Canal Street: New Orleans' Great Wide Way

The experiences and events--from the regal to the routine--that have occurred on this main New Orleans thoroughfare.

Stretching from the riverfront to the cemeteries, Canal Street has served as a place for meeting, shopping, protesting, and parading since its creation in 1807.

From white-gloved shopping trips at D.H. Holmes to department store boycotts by the NAACP, from Mardi Gras parades to Christmas displays, steamships to streetcars, Canal Street has been a gathering place full of diverse sights and sounds for 200 years.

Written by local historian and Historic New Orleans Collection curator John Magill and WYES-TV host Peggy Scott Laborde, "Canal Street: New Orleans’ Great Wide Way" chronicles the evolution of this grand street and all its events, memories, failures, and successes.