Under the covered sheds along the riverfront, you have reached one of the oldest public markets in the United States, the trading heart of New Orleans since the city's earliest decades. Native Americans traded on this site long before French colonists arrived in 1718; the first formal market structure was built here in 1791 under Spanish rule. The current covered sheds date largely from the early twentieth century, their cast-iron columns and open sides designed for the subtropical climate, allowing air to move through while keeping the worst of the sun and rain off vendors and shoppers.
Through the nineteenth century the French Market was the commercial center of the Gulf South: every morning the stalls filled with produce from Louisiana plantations, fresh-caught fish and shellfish, wild game, spices, and goods from across the Caribbean. Vendors called out in French, Spanish, English, and a dozen creolized languages. The market today is a mix of produce stalls, crafts vendors, and the famous flea market section at the far end, but the essential function has not changed in two centuries.
Walk the length of it slowly. The architecture, the river light, and the particular density of commerce and conversation under these iron sheds carry a quality that cannot be replicated anywhere else.