My wife and I were at the Absinthe House several times over the years. Never as far back as 1903. Actually the last time was a few weeks before Katrina visited.
I may be wrong but we remember it as a gay bar. But then again we had been drinking too much soda pop and did always have fun.
I'd swear that hot dog vendor was there or very close even then.

Below is the same view from September of 2008. Interestingly, it appears that the same hot dog vendor from the Google Streetview provided by bluegrassboy hasn't moved from the corner. Maybe hot dogs go with absinthe.

I was there in 1981, had a few shots and listened to the trumpet player. He said: "I'm 92, if I had known that I would live this long I would have taken better care of myself."

A peek inside at Absinthe Room: 1906.

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Motor Age, November 9, 1916.

New Orleans — America's Paris

The Old Absinthe House is one of the very few places where absinthe is obtainable in the United States at present, since the importation of it is now prohibited. No one seems to think a visit to New Orleans is complete unless one sees this old building and helps decrease the 17,000 cases of absinthe which were brought over between the time congress passed the law prohibiting the importation and the time the law became effective.

I don't know if this is done anymore, but back in the previous century on one visit to the Absinthe House I added my business card, along with that of my imbibing companion, a certain Barbara who was on Playboy's corporate staff in Los Angeles, to the thousands of cards pinned on just about every vertical surface in that pub. Maybe they're still up, along with that of one notable visitor, Mark Twain. Well, two notable visitors if you count Barbara.

At the time I was with a company that made chocolate in a town where the main street was Chocolate Avenue, so any place with a Bourbon Street address got my attention.
The souvenir cups had this on them:
Jean Lafitte's
Old Absinthe House
Since 1807
240 Bourbon Street
New Orleans

Those cobblestones look a bit too bumpy for my comfort, especially in a carriage with steel wheels.

Arc lights, streetcar tracks, and steel gutter covers. Sadly, no people. Looks like a clear winter morning with minimal street offal. A-house still a decent bar, favorite of oil industry landmen. Overpriced drinks, but a must-visit during Xmas holidays when tourists are few and there's a blazing fire in the back fireplace. And btw, absinthe is legal again in LA.

couldn't come up with a better set than this.

Google street view.