Peter Street cemetery was closed due to overcrowding and a year after a disastrous fire swept the city. 1, the first of three such named cemeteries in New Orleans, is the oldest extant cemetery in the city. Louis cemetery meet.”Īfter Storyville’s demise, the fine homes were demolished and replaced by the Iberville Projects. John’s 1992 cover of the song includes a particularly interesting lyric, “I’m tellin’ ya, Basin Street, that’s the street/Where all the ghouls from Storyville and the St. Basin Street was immortalized by Spencer Williams in his jazz standard, “Basin Street Blues.” Dr. The street formed the edge of the famous Storyville, the city’s most prominent red-light district. In the mid-19 th century, Basin Street was a noted residential street though it was overtaken in the 1870s when the fine homes were converted to use as bordellos, saloons, and music halls. This view is from Iberville Street looking towards St.

Looking “down the line” of bordellos along Basin Street, probably around the turn of the century. This portion of the Carondelet Canal provided a large area for ships to turn around and was filled in in the 1920s when its use declined. Basin Streetīasin Street, or Rue Bassin, was named for the canal turning basin that was once located nearby. Please see the series main page for an introduction to the French Quarter and links to other streets. This article is part of my series, Street Guide to the Phantoms of the French Quarter, which looks at the haunted places of this neighborhood in a street by street basis.

This article was edited for clarity 7 November 2020.

This article was originally published 16 June 2016 with North Rampart and Burgundy Streets.

Charleston's Ghosts by James Caskey