New Orleans' main street, Canal Street, has been compared to Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, as well as to the Champs-Elysees in Paris. In one of the oldest cities in the United States, Bourbon Street is filled with historic sites, social stories and iconic buildings. The street dates back to 1718, when Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville founded New Orleans. The French engineer Adrien de Pauger traced the streets of New Orleans in 1721 and chose one to bear the name of the French royal family that ruled at the time, Rue Bourbon.
This monumental street is located in the heart of the French Quarter and stretches 13 blocks from Canal Street to Esplanade Avenue before meandering through the Marigny neighborhood. Bourbon Street is only 13 blocks long and yet is known all over the world for its drinking establishments. The main difference between New Orleans and other southern cities was its unique cultural heritage as a result of having previously been a French and Spanish possession. It's one of the few vestiges of what Bourbon was like in the late 1950s, when burlesque and variety shows were the mainstay of the street.
In the period after World War II, Bourbon Street had a character, if not in appearance, similar to today's Bourbon Street, although in its day more emphasis was placed on live music. Maison Bourbon (641 Bourbon Street) The sign outside the door reads: “Dedicated to the preservation of jazz, and Maison Bourbon doesn't disappoint in this regard, it's a good place for a live show. With windows and doors open to wandering crowds, it should come as no surprise that the famous sidewalk drink known as a “takeaway drink” was invented on Bourbon Street, according to Tulane University historian Richard Campanella. Like much of the French Quarter, the historic architecture of Bourbon Street is much more due to Spain than to France; most of the French buildings on the street were destroyed in the Great Fire of New Orleans in 1788, when the city was a Spanish colony.
In short, while there's a lot to discover in Bourbon, there's also a lot to discover on the iconic street that might surprise you. Its waiters and dancers were among the first to return to work after Hurricane Katrina, and it continues to thrive thanks to the constant changes that New Orleans has experienced in the 21st century. Bourbon Street is an ideal destination for bachelorette and bachelor parties, birthday celebrations and a general mecca for those looking to have a good time while strolling from one bar to another. The most famous restaurant on Bourbon Street is Galatoire's; it represents traditional New Orleans food and has a dress code.
Jazz artists didn't headline festivals in Montreal or Switzerland, but played for customers who came to the sweaty brothels and music halls of Basin and Bourbon Street (as a side note, those music venues stopped sweating so much when they started installing air conditioning 24 hours a day, approximately half a century later, some of the world's first nightclubs to take that step). The street, then located in the colony of New France, was named after the French Royal House of Bourbon (for which bourbon, the drink, got its name). Unfortunately, it was more crime than jazz and burlesque that made bars profitable and, after a repression in the 1960s, a shift towards recorded music began, which is still part of today's struggling music scene; it also passed the era of jazz as the dominant American music and Bourbon Street adjusted to commercial demand by adjusting its repertoire.
