Art and Photography Blog: Images of New Orleans Neighborhoods 2010 Part Twelve: Uptown

Images of New Orleans Neighborhoods 2010 Part Twelve: Uptown – River Bend

This in the twelfth in a series of images of New Orleans neighborhoods taken in February 2010 the weekend before the Super Bowl victory and two weeks for Mardi Gras. I certainly did not have time to cover them all but this series will provide a glimpse of the city that I hope you will want to visit.

The Rover Bend area gets its name from the bend the Mississippi River takes at this point. St. Charles Avenue turns to the right to follow this bend and become Carrolton Avenue. The St. Charles Avenue street car continues up to Claiborne Avenue. It is part of the site of the village of Carrolton started in 1833 and annexed by New Orleans in 1874 and part of the Carrollton neighborhood. The Camillia Grill is great for breakfast (see below)

I lived here in the 1950s. We had an apartment that was on the right side of the real estate office seen in the first picture after the map. You can see my father, my dog and I on the left in our small front yard. We had just returned from a fishing trip to the bayous. My father would rent a pirogue and we would catch a lot of fish, all of which were eaten. My father cleaned them, my mother cooked. The real estate office has now taken over the whole building. When I lived there, a pottery studio was on the left side. You can see the bend of St. Charles as it becomes Carrolton Avenue in the next picture after our building. Then the next picture looks the other way up Carrolton Avenue. Like the Uptown area south of Magazine Street there are a lot ofshotgun houses.

Like many areas in the city there are blue on white tiles on the street corner side walks that designate the streets. I lived at the corner of Maple and Short and you can see the tiles below. By some accounts, the tiles started being planted in New Orleans sidewalks in the 1870s.