Upper Central Business District - New Orleans, LA - U.S. National Register of Historic Places on Waymarking.com

"The Upper Central Business District encompasses a total of 473 buildings, one site and three structures.

At the close of the 18th century, the limits of the city of New Orleans were expanded upriver from the initial grid-planned section known today as the Vieux Carre. In 1788 the land which forms most of the Upper Central Business District was owned by Don Bertrand Gravier and Madame Maria Gravier, who had Carlos Trudeau, the Spanish Royal Surveyor, prepare a plan dividing thier lands into streets and city blocks. Further upriver, in 1806, the former Delord plantation, which abutted the Gravier property, was subdivided by the surveyor Barthelemy LaFon, thus completing the street and block pattern which exists today in the district.

Early development consisted of mostly detached Creole style houses, which were to quickly be replaced by the more dense character of townhouses favored by the Anglo-American settlers who were to spearhead the growth of the district from the 1820s up to the advent of the Civil War. Following the Civil War, the prinicpal building activity shifted away from residential to commercial buildings, especially in the protion of the district between Magazine Street and Convention Center Boulevard, the later being known historically as South Front Street. This area is known today as the Warehouse District.

The character of the Upper CBD is formed by its concentration of masonry structures. There are only a handful of frame buildings in the district. "

From State of Louisiana.