Pontalba Buildings

Pontalba Buildings
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. National Historic Landmark
Location:	500 St. Ann St. and 500 St. Peter St., New Orleans, Louisiana
Coordinates:	29°57′26.75″N 90°3′46.01″W
Built:	1849
Architect:	James Gallier; Henry Howard
Architectural style:	Other
Governing body:	State
NRHP Reference#:	74000934
Significant dates
Added to NRHP:	May 30, 1974
Designated NHL:	May 30, 1974

The Pontalba Buildings form two sides of Jackson Square in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana.

These are matching red-brick block long 4‑story buildings built in the 1840s by the Baroness Micaela Almonester Pontalba. The ground floors house shops and restaurants; and the upper floors are apartments that are supposedly, the oldest continuously rented such apartments in the United States. However, according to Christina Vella, historian of modern Europe, adjunct professor at Tulane University in New Orleans and writer of the book Intimate Enemies: The Two Worlds of the Baroness de Pontalba says this is something, "Carriage drivers in New Orleans like to tell tourists; that the Pontalba was the first apartment buildings in the United States." However, when originally built, they were row houses, not apartments. Row houses are separate residences of three stories each, connected by a common facade. The Pontalba buildings were turned into apartments during the 1930s renovation.

In the short story "Hidden Gardens", Truman Capote describes the Pontalba Buildings as "...the oldest, in some ways most somberly elegant, apartment houses in America, the Pontalba Buildings."

They were declared a National Historic Landmark in 1974.