New Orleans East

Eastern section of New Orleans

New Orleans East (also referred to as N. O. East and The East) is the eastern section of New Orleans, Louisiana, the newest section of the city. This collection neighborhood sub divisions represents 65% of the city's total land area, but it is geographically isolated from the rest of the city by the Inner Harbor Navigational Canal (Industrial Canal). It is surrounded by water on all sides, bounded by the Industrial Canal, Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, Lake Pontchartrain, Lake Borgne, and the Rigolets, a long deep water strait connecting the two lakes. Interstate 10 (I 10) splits the area nearly in half, and Chef Menteur Hwy, Downman Rd, Crowder Blvd, Dwyer Rd, Lake Forest Blvd, Read Blvd, Bullard Ave, Michoud Blvd, Hayne Blvd, Morrison Rd, Bundy Rd, and Almonaster Ave serve as major streets and corridors. As of the 2020 census, the population of eastern New Orleans is 75,223, accounting for 20% of the city’s total population (Table 1). Housing ranges from low income multifamily apartment complexes and working class neighborhoods to middle class single family subdivisions and affluent, lake centered gated communities. Neighborhoods include Pines Village, Plum Orchard, Little Woods, West Lake Forest, Read Boulevard West, Read Boulevard East, Village de L’Est, Venetian Isles, and Lake Catherine (Fig. 2.). Economic drivers in this part of the city include the NASA Michoud Assembly Facility, New Orleans Lakefront Airport, Folgers Coffee Plant, Faubourg Brewing Co., Crescent Crown Distributing, the National Finance Center, and the New Orleans Regional Business Park. A notable characteristic of New Orleans East is its abundance of green spaces, including Bayou Sauvage Urban National Wildlife Refuge, Audubon Louisiana Nature Center, and Joe W. Brown Park.

Until the late 19th century, this area was outside of the city limits of New Orleans, although within Orleans Parish. Eastern New Orleans' post colonial history dates back to the early 1800s, with the construction of Fort Pike and Fort Macomb in what is now called the Lake Catherine neighborhood. Much of the area being marshland, completion of the highway required damming, draining and filling remnants of a distributary known as Bayou Metairie. By November 2006 only 40,000 residents had returned to eastern New Orleans, compared to the 95,000 that had inhabited the area before the levee failures. However, consistent with the ongoing recovery in New Orleans' population from its post Katrina trough, eastern New Orleans' population likewise continued to increase. By 2010, more than half of eastern New Orleans' pre Katrina population had returned. The returning population was more affluent: determined to permanently reduce the neighborhood's quantity of multi family housing, eastern New Orleans homeowners lobbied against many rental developments proposed in the post Katrina era. As a consequence considerably less multi family rental housing is available now in eastern New Orleans than existed pre Katrina. Essential neighborhood services became scarcer as well after 2005. Only one grocery store reopened, post Katrina, and the national retailers who had flocked to eastern New Orleans in the 1960s and 1970s, and even into the 1980s and 1990s, were slow to return. Furthermore, neither Methodist nor Lakeland hospitals reopened after Katrina, leaving eastern New Orleans without a general hospital and bereft of ER care for many years. New Orleans East Hospital (NOEH), sited within the rehabilitated former Methodist Hospital, opened in 2014, making it the first hospital to operate in the area since Katrina. In the years following Hurricane Katrina, the pace of recovery in eastern New Orleans has accelerated, though the area still faces challenges. Many retail shops have opened, with a particular concentration emerging at the intersection of I 10 and Bullard Avenue. This commercial node, largely populated by family owned businesses, is now enjoying the long awaited return of national retailers, with Big Lots and Wal Mart leading the way. Consistent with eastern New Orleans' eve of Katrina concentration of African American entrepreneurship, black owned franchises, such as the USA Neighborhood Market, have also appeared. To the west of Bullard, along the Read Boulevard corridor, a new CVS Pharmacy has opened across Lake Forest Boulevard from the recently completed Daughters of Charity Health Center and New Orleans East Hospital. Significant public investment has lately transpired in eastern New Orleans as well, including NOEH, the new regional public library, ongoing improvements to Joe Brown Memorial Park, and the construction of half a dozen new public school buildings. Efforts to secure high quality private investment on the site of the former Plaza regional mall continue, and the city in late 2020 issued a Request For Proposals ("RFP") addressing the shuttered Six Flags/Jazzland amusement park, located prominently at the intersection of I 10 and I 510. The amusement park was closed as a precautionary measure in advance of Hurricane Katrina's landfall, but Six Flags opted not to re open it, post Katrina. On February 7, 2017, an EF3 wedge tornado damaged or destroyed several buildings in eastern New Orleans. There were 33 injuries, six of which were serious.

Eastern New Orleans encompasses an enormous area, though most of this part of town remains undeveloped wetlands. Within the developed portion, numerous distinct neighborhoods may be found, including Pines Village, Plum Orchard, West Lake Forest, Read Boulevard West, Little Woods, Read Boulevard East, Village de L’Est, Lake Catherine and Venetian Isles.

Pines Village, the area closest to Chef Menteur Highway and the Industrial Canal was one of the first neighborhoods to be developed in eastern New Orleans. It closed in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina. In 2010, Sci Academy (New Orleans Charter Science and Math Academy) moved to a group of modular buildings at the Abramson site from another group of modular buildings. As of 2010, most students come from East New Orleans and Gentilly. The Abramson campus property is adjacent to the campus of the Sarah T. Reed Elementary School. Sarah T. Reed High School is in eastern New Orleans. Miller McCoy Academy, an all boys' charter secondary school, was in eastern New Orleans from 2008 to 2015.

St. Mary's Academy, founded by Venerable Mother Henriette DeLille and the Sisters of the Holy Family in 1867.