Warehouse District is New Orleans' New Claim to Fame.(Brief Article)

Just beyond Lee Circle--where a statue of the fabled Civil War General Robert E. Lee stands on a six-story column--a once forgotten New Orleans neighborhood is slowly reemerging as one of the city's most artistic hot spots.

Situated along the banks of the Mississippi River, between the French Quarter and the Garden District, the Warehouse Arts District is an urban center for the creative talents New Orleans continues to inspire. Aside from dozens of contemporary galleries and some of the city's finest restaurants--including the world-famous Emeril's--the neighborhood also boasts upscale lofts and apartments, the newly opened National D-Day Museum, the Contemporary Arts Center, the Louisiana Children's Museum and the soon-to-be-opened Ogden Museum of Southern Art.

According to Jim Blanchard, a local artist who lives and works in the Arts District, the neighborhood was …