Algiers Courthouse — The West Bank's Civic Anchor

The 1896 Romanesque Revival courthouse in red brick stands two blocks from the Algiers Point ferry landing, its clock tower visible from the water. It predates the CBD skyline across the river by a century — when this went up, the West Bank's civic life centered here, and it still does. The building functions as a courthouse today. The plaza is where Algiers gathers: Second Lines pass through, Mardi Gras ferry crowds spill out toward it. This is the civic anchor of the West Bank, the building that held while the city expanded and contracted around it. Best viewed from the Morgan Street side, where the brick and the tower read as a single form against the sky. You go because civic architecture this old, still working, is rare. The ferry deposits you two blocks away. Walk up. The plaza will either be empty or full of people, depending on the day, and both states say something true about how neighborhood gathering works when the building endures.