The French Quarter has been lived in and died in; human energy has been manifested continuously and freely for 250 years. Where we find presently a sedate restaurant, we would have found—20 years ago, 50 years ago, 100 years ago or more—a dry goods store, a grocery, a saloon, a coffeehouse, a patisserie, an apothecary, a gambling joint, a silversmith, a printer, a jeweler, a letter-writer, a whorehouse, a bank. They may have disappeared along with their proprietors, but they’ve left behind an aura that infuses the atmosphere.
–Andy Peter Antippas, A Guide to the Historic French Quarter (History & Guide). 2013.
New Orleans’ French Quarter—the Vieux Carré to locals—is among a handful of locales in the South that possesses a high concentration of haunted places. Encompassing nearly two-thirds of a square mile (.66 to be exact), the French Quarter has been said to have spirits in nearly every building and site. Even looking at the documented hauntings here, the number is quite impressive.
The French Quarter is generally defined as the section stretching from Canal Street to Esplanade Avenue and from the Mississippi River northwest to North Rampart Street. This section of the city is where the city was originally founded by the French in 1718. With buildings and sites spanning three centuries, the French Quarter is easily the most paranormally active neighborhood in the entire city.
This series of articles is meant to act as a street by street guide to those hauntings. While some of these stories have gained quite a bit of notoriety in the literature, like Royal Street’s LaLaurie Mansion, and Bourbon Street’s Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop, some stories have only been explored in the literature once or twice. This is an attempt to synthesize information from the many sources that exist on the French Quarter into a succinct guide.
For more haunted places in the French Quarter visit the main page for my series, “Phantoms of the French Quarter.”
Sources
- Antippas, Andy Peter. A Guide to the Historic French Quarter (History & Guide). Charleston SC, Arcadia Publishing, 2013. Kindle Edition.
Street Guide to the Phantoms of the French Quarter
N.B. The streets that are not linked do not yet have guides. Check back here soon for those guides to be created.
Basin Street
Bienville Street
Bourbon Street
Burgundy Street
Chartres Street
Conti Street
Dauphine Street
Decatur Street
Dumaine Street
Esplanade Avenue
Iberville Street
Orleans Street
Pere Antoine’s Alley
Pirate Alley
North Rampart Street
Royal Street
St. Ann Street
St. Louis Street
St. Peter Street
St. Philip Street
Toulouse Street
Ursulines Street
Wilkinson Street