TulaneLSU's Top 10 skyscrapers of Jefferson Parish

Dear Friends,

Jefferson Parish is to New Orleans as New Jersey is to New York. It has always played second fiddle to the bigger city, on which its commercial prosperity depends. Much of the authentic culture of 19th and early 20th century New Orleans resides in Jefferson Parish to a greater extent than in New Orleans. While the architecture of certain neighborhoods of New Orleans, particularly along the River from Marigny uptown to Audubon Park is more quintessentially New Orleans than that in Jefferson Parish, the actual lived-in stuff of New Orleans culture is missing in those neighborhoods. They are shells of New Orleans filled with stuffing from all over the world.

This strange phenomenon is due to the movement of native sons and daughters of the last generation from city to the bucolic parish, while the bigger city attracted well heeled out-of-towners who sought to preserve their notions of New Orleans culture, even though it is just that -- a notion and idea of culture. Mother has always been suspicious of these people, and has passed along that distrust to me. When we were forced to sell our Prytania home, it was a New Yorker who bought it.

Jefferson Parish has multiple centers of commerce and culture, each unique and interesting in their own rights. The Jefferson Highway corridor, although rapidly evolving and losing its past, still carries with it vestiges of the lawless illegal gambling den culture in the few remaining video poker infested bars. Williams Blvd. showcases the diversity of the world. Gretna’s Huey P Long Avenue, Grandfather said, is the most authentic Uptown neighborhood in the Metro.

The commercial hub of Jefferson is undoubtedly Causeway Blvd. It has the parish’s largest and most dense skyscrapers. As the city of New Orleans grew with the oil boom in the 1970s and early 80s, a massive undertaking to build highrises from the Causeway southward ensued. The vision was a canyon of skyscrapers bordering both sides of the main thoroughfare, in much the same way as the Magnificent Mile in Chicago. A more reasonable comparison for what it became is Houston’s Westheimer Road.

It should be no surprise, then, that many of TulaneLSU’s Top 10 skyscrapers of Jefferson Parish come from this corridor.

10. 3525 Causeway Blvd.



This 1970 building, the first of the Causeway Five, at the corner of West Esplanade reminds me of two cardboard boxes glued together. Like the rest of the Causeway Five, it is ten stories and it rises to 126 feet.

9. 2261 Causeway Blvd.





Completed in 1972, its first five years this angry structure was a Ramada. In 1977 it became The Gateway Hotel. The late 70s and 80s were the heyday for this building, as the Saints Booster Club met here. A short five minutes to The Superdome, the Oakland Raiders stayed in this palace for the 1981 Superbowl. Impastato's, just over a year old and up the road a half mile, hosted the team as well. Augie’s Glass Garden opened across Causeway, buoyed by The Gateway’s draw of local celebrity and tourist alike.

From 1988 to 1994, it was a Howard Johnson. Quality Inn, sometimes referred to as Quality Hotel, puts its name on the building for the next 16 years. In 2010, Holiday Inn took ownership and officially goes by the name Holiday Inn Metairie New Orleans Airport.

Another ten story edifice, it rises to 126 feet. I’ve never been in this building, but I have eaten the pancakes at nearby City Diner.

8. 3501 Causeway Blvd



Between 1970 and 1974, five sister buildings, each measuring 126 feet and consisting of ten stories, were built on the Causeway corridor. Two of those, the Holiday Inn and 3525 Causeway, have already been discussed. The other three were 3445 and 3421 Causeway, and this entry, 3501 Causeway. To me, this is the most attractive of the dizygotic quintuplets. However, this is also the only of the five that is not an H-shape.

This building was the last of the five and its windows are the most modern and approachable. Gazing at it for a few minutes the facade reminds me of a geometric circuit board. Its ground floor arches are modernist cloisters. Its dimensions give the impression of a perfect cube.

7. 2601 Severn, a.k.a., Copeland Tower, a.k.a., The Landmark





This landmark Metairie building opened as the International American Motor Inn in 1973. 1979 changed names to the Landmark Motor Inn, before exchanging the Inn for Hotel in 1982. During this period, the nearby Fat City was replacing the French Quarter as the dancing and bar center of the Metro. The Landmark’s Top of the Wheel Lounge nightly attracted some of the best comedians in the South. Although the Motor remained officially in the hotel’s name, by the mid-1980s everyone simply called it The Landmark. Its crowning lounge, with magnificent views of Lake Pontchartrain, Causeway Blvd, and downtown New Orleans became the Top of the Landmark.

Its 17 stories, its top two on the disc above the tower, climb to 214 feet. For a few years, Spinagain’s Night Club hosted many parties on the top floor. It was later named The Pinnacle. I’ve been to several wedding receptions and Mardi Gras balls in the Grand Ball Room, which is surprisingly luxurious and plenty spacious.

In 1997, Best Western bought the hotel. It was so ubiquitously known as The Landmark, the new owner added the company’s name to the local landmark. Katrina caused some damage to the building, but more than anything, the building’s age was showing.

Al Copeland Jr. stepped in and invested $17 million in the early 2010s. By 2015, the building reopened as Copeland Tower. Best Western still ran the hotel. However in the last two years it has become part of the Ascend Hotel Collection.

6. Holiday Inn West Bank Tower





I’ve seen many artists’ impressions of the Tower of Babel, but no painting or building approximates the pride of man more than Gretna’s tallest building. At 164 feet and 13 stories, this rocketship is a favorite of the OT and the pride and joy of nearly every Westbanker I’ve ever met. If Jesse Ventura were to stay in town he would choose this 16 barreled Gatling gun of a building.

On September 11, 2001, one of my classmates from Algiers was convinced that this building was one of the terrorists' targets. He interrupted class several times, saying, "We have to warn the people in the West Bank Tower!" I tried with no success to convince him that being on the West Bank assured the building and its occupants of safety.

It opened in 1973, I believe as a Howard Johnson. By the mid 1990s, project housing in Algiers caused a crimewave to the area, and the hotel suffered. It lost its national chain ownership and simply became The Tower, as it is known by locals even today. It then became a Quality Inn. After Katrina, Holiday Inn took ownership and undertook major renovations, most important of which was painting bright white over the former unsightly peach-brown.

I took the Algiers Ferry and walked six miles round trip through some seedy areas so that you might have these pictures. It is the only West Bank building to make the list. West Jefferson Hospital was considered, but my feet tired before I could get a picture of it.