The tower at the foot of Canal Street went up in 1968 to mark the city’s 250th anniversary, and it spent most of its life as the World Trade Center before anyone slept in it.
Edward Durell Stone, the modernist architect behind Radio City Music Hall’s interiors and the Kennedy Center, designed the 34-story building as the International Trade Mart. It sat largely empty for years after the trade organizations moved out. The tower now carries a listing on the National Register of Historic Places, and Four Seasons opened a hotel inside it in August 2021 after a full restoration. Private residences occupy part of the building and sell separately.
The riverfront position does most of the work. Rooms face either the Mississippi or the city, and the river-view categories put floor-to-ceiling glass on the water. Deluxe and Premier river-view rooms include chaises by the window, and the Premier adds an oval tub open to the bedroom. Two one-bedroom Presidential Suites sit on the 17th and 18th floors with private offices and dedicated exercise rooms.
The rooftop pool stretches 75 feet with panoramic views up and down the river. Poolside service runs through the day, and the deck works as well at sunrise as it does in the afternoon.
The dining lineup just changed. Miss River, Alon Shaya’s lobby-level restaurant that opened with the hotel, closed at the end of August 2026 after five years. Donald Link’s Chemin à la Mer left its fifth-floor perch and relaunched in that lobby space on September 23 as a Louisiana brasserie, serving lunch and dinner with a weekend jazz brunch in the works. The kitchen sears its steaks on traditional French cast iron rather than high-heat broilers, pulling beef from A5 Kuroge Wagyu, Châtel Farms in Georgia, and Australian Phoenix Wagyu. London firm Alexander Waterworth Interiors designed the room.
Chandelier Bar handles cocktails and has collected awards for the program. It also hosts the hotel’s cocktail class, an hour with the beverage team building a French 75 and a Sazerac while learning the history behind each, with a recipe book to take home. The class runs daily.
Other bookable experiences lean on the city and the river. A 90-minute haunted walking tour covers the LaLaurie Mansion and Jackson Square. A two-and-a-half-hour paddlewheel riverboat cruise serves a Southern lunch with narration on the river’s history. The spa and fitness facilities round out the property, and the 34th floor is available for private events with the best elevated views in the city.
The location suits both halves of a trip. The French Quarter starts across Canal Street, and the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center is five minutes away, which makes the hotel a common base for conference travelers who want to walk to dinner.
A building designed to move cargo manifests now moves room service carts, and the river it was pointed at has not changed at all.
