Our favorite hotel was previously named The Inn On Bourbon at 541 Bourbon and was the site of the famous multi-storied French Opera House, established in 1859 and destroyed by fire in 1919. The current hotel was featured in the TV series Treme. It is now a Sheraton Four Points but has the same staff and the local ambience of the smaller hotels. I have always had a connection to this 500 block of Bourbon and can “hear” the music pouring out of the store fronts that are now T-shirt shops, beer bars, and less savory establishments.
Until the 1920s, Bourbon Street was the most fashionable residential street in the French Quarter. With the closure of the red-light Storyville district to the North, some cabarets and nightclubs moved a few blocks further South to the very respectable Bourbon Street and thus began the transformation of the residences to nightclubs and restaurants.
In the mid- twentieth century, a stroll down Bourbon would have a patron crossing back and forth on both sides of the street to enjoy the following nightclubs that featured traditional New Orleans Jazz, Swing, and Hot Jazz:
200 Bourbon – El Morocco -- Phil Zito’s band and George Lewis (cl) regularly played here.
227-229 Bourbon – Prima’s Shim Sham Club – was originally a Piano Company then the Swing Club.
228 Bourbon – Ferrera’s Sho-Bar – Sharkey Bonano’s band took over when th
