Antiques
Today, Royal Street is a destination for antiques shopping. Many of the stores on the street were established by Jewish immigrants from Alsace-Lorraine and Austria-Hungary at the turn of the twentieth century. These stores got their start as pawnshops or secondhand furniture stores, but their proprietors gained an eye for fine antiques, eventually traveling back to Europe to import fashionable eighteenth-century pieces for their twentieth- and twenty-first-century customers. Generations of families have carried on the legacy of retail and shopping in New Orleans.
Waldhorn’s Antiques (1881–2013)
Moise Waldhorn, an immigrant from Alsace, France, established a pawnshop, the People’s Loan Office, on the corner of Royal and Conti Streets in 1881. Waldhorn began to take in furniture and jewelry from families that were still suffering in the wake of the Civil War, and eventually his pawnshop became one of the earliest antiques stores in the city. Waldhorn’s Antiques operated in the same spot for over 130 years.
Feldman’s Antique Emporium; James H. Cohen & Sons (1898–)
Hungarian immigrant William Feldman got his start selling feathers for mattresses from a horse-drawn wagon in the late 1890s. His feather-mattress business quickly evolved into a secondhand furniture store with a special emphasis on antique beds. In the early twentieth century, Feldman had his own furniture workshop for manufacturing reproduction antiques to sell with the genuine artifacts in his store. Feldman’s Antique Emporium is still in operation, now in the fourth generation under the name James H. Cohen & Sons.
Keil’s Antiques (1899– )
Hermina Keil emigrated from Alsace-Lorraine to Louisiana as a child. She got her start as a peddler in St. Francisville, gathering enough household goods in trade to open her own secondhand shop in New Orleans in 1899, which was known as the Royal Company in the early twentieth century. Keil became an expert in American silver and furniture, and her clientele included such notables as presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. Hermina Keil’s descendants now operate three antiques stores on Royal Street: Keil’s, Moss, and Royal Antiques.
Manheim’s Antiques (1919– )
Bernard Manheim emigrated from Austria at the turn of the twentieth century to work in the cabinetmaking shop at Feldman’s Antique Emporium. He married William Feldman’s sister Ida and opened his own antiques store just down the block from Feldman’s in 1919. Like other antiques dealers, Manheim made several trips to Europe to select stock for his store, which is now operated by his granddaughter Ida Manheim.
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