NOLA History: The French Market

Since 1791, there has been a marketplace along the river in the French Quarter. The French Market is still a focal point for shopping and entertainment, and is a great place to spend a summer afternoon.

Above is one of the oldest photos of the French Market, taken in 1864. The view is from the “Upper” Pontalba Apartment building, looking out at Jackson Square. You can see the “Lower” Pontalba on the left-hand side, then the building that would become the “Butcher’s Market,” along with the market’s iconic anchor, Cafe Du Monde.  Union warships and supply ships line the riverfront, as they came into port periodically while enforcing the Union blockade of the Confederacy’s coastline.

By this time, Italian immigrants had arrived in significant numbers to the French Quarter, Marigny, and 9th Ward, many setting up businesses in the stalls of the French Market. Throughout the 1890s and well into the turn of the 20th Century, the French Market had a distinctive Italian flair to it. Italian families were such a strong economic and social force in the Quarter that St. Mary’s Church became known as “St. Mary’s Italian Church” to distinguish it from “St. Mary’s Assumption Church,” the church of the German community Uptown.

As population demographics shifted, the Italians moved out of the French Market proper, opening up Central Grocery and Progress Grocery, across the street on Decatur. The Perrone family moved the Progress Grocery business out to Metairie in the 1990s, and Central Grocery has become more of a sandwich shop than a grocery, serving their world-famous muffuletta.

Behind the Butcher’s Market were the stalls of the Seafood Market. Fisherman and oystermen would bring their product down from the lake via Bayou St. John and the Carondelet Canal, then by cart from the turning basin at Basin Street to the riverfront.

The original Vegetable Market (Halle des Légumes) was the main produce stand for the Quarter from the 1880s to the 1930s.  The entire French Market underwent extensive renovations in the 1930s, all part of several WPA projects to beautify the French Quarter.  Buildings were renovated and several that were destroyed in earlier years by fire or storms were re-constructed.  The Vegetable Market was re-located from the triangular patch by Ursulines Street to two blocks down, in what then became the Farmers’ Market.  The Public Belt Railroad worked in conjunction with truck farmers and others from Jefferson Parish and other points up the river to bring produce into the Quarter by rail.  Farmers also used the Orleans-Kenner RR interurban streetcar line to get from Kenner to Uptown, then switching to trucks to get their goods into the French Market.

While Cafe du Monde is the oldest tenant of the French Market, dating back to 1865, they were not the only coffee shop.  The Morning Call Coffee Stand first opened in the 1870s, behind the “red stores” buildings in the French Market. Morning Call replaced the Vegetable Market in the 1930s.  In its location at the Ursulines and Decatur, Morning Call offered curbside service; carhops would take your order so you didn’t have to leave the car. Morning Call was a fixture of the “back of the market” until the business moved to Metairie in 1974, across from Lakeside Mall.  The interior of the Metairie location features the original fixtures from the French Market stand.

In the 1990s, Cafe du Monde opened a stand inside Lakeside mall itself, so once again, the two coffee stands are just a few blocks’ walk from each other.

The photo above is Cafe du Monde and the Butcher’s Market in the 1950s. Note the cars parked right up to the awning at CDM.  That area is now a pedestrian walkway, linking Jax Brewery to the French Market via the Washington Artillery plaza.  Steps allow visitors to climb over the floodwall and out to the riverfront itself.  The next major renovation of the French Market took place in the 1970s, under the administrations of Moon Landrieu and Dutch Morial. At this time, the original “Red Stores” buildings were rebuilt, floodwalls constructed, and most of the French Market space was converted into retail shops from the old butcher/vegetable/seafood stalls of earlier times. The weekend “flea” market also began to grow in the 1970s and 1980s, becoming a weekly event.

The modern visitor to the French Market has one big advantage over the shoppers buying meat and vegetables for the evening’s dinner–anyone who gets tired of the heat can duck into one of many air-conditioned shops and restaurants on their way down to Esplanade Avenue and the Old US Mint!

For more information on this unique treasure of the French Quarter, be sure to check out the French Market on Facebook.

French Market
Open daily

Tagged as: butcher's market, Cafe Du Monde, Esplanade Ave., French Market, French Quarter, GoNOLA, Jax Brewery, morning call, New Orleans, US Mint, WPA projects