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The4th Ward orFourth Ward is a division of the city ofNew Orleans,Louisiana, United States, one of the 17Wards of New Orleans.[1]
The 4th Ward stretches through the city from theMississippi River toLake Pontchartrain.[2] From the Mississippi River to Metairie Ridge, the upper boundary isCanal Street, New Orleans, across which is the3rd Ward, and the lower boundary is St. Louis Street, across which is the5th Ward. This portion was the original 4th Ward as defined in 1852.[1][3] In 1880, additional ground (still mostly undeveloped swamp at the time) was added to the Ward from City Park Avenue on Metairie Ridge back to the lake. The upper boundary was theNew Basin Canal, now Pontchartrain Boulevard, across which is the17th Ward. The lower boundary is theOrleans Canal, across which is more of the 5th Ward.
Going roughly from the Mississippi River to Lake Pontchartrain, the Ward has a portion of the riverfrontWoldenberg Park, and the old Bienville Street Wharf, formerly a commercialwharf and now a dock for pleasurecruises of touriststeamboats.[4] TheAquarium of the Americas is near the foot of Canal Street.[5] The next blocks back include such notable businesses as the New OrleansHouse of Blues and theCanal Place skyscraper shopping mall/hotel/theater complex.[6] Across Decatur Street, the Ward includes a 4 by 6 block section of the oldFrench Quarter, including the oldU.S. Customs House and some of the most popular businesses onRoyal Street andBourbon Street, some of the blocks most frequented by out-of-town visitors to the city.[7] Across Rampart, near where one of the city's main railroad stations was in the 19th and early 20th century, is theSaenger Theater, a movie &vaudeville palace where touringBroadway shows and other national acts appeared at in the 21st century. In the late 19th and early 20th centuryStoryville, is the famousred-light district.[8] In the 1940s most of it was torn down to build theIberville Projects.[8] Continuing back, Mercy Hospital is near the headwaters ofBayou St. John. The Ward includes a narrow strip ofMid-City New Orleans, including some of the neighborhood's best known restaurants. Beyond City Park Avenue (formerly Bayou Metairie Road) the Ward widens out fromI-10 toCity Park, includingDelgado Community College andGreenwood Cemetery, and theNavarre neighborhood, including the studios ofPBS television stationWYES-12.[9][10] Farther back is the prosperousLakeview neighborhood with the commercial strip of Harrison Avenue, and across Allen Toussaint Boulevard the Lakeshore neighborhood, and at the northern end is Lakeshore Park along the lakefront.
Hurricane Katrina heavily impacted much of the Ward.[11] Lakeview is only some dozen blocks from the notorious breach in the17th Street Canal.[12][13] Narrow strips of land at the two ends of the Ward, in the French Quarter by the Riverfront and on some of the higher ground of the Lakeshore, were above the flood waters.[14] Some of the narrow strip of Metairie Ridge took on only minimal water. Most of the rest of the ward flooded significantly, often severely.[11][13]
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| Footnotes | Orleans Parish and the City of New Orleans are coextensive. ‡This populated place also has portions in an adjacent parish or parishes. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||