Though Royal Streets boasts the greatest concentration of antique stores in the French Quarter, many fine sources exist elsewhere in the neighborhood. It's great when they buy something - but I also love just getting to talk to them. It's a wonderful life. It really is different and we still get funny reactions but the eccentricities of the New Orleans shopper have made the store a wonderful success. Fowler has observed that New Orleans locals tend to gravitate toward French and English antiques, while visitors from the rest of the country are more interested in pieces of American origin.
International visitors are unpredictable.
All of them were outrageous - and all of them were American. While the highly specific nature of the Fowlers' product made the French Quarter an attractive location for her business, she is quick to espouse the charms of Magazine Street, where she and her partner operated a store for over 20 years. You just never know who's going to walk through the door. Magazine Street, allegedly named for the gunpowder magazine once located at its river end, stretches six miles from the outskirts of the French Quarter to the Mississippi River levee just past Audubon Park. An area that offered mere pockets of interest 20 years ago has seen its pockets grow and merge into the complete tapestry it is today.