 alking on toward University Place, when you get to the corner, you will see the: - Walgreen's Drugstore, across the street at 900 Canal. Another Canal Street fixture for decades, the store was once part of the glittery, Times-Square-like feeling that Canal Street exhibited in the 1950s and 1960s. The sleek round-cornered Moderne was built circa 1938 in a now-rare type of commercial design that was all the rage in the 1930s. The neon signs were added around 1950, and the store was expanded in 1997. Turning the corner here to the left, travel up University Place until you get
to the other entrance to the Fairmont Hotel. Admire the look of the old Grunewald Hotel, now part of the Fairmont Hotel complex, then look across the street at the building with the marquee out front. This is the:
- Orpheum Theatre, now the permanent home of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra. The building, which features a beautiful terra cotta Beaux Arts facade, was built in 1918 by the Orpheum Circuit, and was originally a vaudeville house, with acts like Will Rogers, Milton Berle, Jack Benny, Fred Allen, and George Burns and Gracie Allen. Panels incorporating various relief carvings, and separated by ornamental columns, ornament the front of the building. The structure was restored to its former elegance in 1981. Continue walking away from Canal Street,
and when you get to Common Street, turn left, walk to the next corner, which is Baronne Street, and stop here. The building here on the right is the old:
- Sears Department Store, 201 Baronne. It was built in 1931 as Feibleman's Department Store, and after Sears took it over, it became a New Orleans shopping landmark. As the large department stores started to move out to the suburban malls, however, the downtown stores followed suit, and closed their stores one by one. Sears vacated the building in 1982, and it became a Travelodge in 1997. Catty-corner from the Sears Building at 150 Baronne is the:
- Pere Marquette Building, one of New Orleans' first skyscrapers. Designed as a high-rise building with a Gothic flair, the structure was built in 1925,
and utilizes a tripartite, or 3-piece, design, in which the building is separated into three distinct sections. The lower three floors are emphasized by light-colored tile, the next 12 stories are done in a darker color, and the top three floors are separated from those by a light-colored string course. The building was named for Jesuit explorer and missionary Jacques Marquette, who, along with Louis Joliet, completely navigated the Mississippi River in the 17th century. It is now the upscale Renaissance Pere Marquette Hotel. Turn right and walk one block to Gravier Street. Turn left on Gravier and you will see a long section of similarly-designed buildings on the right at 822-28. This is:
- Gravier Row,
a three-story row of Italianate-designed masonry commercial buildings dating from 1865, and designed by Lewis E. Reynolds for Jackson & Manson, cotton factors. The lower floor of this row features cast-iron pillars with Egyptian motif capitals, and low arches with panelled spandrels, or spans. The second floor windows are full length, with heavy drip stones above them, but the third floor windows are small arched ones with molded sills instead. The second floor iron balcony that once spanned the entire row is now gone. Return to Baronne Street and walk for three more blocks until you get close to Poydras Avenue, one of the main thoroughfares in the business district. The tall, narrow building with the protruding bays that you see as you approach Poydras is the famous:
 Le Pavillion Hotel.
The 9-story structure was built as the Denechaud Hotel in 1906, and was also known as the DeSoto Hotel for many years. Designed by Toledano and Wogan, architects, the architecture was that of "modern Renaissance, the two lower floors to be faced with terra cotta, and the others of pressed brick...with a granite and limestone base". The steel and reinforced concrete structure was considered fireproof, for those days. The interior has marble floors with massive Sienna marble columns, bronze and mahogany railings, and crystal chandeliers. The side entrance on Poydras is flanked by two colossal semi-nude statues which dwarf the cars that pull into the towering porte cochere', or carriageway. Walk to this side entrance (which looks more like its main entrance), and around the front of it, turning left on Poydras.
Make another left on Carondelet Street, and continue for another block to the corner of Perdido and Carondelet. The building on the left corner here, and stretching for most of the block up Perdido, is another commercial row,- Factor's Row. These six buildings grouped together is one of the finest surviving examples of a masonry-built commercial row with cast-iron ornamentation in the city. The same architect who designed Gravier Row, Lewis Reynolds, designed Factor's Row in 1858, and Samuel Jamison and James McIntosh built the entire row. They also happened to own the two corner segments. Each floor of windows has its own cast-iron decoration, and like at Gravier Row, the white-painted cast-iron balcony that once spanned the row has been removed from the structure.
The building was made famous in 1873, when artist Edgar Degas painted his famous scene of a cotton office interior here, as his uncle Michel Musson had an office in the building.
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