans
Cotton Exchange. To the left, at 4521 St. Charles, is the Academy of the
Sacred Heart, a Catholic girls' school that is part of a network of Sacred
Heart schools around the world. Sacred Heart dates back to the early 19th
century, when it was based in the French Quarter. In 1847 it moved to a
Greek Revival mansion on St. Charles, to accommodate the growing number
of families who were moving Uptown. When that building proved to be too
small, a new Colonial Revival-style structure went up in its place in 1900.
Over the years, the school has undergone numerous renovations and expan-
sions—so many, in fact, that the only remnant of its origins is a wrought-iron
fountain topped with a swan.
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Continue walking down St. Charles and cross at Napoleon Avenue. To the
left are the Sacred Heart nursery school, preschool, and primary school,
known as the Mater Campus, which opened in 2005. To the right are Superi-
or Seafood and Fat Harry's, a legendary watering hole. During Carnival sea-
son, this intersection is one of the most popular places for parade-watching,
with dozens of parades making the turn onto St. Charles from Napoleon.
One thing you're sure to notice as you continue down St. Charles are all the
beads hanging from the trees, the result of float riders missing their targets
on the streets. On Fat Tuesday, as well as the days leading up to it, the streets
are wall-to-wall people, especially for such parades as Bacchus, Orpheus,
Muses, and Rex.
