User:Semianduzi/Napoleon Avenue

Napoleon Avenue (French: avenue Napoleon) is in Uptown section of New Orleans, Louisiana. The street was named after Napoleon Bonaparte emperor and military leader of France. Napoleon Avenue was named by Pierre- Benjamin Buisson who was an artillery officer in Bonaparte's Grande Armee. Napoleon Avenue was adorned with southern live oak trees in the twentieth century along with St Charles Avenue, Carrollton Avenue, and a part of Canal Street. The St Charles Streetcar Line is located at the corner of Napoleon Avenue and St Charles Avenue.

The Street
This major street runs parallel to Jefferson Ave and Louisiana Ave and runs north to south. It starts just before Tchoupitoulas St near the Mississippi River before forking into Broad Street and Fountainbleau Drive.

Neighborhood
The median cost of a house on Napoleon Ave is $708, 287 and the average rental price is currently $1,597, both of which are higher than 90 percent of other New Orleans neighborhoods. Most of the residences are considered historical, many were built before 1939 and earlier, with only a few being built between 1940 and 1969. Most of the buildings are small to medium ranging from studio size apartments to single family homes consisting of three to four bedrooms.

Ancestry
Most residents of Napoleon Ave identify as German 19%, along with those that identify as having German ancestry there are: Irish 17%, French 10%, English 8.6%, and Italian 5.7%. As you can see it is a very diverse neighborhood.

History
The plantation which was owned by Valentin Robert Avart was divided upon his death in 1816 and General Wade Hampton of South Carolina acquired a large portion of it. Hampton then sold it to Louis Bouligny in 1829. Bouligny did not maintain the land as a plantation. He subsequently had the area mapped by engineer and cartographer Charles Zimpel and developed the land into a neighborhood. Napoleon Avenue split the plantation in two. Although Zimpel laid out streets for the plantation on his map, it was Pierre-Benjamin Buisson who named the streets. Buisson named the main street in Faubourg Bouligny “Napoleon Avenue.” Buisson named the streets on either side of Napoleon for important battles in Bonaparte’s career, such as Jena, Milan, Marengo and Berlin. The neighborhood became known as “East Bouligny” and “West Bouligny,” depending on which side of Napoleon you were on.