Truman Capote Birthplace — The Tiny Terror of Royal Street

Truman Capote was born at Touro Infirmary in 1924, then left with Alabama relatives shortly after. He came back anyway. In the 1940s, he lived at 711 Royal Street as a young writer and drafted part of *Other Voices, Other Rooms* at this address. New Orleans had been the largest port in the South since the 19th century, moving cotton and farm products to Europe and New England through a city the French founded in 1718 to control the entire Mississippi River Valley. Bienville chose the site for strategic reasons: relatively high ground along a sharp bend of the flood-prone Mississippi, adjacent to the trading route and portage between the river and Lake Pontchartrain via Bayou St. John. The French intended it to be an important colonial city from its founding. By the time Capote returned, the Quarter had absorbed two centuries of French, Spanish, and American ambition. His mother left him. But he always claimed New Orleans. The work he made at 711 Royal Street was part of that claim. A plaque marks the Royal Street facade. The building is a private residence.