Poydras Street

820 Poydras St - Now the Drury Inn

The building was constructed in 1916 by Southern Bell which had taken over the Cumberland Tel & Tel company in 1913; consolidation completed in 1926. Photo Source: http://www.druryhotels.com/properties/neworleans.cfm

833 Poydras Street - Now Le Pavillion Hotel

Originally the site of one of the area's first great plantation homes. Source: http://www.nationaltrust.org/historic_hotels/hotel.asp?hID=69

820 Poydras St - The the Cumberland/Southern Bell Building

1916 telephone ad. Source: http://myinsulators.com/commokid/telephones/1910s_telephone_ads_cont.htm

833 Poydras Street - Then the New Denechaud Hotel

Built in 1907 as the New Denechaud Hotel by architects Toledano and Woggan assisted Rathbone E. DeBuys (constructed by the New York firm of Milliken Brothers) the building included the first hydraulic elevators ever to be installed in New Orleans and the first basement ever built in the city. Electric lighting was also among the array of then-modern features. In later years it became the Hotel Desoto. In 1970, after a major restoration, the hotel was renamed Le Pavillon. On June 24, 1991 Le Pavillon was placed on the National Register of Historic Place by the U.S. Department of the Interior. According to "All About Ghosts" at http://www.allaboutghosts.com/stays2.html "A paranormal research team has identified four ghosts at LePavillon... One, a frightened and confused teen-age girl named Eva , Ava or Ada, is believed to have lived during the 1840s and was preparing to embark on a ship when she was struck and killed by a carriage. There is also a report of a young aristocratic couple from the 1920s and a dark-suited man from the same era who is known to play pranks on the hotel cleaning staff. The "Ghosts and Other Sightings" website at http://www.darksites.com/souls/vampires/angelxxuan/sightings.html tells us that the hotel is said to be home to five entities (ghosts)...who reside in various parts of the hotel-- Room 930, in particular, is said to have paranormal activity. Morgan Murphy, in the October 2002 issue of Southern Living magazine reports "...I spent the night at Le Pavillon Hotel...my night was fitful...The following morning, however, the front desk revealed a copy of a paranormal investigative report conducted at the hotel in 1996 by five ghostbusters. Scanning the document, my gaze fell upon a notation of an apparition in the vicinity of room 301--my room. Sources: http://www.lepavillon.com/about.html & http://www.hotelview.com/default.asp?_pi=p&pid=1045