The 3 Rings of Royal Street
11/24/2023
On Saturday, November 18th, two men were shot at the corner of Royal & Iberville just after midnight. While this now seems commonplace and almost expected in a climate that has seen city shootings increase 88% in 2022 compared to 2019, there’s more to the story. Matter of fact, in true New Orleans style there are layers to this. Call them rings. Like those of Saturn, they are complex, made up of numerous small particles, and possess their own atmosphere. They too might just be made of gas.
You can walk around anywhere in town, especially downtown, and feel antennae twitching at the layers of time, history, and stories itching to be told. One aspect is the present-day stories beneath the news story itself, all the other particles. Another is the events of the past. Like Saturn’s rings, there are too many of these to get our arms around, so all we can do is document, speculate, and know, without question, there’s much more to it all.
Especially so in New Orleans, because everyone and everything are connected. There are few, if any, degrees of separation among people and place. Here are a few of those rings.
Ring 1: According to any crime map of your choice, the 100 block of Royal St. has more 2023 shootings than anywhere in the French Quarter. To someone who hasn’t walked the block, that might seem odd. After all, it’s a stone’s throw from high-end art galleries and antique stores who were paying $20-30,000/month in rent even before the recent city real estate spike. It’s also steps from the venerable Hotel Monteleone at 214 Royal St., built in 1886, where the 25-seat Carousel Bar moves at a charmingly steady rate of one revolution every 15 minutes.
Crime map below not yet updated with Royal/Iberville shooting.
Royal St. was said to be the first street paved in New Orleans. This was done with large granite blocks brought to the city as ballast (large rocks to provide stability) on ships back in the 1820s under Louis Philippe de Roffignac, the 10th Mayor of New Orleans. The cocktail named after the mayor was at one time as popular as the Sazerac, but you’re presently unlikely to find the largely forgotten Roffignac on a menu or in the mind of a bartender unless you have the good sense to stop in at Jewel of the South, Cure, or Copper Vine. The 100 block of Royal St. itself is the epitome of neglect, it almost appears as if that block had never been paved. It hasn’t always been that way.
While for decades in the past The Gem (more on this to come) at 127-129 Royal St. was a high point of the French Quarter for certain well-to-do individuals, in recent decades it’s been the exact opposite. Unique Grocery tells tales by its very name. There is truly nothing unique about it. If there is one place in the Quarter that feels like a liquor store to avoid due to riffraff, criminals, and all-around craziness, then this is the spot.
Photo below: Unique Grocery, photo by M.A.Z. on 11/19 with OPSO presence going toward Iberville St.
The block bordered by Royal/Iberville/Bourbon/Canal is hands-down the most rundown lowdown area in the historic Vieux Carre. Somehow this is allowed to continue, despite the New Orleans & Company estimation that the city pulls in $200 million per week from those who visit and walk those streets. Back when I managed a bookshop a couple blocks away, you might see a range of price stickers on beer bottles. Sometimes even with another business’ name. Word was that they’d been stolen from various other liquor stores in the area and sold at Unique. This is merely an allegation.
It's safe to say that part of the reason the Starbucks across Canal St. closed in September 2022, citing “concerns over security and the safety of its employees,” as well as the McDonald’s in the 100 block of Royal St./711 Canal St. closing early in 2023, were due to the environment created by Unique. This is merely speculation.
I won’t take the time to touch on the general blight in the block, in part from the ongoing fight for years between various developers/businessmen, from Angelo Farrell to Joseph Jaeger, and the City Council to develop a hotel at 121-125 Royal St., the location of the former grand Cosmopolitan Hotel, well beyond the height of the rest of the neighborhood. The sales price of the property has dropped over 25% since early 2022 to $5.85 million. This is merely the situation.
Neither will I go into the fact that all the blocks from Canal to Iberville presumed to be part of the French Quarter are legally/zoning-wise part of the Central Business District (can we still say CBD?), so the Vieux Carre Commission has no jurisdiction. Instead, this focus will be on 127-129 Royal St. and Unique Grocery. Here is the sad realization.
Ring 2: Records show that initials S.S. has owned 127-129 Royal St. for over 40 years. Beyond the grocery, this includes the adjacent shop that offers t-shirts for either “2 for $9.99” or “3 for $9.99.” To be fair, a business owner can’t necessarily choose their clientele. A dollar is a dollar. Also, Canal St. has major issues in general. But there has been a sad precedent of those from surrounding parishes making money in the French Quarter by cashing in at the lowest level, contributing to a sad sack instead of a shining star, while going home far away from it all. In part, it goes back to the mindset that tourists came to be fleeced, the Quarter was no more than a place to drink & party, but anyone with sense didn’t want to actually live anywhere near all that mess.
In this case, S.S. has a lovely home in Kenner on the lakefront. I suspect anyone would gasp upon seeing the sharp contrast between the vibe around his business compared to his estate.
He’s not the only one. The family behind various Canal St. area eyesores, some of the strip clubs that didn’t get shut down in the 2019 raids, and various t-shirt shops that somehow skirt existing city ordinances against their proliferation is no different. The “old families” who still own substantial real estate on Bourbon St. and throughout the Quarter are also no different. The others too. Most of them have lived in Jefferson or St. Tammany Parishes for years. Why? Anyone’s motivation is their own, but at least in large part this is because they view New Orleans as a place to make money but otherwise a dump run by political figures the exact opposite of their majority right-wing beliefs. It’s accordingly been of benefit for many of the building and/or business owners to cash in by catering to trashy and even criminal behavior, regardless of the consequences upon the city-at-large.
There is another historically significant ring of Royal St. that goes deeper than I could have imagined.
Photo below: The Gem booklet, early 20th century, Tulane Special Collections.
Ring 3: Back before the city adjusted the street numbering system in the 1890s, 127-129 Royal St was known as 17 Royal St. It’s one of the oldest buildings in the French Quarter. Interestingly, it was once considered a skyscraper by being one of the first three-story buildings in the old city when it was built in the late 18th century as the home of a Spanish Nobleman. At the time, 17 Royal St. was thought to be one of the most beautiful mansions in Louisiana. Upon the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, it became a coffeehouse that got its name The Gem from the owner, George E. Miller who signed receipts with his initials G.E.M. The first governor of Louisiana, William Claiborne frequented The Gem, as it was the general meeting place for statesmen, princes, and illustrious visitors. Duels to be fought in City Park were even arranged there. By 1847, The Gem became The Gem Restaurant/Saloon, an oyster bar and café with a wide menu and some of the best food in town. The Pickwick Club organized there and maintained itself in one of the private rooms.
This led to the Mystick Krewe of Comus meeting on January 4, 1857 for the founding of the first Mardi Gras of the type that we now know today. The historic plaque outside Unique Grocery attests to this. It bears mentioning that, even though they were New Orleanians at the time, the following is the background of those who started modern Mardi Gras: Referencing the images above and below; Todd was originally from Utica, NY by way of Mobile, AL; Addison was from Kentucky; Pope was from NY; Shaw was from NY; and the Ellison’s were from Louisville, KY and Pittsburgh, PA.
Photo below: Historic plaque, photo by M.A.Z.
Though I couldn’t find specific proof of it, there’s a solid logical step to be made that the Southern white supremacist paramilitary group the Crescent City White League, if not the Ku Klux (as the KKK was known at the time) as well, both who stockpiled weapons & ammunition, also met at The Gem for the following reasons.
The Battle of September 14th, was an insurrection in the streets, an 1874 White League response to Reconstruction, to shut out Black voters, and to violently respond to the most progressive Black political coalition in the South following the Civil War. It was said to have been planned by the Pickwick (and likely also the Boston) club, who again, had a private room at The Gem. On the night of September 13th, the White League spread the word by way of flyers about a mass meeting at Royal & Canal the following day. The location, half a block from The Gem, can’t be happenstance. “The Battle of Liberty Place” that resulted, an armed rebellion against the police, was a march leading to a violent battle, which the group would go on to celebrate every September 14th.
Image below: Harper’s Weekly, October 3, 1874 titled “Louisiana Outrages—Attack Upon the Police in the Streets of New Orleans,” HNOC.
Ironically those who likely met at The Gem felt that they were pushing back against “carpetbaggers” from the North, even though many of they themselves had the same origin. There is no doubt that the essence of the White League, the KKK, and the Confederacy is in the DNA of Mardi Gras, the statues of Confederate generals removed in 2017, and “The Battle of Liberty Place” monument that stood for decades near the foot of Canal Street until also being removed in 2017 and placed in storage. Also, the alliteration of “Ku Klux” and “Krewe of Comus” can’t help but be noticeable, and it was likely not random.
If all of this isn’t enough, only in New Orleans can it be the case that the gubernatorial candidate who was defeated in 1872, leading to the White League events of September 14th, 1874, was John McEnery, while the present-day real estate brokerage selling the proposed hotel at 121-125 Royal St., next door to 127-129 Royal St. is The McEnery Company. This is not to accuse the real estate firm of any misdeeds or disreputable family actions whatsoever, only to say that like the rings of Saturn, the rings of Royal St. are equally complex.
At this point, on November 22nd, NOPD or OPSO have had multiple force members stationed at the corner of Royal & Iberville. This likely won’t continue. But the layers will surely only continue expanding. The past informs the present, but so does the future.