Magazine Street is a major thoroughfare in New Orleans, Louisiana. Like Tchoupitoulas Street, St. Charles Avenue, and Claiborne Avenue, it follows the curving course of the Mississippi River. The street took its name from an ammunition magazine located in this vicinity during the 18th-century colonial period.
Alternatively, the street may have been named after the Spanish word magazin or almazon which means warehouse. The story goes that General James Wilkinson from Kentucky made a controversial trip to New Orleans to trade American products with the Spanish. He persuaded Governor Esteban Rodríguez Miró to give Kentucky a monopoly on the Mississippi River trade. Wilkinson became an official agent, and a warehouse or magazin was built for him.
The downriver end of Magazine Street is at Canal Street; on the other side of Canal Street in the French Quarter the street becomes Decatur Street. From Canal through the Central Business District and Lower Garden District, Magazine Street is one-way in the upriver direction; downriver traffic forks to join Camp Street, the next street away from the river. Above Felicity Street to the far Uptown end it has a lane of traffic going in both directions with parking on both sides. It is an RTA bus route.
The street follows the length of the crescent through Uptown. After several miles of residential and commercial neighborhoods, it cuts through Audubon Park, with Audubon Zoo on the river side of the street. The far upper end of the street is at Leake Avenue, a part of the Great River Road, where it turns away from the river in the Carrollton riverbend.