CJ Blanda: Seven Decades in the French Quarter

June 2025

A native New Orleanian, CJ Blanda has called the French Quarter home for more than seventy years, saying the neighborhood is “the heart of my life.”

– by CJ Blanda

This project is made possible in part by a grant from the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation, Inc.

I began my life as a resident of the French Quarter 71 years ago in 1953, but I am a native New Orleanian, born in 1929 in the old Hotel Dieu Hospital on Tulane Avenue.

Two years after I graduated from Tulane in 1950, I began renting efficiency apartments in the Quarter. At the time, my family lived in Metairie. I soon discovered that my late nights at the bars didn’t agree with the drive back home. By renting a pied-a-terre in the Quarter, I could walk a couple of blocks, fall asleep and easily drive home the next day.

This project is underwritten in part by Kelly & Linda Baker

I rented throughout the 1950s and 60s. First, I had a space on Royal and Dumaine; then later on Dumaine between Royal and Chartres; also on St. Philip between Bourbon and Dauphine.

In 1959, I moved to New York City for three years. When I came back, I lived on Conti, across from the old wax museum. Then, I lived on Esplanade for five and a half years. I had the entire second floor with a balcony, and my rent was only $95 a month.

In 1966, I purchased my present home at 1015 Esplanade Avenue – and still live there now. When I moved there, my mother said, “I don’t know why you want to live in the French Quarter. There’s nothing but thieves and prostitutes in the Quarter.”

You could say the Quarter was a slum then. It was a very bohemian area, and the rent was cheap. Let me paint a picture for you revealing the Quarter’s strengths and its challenges at that time.

From my street, you can see the old Italian Union Hall sitting across the street, vacant and boarded up. It had been the Old Kenner Mansion, and its property extended all the way to Barracks Street. People would break in and steal the marble mantels.

The old Italian Union Hall at 1020 Esplanade in 1972, Vieux Carré Commission Virtual Library

This was a neighborhood that still ran strictly by Jim Crow, segregating Blacks and whites – whether legally or unofficially. The white people lived closer to the river, and the Black people lived closer to Rampart.

CJ Blanda as a young man in Jackson Square

If you had walked into my house in the mid-60s before I restored it, you would find a cramped, six-family tenement. Outside, the Esplanade neutral ground displayed landscaped flowering plants – a place I walked my dogs – each five successive one named, alternatingly, either Maximillan or Alexis.

The Quarter was so contained as its own little town that I happily lived without a car for 10 years in the 1980s. I could walk to my office in 10 minutes, but the walk back home would take two hours. I would stop and talk to friends and browse antique stores on Royal and Chartres.

Most of the old antique stores are gone now. Over the 20 blocks back to my house from my office, I passed stores not for tourists but for residents: dry cleaners, restaurants, hardware stores and grocery stores. Saint Aloysius High School on Esplanade and Rampart was a vibrant residential area with children and 10,000 registered voters. Now, we have barely 3,000.

In those days, I called ahead at Antoine’s Restaurant. I could take the passageway on the Bourbon Street side of the building and skip all the tourists waiting in line. I could go to the door at the end and there was my waiter, Marshall, ready to take me to my table.

Then there was Galatoire’s Restaurant. They didn't take credit cards, but you could have a personal account if you were a frequent customer. Galatoire's took no credit cards and no reservations.

During the Republican Convention in the 1980s, someone called Galatoire's to make a reservation for Mr. Bush.

“Well, we do not take reservations,” said the man on the line.

“You don’t understand, it’s for Vice President Bush.”

“I repeat, we do not take reservations.”

The French Quarter of that time was a closely-knit community with characters everyone knew. People looked after Ruthie the Duck Girl, a fixture of the Quarter followed by ducks everywhere she went. Bars looked after Ruthie and often gave her free drinks – and she did like to drink.

CJ Blanda welcoming visitors into his courtyard during the 2024 Patio Planters Secret Garden Tour, photo by Ellis Anderson

In 1961, a Black mother and her daughter were regulars on the streets of the quarter. There was the Button Lady, a tall, beautiful white woman with long, black hair who wore black dresses that went to her shoes. She sold old, antique buttons. The Quarter had a way of attracting interesting people.

I am a former New York resident and a traveler to 74 countries. I chose New Orleans as my home. To me, it’s the best home, thanks to the architecture, the people and the weather – well, minus the hurricanes. And in this city I love more than any other, the Quarter is the neighborhood I love most.

Truth be told, I could not live my life here today if I did so now. I would be priced out. I am a staunch preservationist of the French Quarter. I have fought for decades on its behalf as a board member, president and representative of several Quarter organizations and six years as a representative of the Louisiana Historical Society on the Vieux Carré Commission.

CJ Blanda at his home on Esplanade Avenue where he’s lived for 60 years. Photo by Ellis Anderson

I am sad to say I am not optimistic about the future of the Quarter. I have served and fought, because I know what too much gentrification does. It chases out the people who give the Quarter its character.

The Quarter is what makes New Orleans unique, and the people are who make the Quarter unique. It is this place and these people who have shaped my life for decades. For me, the Quarter will always be the heart of New Orleans, and at the heart of my life.

Thank you.