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The
Claireau Quarter
At the heart of the city, the Claireau
Quarter is the first glimpse of New London that most
visitors get as they drive down the London Road from
I-10, arrive on a Greyhound bound for the Belle Vue
Bus Depot, or drift lazily up the Mississippi on one
of the tourist-ladened river boats.
The Claireau Quarter is New London's
tourist trap and entertainment district, and is certainly
the most lively area of the city to visit. With its
sparkling neon lights, its gambling dens, bars, hotels,
coffee houses and museums, most visitors to the city
never get any further than this.
Most of the district's activity goes
on in the thin strip of buildings that lies to the
north of the London Road, where establishments like
Euterpe's Coffee House and The 12 Bar set the scene
for the clean, classy atmosphere New London tries
so hard to portray, and south of the River Road between
the Fountain District and the derelict Mal Gardé
bridge, where much of the city's gambling establishments
are located. On the south-side of the London Road,
the buildings grow steadily more run-down, and while
there is much to be found, the bars and gambling dens
here are seedier and generally filled with smoke and
the smell of stale beer.
The area is crossed by two main thoroughfares
that run northeast to southwest, Havre Street, which
is mostly abandoned to the south of the London Road
but for New London's Four-Cross police station, but
is home to the one of the State's best Blues clubs,
The 12 Bar, to the north, and Fountaine Street which
runs across the city from Watchwater all the way to
Fountaine House. Encre Street, which runs off Havre
Street and leads into the city's residential district,
is home to many of New London's artists and intellectuals,
with Euterpe's Coffee House resting just inside the
Claireau Quarter, and Havre Public Library just on
the other side of the boundary between Claireau and
the Fountain district.
With its wall to wall entertainment,
and strings of tiny lights running between the streetlamps
that glisten sharply on the murky waters of Mississippi,
it's understandable why so many people come to New
London for its beauty, without ever seeing the city's
unpleasant side to the south of London Road, where
the Claireau Quarter tapers off into the abandoned
warehouses, stinking docklands and homeless shelters
of Watchwater Park. |
