New Basin Canal

We have a plantation economy, and a lot of people need canals being built.

So locally, the most famous canal being built is the New Basin Canal, um, which starts in 1832, but it's not the only one.

The Irish are in fact digging canals throughout this whole area.

And the story of the New Basin Canal also kind of speaks to local politics in a way that is unique to New Orleans.

After the Battle of New Orleans, we get this large influx of Americans who are coming in, and there's a real conflict between the Americans and the Creole population.

And it's interesting to see where the Irish place themselves.

And so they decide they're gonna build another canal, and that canal is going to pretty much mimic the same thing but go into the area that we call today the CBD, the Central Business District, but at the time was called the American Sector, right next to the French Quarter.

And they were gonna do that, so they're gonna have a new canal that they controlled and that would be bigger and better and everything else, and it was.