Dozen Distinctive Destinations
New Orleans, LA
Year Listed: 2007
Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, one of five grant recipients of the New Orleans Partners in Preservation initiative.
Credit: National Trust for Historic Preservation
In a country where most metropolitan areas look very much alike, New Orleans is a city that is peerless. Many of its architectural wonders - the famous cast-iron galleries of the French Quarter, the creole cottages, shotgun houses and colorful raised bungalows that grace other neighborhoods - simply aren’t found anywhere else. With French, Caribbean, African and American influences, New Orleans is a rich gumbo of cultures with many treasured and irreplaceable tourist haunts. Despite the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, the celebrated historic core of New Orleans including the French Quarter, Faubourg Marigny, the Central Business District, the Garden District, the Warehouse and Arts District, Magazine Street, and Audubon Park and Zoo is not only largely intact but thriving.
National Trust Historic Hotels of America has five member hotels in New Orleans: Hotel Monteleone, Le Pavillon Hotel, Delta Queen Steamboat Company, Bienville House Hotel and Hotel Maison deVille and the Audubon Cottages. As evidenced by the recent success of Mardi Gras, and the plans for the French Quarter Festival, the Jazz and Heritage Festival and Southern Decadence, the historic and cultural experience that only New Orleans offers is as rich and welcoming as ever.
National Trust volunteers gather to begin a day of work in the New Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans.
Credit: National Trust for Historic Preservation
For these reasons, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the country's largest private, nonprofit preservation organization, has recognized the city of New Orleans for exemplary achievement in heritage tourism. The citation reads, New Orleans is a richly unique, authentic, historic community that is reinventing itself through preservation-based revitalization. New Orleans’ rebirth as a tourist destination is the untold story of the year. In saluting New Orleans for its commitment to rebuild its heritage tourism program, the National Trust also cautioned that the rebuilding work is only just beginning. In May 2006, the National Trust placed the historic neighborhoods of New Orleans on its 11 Most Endangered Historic Places list, and hosted a landmark conference that examined the role the city’s cultural legacy will play in recovery efforts. The Trust also operates a New Orleans field office, works with the Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans to offer homeowners technical and financial assistance, and continues to lobby the federal government for appropriations to repair and rehabilitate flood-damaged historic resources.
