By: Roderick Johnson
If you look at a map of New Orleans, Central City seems aptly named enough. There it is, right smack dab in the center of the Mississippi River’s famed crescent. From the start in the 1820s of settlement of the neighborhood — carved largely out of former riverfront plantations lining what was once charmingly referred to as “the Tchoupitoulas Coast” — Central City was a place of working-class optimism, a place where newly arrived immigrants found a home.
It is a place of many firsts, it saw the construction of the Magnolia public housing complex, the first such project in the nation to receive federal funding under the housing component of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal. It was where Martin Luther King Jr.’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference was founded in 1957, an effort to bring white and black people together. It was also where Robert Charles shot a white police officer, sparking the notorious New Orleans race riots of 1900, tearing the city apart. The list goes on, but Central City today — a blade-shaped triangle hemmed in on the city’s official neighborhood map by the Central Business District to the east, the Garden District to the south, and the Milan, Touro, and Broadmoor neighborhoods to the west.
Jazz pioneer Buddy Bolden grew up at 2309 First Street. Trombonist Kid Ory lived at 2135 Jackson Ave. On Lasalle Street, the historic Dew Drop Inn, a hub for black musicians visiting the city during the Jim Crow era — and, thus, also the site of countless late-night musical performances that would influence a generation of musicians — added to the neighborhood’s cachet as an incubator of New Orleans music.
Business owners of all shades and backgrounds operated the scores of shops that lined the bustling Dryades Street, which — also boasting the city-run Dryades Market at Dryades and present-day Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard — was the neighborhood’s central commercial thoroughfare throughout the late 18th century and well into the 20th century.
There are also many mouth watering restaurants to chose from in Central City, we took to Instagram to give you a top five list that’s definitely work checking out! Our favorites may convince you to eat all of your meals in Central City. If you are a buyer considering Central City homes for sale, we believe you’ll fall in love with this area at first sight just like our Snap Agent Madeline Brown. She says, “there is nothing like the architecture, the history and cultural landmarks like Ashe Cultural Arts Center and The Jazz Market. I knew I wanted to live here the first time I saw it.”
