Double shotgun houses and vacant lots line the streets, and the HBO series Treme filmed on Second Street at Dryades Street.
What Central City looks like
Central City sits above the Garden District on the lake side of St. Charles Avenue. Double shotgun houses and single shotgun cottages line most of its streets, some with a camelback addition raising a second storey at the rear. Vacant lots break the rows at regular intervals, open ground between one porch and the next.
runs through the neighborhood's core, two lanes wide with parking on both sides. Brick storefronts sit at the corners under fabric awnings and hand painted signs, some restored and some still boarded over. stands near the boulevard's north end, a brick church with a gilded onion dome steeple finished in 1872.
Second and s cross Dryades Street in straight residential blocks nearby. The houses here are wood frame, set close to the sidewalk, with hipped or gabled roofs and narrow front porches. Some sit behind chain link fences with potted plants on the steps, others carry a two storey columned gallery across the full front.
On , a small takeout stand sits behind a chain link fence with a hand painted sign out front. has a mix of renovated shotgun houses and older frame cottages side by side, one way signs marking the narrower cross streets. The stands a few blocks off the boulevard on Philip Street, a two storey brick building finished in 1915. Its facade is arched, and a double staircase leads up to the entrance.
Shot in Central City
The HBO series Treme filmed on Second Street at its corner with Dryades Street in the spring of 2010. A photograph documenting the shoot on the ground is dated April 29, 2010.
Treme, 2010
The production used the corner under the neighborhood's own name rather than dressing it as another city. A Commons photograph dated April 29, 2010 documents the shoot and is captioned as Treme filming at this corner. Street View
What Central City can double for
Freedmen's Town in Houston, Texas
Freedmen's Town in the Fourth Ward has shotgun houses at a similar scale, one storey with later camelback additions at the rear. Its streets carry hand laid brick from the early twentieth century, which most of Central City's blocks have lost to asphalt. The exposed brick paving reads differently on camera than an asphalt street, so a wide shot needs a block where the brick has survived. Try searching shotgun houses brick streets now.
Sweet Auburn in Atlanta, Georgia
Auburn Avenue in Sweet Auburn is a similar corridor of two storey brick storefronts, and many of its blocks stand boarded or vacant the same way Central City's boulevard does. The buildings there run taller and more uniformly masonry than Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard's mixed frame and brick fronts. Keep the frame tight to the storefronts, since Auburn Avenue's wider modern setbacks and a nearby highway overpass show up fast in a pulled back shot. Try searching boarded storefronts vacant boulevard now.
Overtown's old business blocks on Northwest Second Avenue were cut down to open lots and surface parking by an interstate interchange, leaving the same kind of gap between buildings Central City shows today. The remaining storefronts are low brick commercial buildings rather than the wood shotgun houses that make up most of Central City. Frame away from the raised expressway that still runs through the area today, since it would date the shot instantly. Try searching open lots surface parking now.
