The Third Ursuline Convent was in the Ninth Ward.
Third Ursuline Convent
When you read/hear about the “Ursuline Convent,” most folks think about the old convent at Chartres Street and Ursulines Avenue in Da Quarters. The complex opened in 1753. It survived the massive fires of 1788 and 1794.
The nuns moved out of the Quarter in 1824, down to what is now the Ninth Ward. They built a new convent, still on Chartres Street, at Sister Street (get it?). That building is long gone, demolished to make way for the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal.
The 1824 Convent
I’m pretty far down a rabbit hole about the “second” St. Aloysius High School building. The Brothers of the Sacred Heart left their school on Barracks and Chartres Streets in 1892. They acquired an old Ursuline school building at the corner of Esplanade and N. Rampart Streets. In the process of tracing this location’s history, I came across this painting of the Mississippi River from the rooftop of the 1824 Ursuline Convent. The artist is identified only by the initials, “E. R.” in the THNOC record entry. The artist created this image in 1895.
When the nuns moved, they turned the “old” convent over to the Archdiocese of New Orleans. The archdiocese moved to this location. Archbishops resided here until 1899. The site continued as office space into the 20th century. The convent complex became a National Historic Landmark in 1960 and is now a museum.
After the demolition of the Ursuline convent in the Ninth Ward, the Ursulines moved Uptown, to State Street. They relocated both the convent and the school there.
BOSH Connection
So, the rabbit hole. The general assumption about the first St. Aloysius High building at Esplanade and N. Rampart was that the Brothers took over the facility directly from the nuns. Research indicates that the BOSH acquired the school from intermediaries. Additionally, insurance maps from the 1880s indicate significant differences between the facility in 1883 and 1892. Still digging!
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