Iron galleries stand on posts over the sidewalk, and Interview with the Vampire used the Gallier House on Royal Street as its vampires' townhouse.
What French Quarter looks like
The grid here is barely six blocks deep and fifteen wide, laid out in 1721 between the river and Rampart Street, narrow enough that a gallery on one side nearly meets its neighbor across the road. Almost none of the brick standing today predates 1794. It sits under stucco, painted rather than left bare, in colours that run from pink through yellow to pale blue.
A Creole townhouse sits flush against the sidewalk, three storeys of brick with a shop under the front rooms and a flagstone passage running back to a courtyard. Iron posts carry a wide gallery over the sidewalk on many of these buildings, while others keep an older, narrower balcony hung straight off the wall on iron brackets with no post at all.
Behind the townhouses the courtyards are walled and reached only through the passage, wrought iron gates at the street end and ferns and potted palms hanging over the balcony rails above them. Shopfronts along the ground floor keep to hand painted signs rather than backlit ones, mostly antique dealers and small galleries.
The run down both sides of Jackson Square in matching red brick, four storeys with dormer windows and a covered gallery along the ground floor shops. faces the square between them, three spires over the roofline and its front steps kept clear of traffic and lined most days with local artists' work.
From a hotel roof above St. Louis Street, low tiled roofs and chimneys run all the way to the river, cranes at the port breaking the line beyond it. The whole quarter sits inside the Vieux Carre Historic District, a National Historic Landmark.
Shot in French Quarter
The at 1132 is the exterior of Lestat, Louis and Claudia's townhouse in season 1 of AMC's Interview with the Vampire, set in 1910s New Orleans. Its interiors were built on a soundstage, but the at 1113 Chartres Street stood in for the Fair Play Saloon and Azalea Hall, its rooms transformed for both scenes.
King Creole, 1958
Danny Fisher's home in King Creole is this courtyard and balcony. Elvis Presley sings the opening number, Crawfish, from the balcony over the street below. Fan crowds during the five days of location shooting were large enough that police were posted through the Quarter to control them.
Treme, 2010
Jackson Square
St. Louis Cathedral is where Treme filmed Annie and Sonny performing with accordionist Bruce Sunpie Barnes, in the episode Playing For That Money. The cathedral's front steps stay closed to vehicle traffic and are lined with street artists' work along the fence most days.
Old San Juan's pastel stucco houses and ornate iron balconies over narrow colonial streets read close to the Quarter's own Spanish colonial blocks, both grids laid out under the same fortified rule. San Juan's balconies mostly hang flat against the wall rather than standing on posts, and its blue grey cobblestones read differently from the Quarter's flagstone and asphalt. Keep the harbor forts and city walls out of any wide shot, since a viewer will place them in San Juan rather than New Orleans. Try searching pastel stucco colonial street now.
Casco Viejo's stuccoed blocks carry the same wrought iron balconies and red tile roofs over narrow streets, close in scale to the Quarter's own townhouses. Later Republican and Art Nouveau facades sit inside the same blocks, so a wider shot needs a careful eye to avoid a cornice too ornate for the period being played. Panama City's glass towers rise directly behind the old quarter and show up in almost any high or wide angle. Try searching colonial street iron balconies now.
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