 et's continue on with Part 2 of the tour, the Arts-Warehouse section. Turn right at the junction of Lafayette with Convention Center Boulevard. All along this revitalized street, once named South Front Street, were dozens of warehouses, built to store the vast amounts of cotton, sugar, and other goods that once passed through this major port city. Most were either demolished to make way for other developments, or re-used for other purposes. Indeed by the time the World's Fair was built here, most of the warehouses on the south side of the street were already gone, and several streets removed. Walk to the junction of Girod with Convention Center Blvd. The main entrance to the: - 1984 World's Fair and Exposition
was located approximately right where you are now standing, complete with two huge fanciful mermaids strung with Mardi Gras beads, pelicans, alligators, water gods, and other various sea creatures surrounded by cattails and ferns. The topless mermaids ignited a firestorm of controversy when first unveiled, but New Orleans being the laid-back city that it is, soon forgot about it, and the figures became a kind of signature for the fair. Keep walking up Convention Center and look around as you go. To the left, the parking lot for the Riverwalk shopping center was once the heart of the fair, Centennial Plaza, with a huge man-made lagoon surrounded by a boardwalk and pavillions. More World's Fair areas will be covered as you continue your tour. As you approach the intersection of Julia Street, you will see on your left a large building which seems to stretch endlessly for a mile up the boulevard. This is the:
- Ernest N Morial Convention Center complex. This massive $88 milion exhibition center was designed by Perez Architects and Billes/Manning Architects, and built for the World's Fair in 1984. When first opened for the fair, it housed various exhibitions such as the Louisiana Pavillion/Louisiana Journey, the State of Mississippi Pavillion, the Great River Road Association exhibit, and the Great Hall Watercourse. The exhibition space of the convention center was expanded in consecutive phases after the fair concluded, and today contains over 3 million square feet of exhibition space in its ten halls. It is named for Ernest N Morial, the mayor of New Orleans from 1978 to 1986, because he was instrumental in the creation of the World's Fair and its most important remaining structure. Across the street from the convention center at Julia and Convention Center Blvd is an old two-level iron-shuttered
warehouse built around 1883, and known as the:
Mississippi Warehouse. Today it is being converted into a multi-use structure, with only the exterior walls being incorporated into the new design. Turn right on Julia and walk north. This area was called Fulton Mall during the fair, and still contains hints of its former status. To the left on: - Fulton Street was a plethora of shops, music halls, and eating places. Before the advent of the fair, the area was a neglected, deteriorating mess, made up of former warehouses, industrial shops, and railroad depot buildings. After the fair closed, the old buildings were mostly sold to new owners and converted into hotels, galleries, apartments, and restaurants. When you get to Tchoupitoulas Street, look across Julia, and you will see the famous:
 Emeril's restaurant,
in its pink building. Opened in 1991 in an old factory by notable chef Emeril Lagasse, the restaurant was immediately dubbed the Restaurant of the Year. High ceilings and large windows add a spacious feel to the interior and exterior. Turn right here and continue for two blocks to Girod Street. Cross over Tchoupitoulas to the other side. On the opposite corner there is a picturesque French Quarter-style building. The:- Nicholas Girod Storehouse was built in 1831, and is one of the oldest of its type remaining in this area. Built and designed by Fitz Miller, the structure is an excellent example of a two-story store/dwelling, with stores on the lower floors and upper floors devoted to living quarters. The semicircular arched openings on the ground floor, doorways with flanking windows on the upper level, hipped roof, and now-gone wrought-iron balcony on the Girod Street side all testify to the French Quarter style,
very rare in this area. Walk up Girod Street until you come to Magazine Street. Look to the left behind the parking lot, and you will see a lovely mural on the side of the William B. Reilly Co. building. It pictures a scene of years gone by, with a Luzianne Tea Company delivery carriage rolling down a pretty Southern countryside road. Cross Magazine Street. On the other side at 701 is a building believed to have been the home of the:
- Maginnis Cotton Mills, a large company incorporated in 1881. The building was designed in the Italianate style, with segmental arched windows and paired brackets in a heavy cornice, and built in 1860. It was the home to an automobile dealership for years, and now is in use as an office building. Turn left at this corner, and walk up Magazine until you get to the large ornate building on the next corner, at Julia Street. This was once the:
- La Belle Creole Cigar Factory,
the largest cigar factory in the country, built in 1882 for Simon Hernsheim Brothers & Company. The company employed over 1200 workers in this immense factory, which was later taken over by the Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company. The structure's white sandstone walls are pierced by differently-shaped semicircular arched window openings on each floor, and geometric tie-rod anchors decorate the vertical pillars to give the building a fanciful fortress-like appearance.
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