The River Roads

The earliest roads in New Orleans paralleled Bayou St John, Bayou Metaire, and Bayou Gentilly, whose banks had been raised above the surrounding swamps by the silt of periodic flooding. Settlement followed the high ground. Farms were established along the bayou roads, where cultivation was possible for a distance of three arpents, or roughly two-hundred yards, from the banks of the bayou. These routes — Bayou Road cutting diagonally across the grid along the route of the old Choctaw portage; Gentilly Boulevard, winding to the east; Metairie Road to the west; and Wisner Boulevard in City Park — remain the sensible lines of habitation between the river and the lake.