[Blue. Maison Blanche building. 6-bay, 12-story department store/office complex, 1906-1909. Stone Brothers, architects. The Second Christ Church originally sat on this lot, as shown in a c. 1872 drawing by Marie-Adrien Persac. In 1884, the property was sold to D. Mercier and Sons, who then demolished the existing structure and erected the Mercier building in 1887. An 1892 photograph by James P. Craig shows that this 5-story brick commercial structure had projecting cornices above its third and fourth levels, decorative pediments and scrolls, and a first-floor balcony supported by poles. The extant structure was built for the Maison Blanche department store in 1906-1909. Its façade is ornamented with scored and glazed terra cotta tiling, joint ionic columns at the second and third levels, and a projecting, dentilated cornice along the roofline. The building currently houses The Ritz-Carlton hotel.] [N.B: Squares in the 100 block of the French Quarter (those that front Canal Street and back on Iberville Street) are not part of the original Vieux Carré and have never been evaluated by the Vieux Carré Commission. Rather, their historical status is the domain of another city agency, the Historic District Landmarks Commission (HDLC). The c. 1965, color-coded architectural evaluation square maps for these squares found in the VCS binders were most likely executed by architect Sam Wilson, but they are obviously not official, as the HDLC was not even in existence then. The official color ratings given here have been taken from the HDLC's current maps.]