• True North

    TrueNorth_color_sm.jpgOnly two major streets run north-south in New Orleans: Napoleon Avenue (bottom center of this image) and Elysian Fields (upper right). The yellow areas represent the portions of the grid of minor streets that are oriented to the cardinal points. Elsewhere in the city, the streets cannot orient you to true north at all. Yet no one thinks of Napoleon doing so, either; Elysian Fields perhaps. The single publicly recognized indicator of north in the city was the statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee at Lee Circle (here, below and slightly left of the French Quarter), who for decades gazed–defiantly or pensively, depending on your point of view–ever northward. The statue of Lee was removed in May of 2017.