Broad Street is an historic commercial district in New Orleans, LA. From restaurants to Mardi Gras clubs, markets to mansions, pumping stations to ancient portages, Broad Street is in many ways the Crescent City in microcosm. Its extraordinarily diverse threads are integral to the fabric of New Orleans. In the heart of New Orleans, Broad Street's rhythms are the rhythms of the city.
Broad Street has long had a place in New Orleans' history. The Native American portage ground that Bienville used to site the original city is today's Bayou Road. The Carondelet Canal—slated to become the Lafitte Greenway—played a critical role in the city's industrial life. Broad is the also the frontline of New Orleans' famed pumping system.
The neighborhoods lining Broad Street are some of the most historic and vibrant in the city: the Tremé is the birthplace of Jazz and the first free neighborhood of color in New Orleans; Faubourg St. John, Esplanade Ridge, and Bayou Road are vibrant communities filled with coffee shops, bookstores, and restaurants, all centered along the grand, Europe-tinged Esplanade Avenue; and Mid-City and Lower Mid-City are dynamic and diverse mixed-use, middle class communities, with one of the largest Latino populations in the city. All of these neighborhoods have come back stronger than they were before the storm.
Institutions
Broad Street is in the middle of some of the most storied and beloved institutions in the city. City Park, the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Besthoff Sculpture Garden, the New Orleans Botanical Garden, and the new Big Lake Trail and Meadow are three-quarters of a mile north of Broad. Bayou St. John and its bungalows, boats, and historic homes (including the Pitot House), are a 10 minute walk from Broad. The New Orleans African-American Museum is located in the Tremé. And the New Orleans Fairgrounds—one of the premier winter race tracks in the country and the site of the fabled New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival— is just off Broad and Bayou Road.
Culture
Broad is also home to a variety of cultural landmarks. The headquarters of the Zulu Social Aide and Pleasure Club is at Broad and Orleans. 
Tulane Avenue—also know as 'Airline Highway' and the fabled 'Highway 61'—begins its trek north through the Mississippi Delta to Clarksdale, Memphis, St. Louis, and Chicago at the corner of Broad and Tulane. When New Orleans was the 'Queen City of Brewing' in the South, its Brewery District was centered at Broad and Tulane. The Dixie and Falstaff Brewery buildings still stand as a testament to that tradition. The Deutches Haus—the cultural center of New Orleans' German community for generations—is five blocks off Broad in Lower Mid-City.
As a testament to the cultural signficance of Broad, two stretches of Broad have been designed Cultural Districts by the Lieutenant Governor's Office of Culture, Recreation, and Tourism. This designation brings substantial commercial and residential incentives, including tax credits for renovating historic structures and waiving sales tax on original works of art.
Broad is also cookin'. The sizzling steak tradition made world famous by Ruth's Chris began at Crescent City Steaks with John Vojkovich in 1934, at 1001 N Broad, and continues with his family to this day. The original Ruth's Chris is still standing (though not operating) at N Broad and Ursulines.
New Development
Broad is the central corridor connecting many of the most exciting new developments in the city. The proposed Lafitte Greenway, which will turn the former Carondelet Canal and Southern Railways corridor into a linear Greenway, crosses Broad between Lafitte and St. Louis Streets. The proposed Academic Medical Center—the new home for healthcare delivery, medical training, and biosciences research in New Orleans for the Veterans Administration, Tulane, LSU, and Xavier— starts two blocks from Broad Street. Adding to the healthcare delivery options in the community, Tulane's School of Medicine is building a new, ten-thousand square foot Ruth U. Fertel Community Health Center at the corner of Orleans and Broad. Broad Street is a critical corridor in the Greater New Orleans Biosciences Economic Development District (GNOBEDD), and Broad is centrally located to new biosciences institutions already under construction, including the BioInnovation Center and the Louisiana Cancer Research Consortium.
Adding to the development momentum, over two thousand residential units are under construction or finished in the neighborhoods surrounding Broad, including Providence Community Housing's redevelopment of the former Lafitte housing development, and the Domain Companies' developments along Tulane Avenue.
Come to Broad
Explore this web site as a precursor to exploring Broad Street itself, whether you are a visitor from afar or simply the other end of Broad.
