New Orleans’ Garden District is known for its stately historic homes, old brick patios, brilliant azaleas and canopied streets. Sound familiar?
Hyde Park and the Garden District certainly share a number of qualities: charm, old money, well-mossed oaks and front porches as favored living spaces.
The differences:
• They have a functioning streetcar. Ours (which traveled up Bayshore Boulevard and down Rome) is only a memory.
• We have Bayshore Boulevard — and better schools.
• Their oldest homes date from the early 1800s and our earliest examples are from the 1880s.
• Both areas have faced challenging economic times and, in my opinion, thanks to the attraction of historic preservation with protective legislation, have never been more attractive, polished and sought-after as neighborhoods to brag on.
• They have Mardi Gras and we have Gasparilla. Both feature prominent local leaders in heavy make-up, elaborate costumes and a markedly inebriated state during a parade past the best addresses in town.
Yep. Hyde Park is our Garden District, for sure.
This article appears in Apr 3-9, 2014.