Pontalba Buildings

Truman Capote called them "the oldest, in some ways most somberly elegant, apartment houses in America." He was wrong about the oldest part — Baroness Micaela Almonester de Pontalba built matching red-brick row houses between 1849 and 1851, which weren't converted to rental apartments until the 1930s. But the Pontalba Buildings on either side of Jackson Square remain what she intended: Parisian-style architecture facing what had been the Place d'Armes, four stories high, one block long on each flank. Micaela purchased the land upriver and downriver from the square and spent over $300,000 on construction. She fired architect James Gallier Sr. mid-project and replaced him with Henry Howard. The cast-iron balcony panels bear her intertwined initials — 'AP' for Almonester and Pontalba — still visible on the first-floor balustrade. This was the first recorded instance in the city of cast-iron galleries, a fashion that became the defining feature of New Orleans residential architecture. Her father-in-law shot her in the hands during a dispute over her dowry. She survived with permanently damaged fingers and managed the construction anyway. The ground floors are shops and restaurants. The upper floors remain residential apartments — people still live here. At 523 St. Ann, the 1850 House museum shows a furnished period apartment, open Tuesday through Sunday. Walk the block. Look up at the ironwork. The monogram hasn't changed.