The Treme Historic District

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The origins of the district can be traced to the earliest years of New Orleans when a brickyard owned by the Company of the Indies was established outside of the city near Bayou Road and today's Claiborne Avenue. This land became part of the plantation lands acquired by Claude Treme through marriage, and which he began to subdivide in the 1790s. The Faubourg Treme was incorporated into New Orleans in 1812.

The district contains a number of outstanding early Creole cottages, such as those at 1308 St. Claude Avenue and 1020-22 Treme Street, both dating from the 1830s. Larger scale townhouses can be found at 1301-1313 Gov. Nicholls, built in the 1840s. Treme saw continued development in the later 19th century, as the row of outstanding double shotgun cottages at 1201-1217 Ursulines, built in the 1890s, indicates.

Larger scale houses can also be found scattered throughout the area, including the nearly identical pair at 2003 and 2013 Dumaine Street. The most dominant house type in the district above North Claiborne is the late 19th century shotgun cottage. Perhaps the finest specimen is located 2017 St. Philip Street, with its spectacular ornamental millwork details.

After the mid 20th century, large scale development projects caused the destruction of residential and neighborhood uses in the district. At the Villere and St. Philip Street boundaries of the district, Armstrong Park, whose development began in the 1960s, occupies twelve former residential blocks of the original Faubourg Treme. As in the Esplanade Ridge Historic District, the construction in the 1960s of an elevated expressway on North Claiborne Avenue radically changed the scale, character and uses of this important neighborhood corridor.

The area of the district between North Claiborne Avenue and North Rampart Street is subject to the full control of the commission. The area above North Claiborne is subject only to control of demolition and demolition by neglect.