I had a name change. Well, I didn’t have one, but this blog did. I felt as this was evolving, as I wrote more and more, I think this is more focused on New Orleans and it’s history of it’s architectural styles and the styles brought with time and not necessarily about particular houses. Though, my curiosity on some houses is where my interest probably starts.
I was rolling around in bed last night at an ungodly hour and “Tchoupitoulas Coast” just hit me. I’d been thinking I needed a change at some point, but hadn’t really thought about it that hard yet. Since I like to base decisions I make off of silly things like this (or deciding to move to New Orleans after hearing House of the Rising Sun on the way down to visit one time because I thought it was probably “a sign”), I went for it.
I love the history of the name of the word- there are a few different explanations of the word, but no one really knows how it got it’s name. Best I can tell, it was named almost as an accident, as individuals who spoke different languages tried to communicate about the area and it’s waterways (and fish!?- choupiques, a Choctaw-French word for present day grindle- as they’re called in North LA- or bowfin). It is probably a type of Indian word, but no one knows to which tribe.
There are many different instances throughout time of all of the different ways to spell it- once, it was spelled two different ways in one day by the same person-though, we can’t fault him for that, it’s a tough one. and it went through periods of different spellings. I think the second most popular spelling is “Chapitoulas”. It’s always been that road that follows along the river though, one of the longest roads in the city. I always felt it was important because the river sort of hugs around us and was the entire reason we ever existed and Tchoup is right there to welcome it for most of the span.
I also maybe am a bit partial since it’s been my home for the last few years. If anyone who doesn’t know how in the heck to say it, it’s CHOP-A-TOO-LUS, Tchoup (chop) for short.
You can see the dome from here
The Mississippi- doing what he does best.
Tchoupitoulas Coast 