In 1951 the famous play was made into a movie starring:

• Vivien Leigh as Blanche DuBois
• Kim Hunter as Stella
• Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski
• Karl Malden as Mitch

The story opens with Blanche DuBois coming to New Orleans to visit her sister, the pregnant Stella, and the sister's husband Stanley Kowalski. To get to their seedy apartment, she has to take a streetcar named Desire.

Thus the Desire streetcar became the most famous street railway in the world.

The Desire Line was originated by the New Orleans Railway and Light Co. in 1920. The original route was from Canal and Bourbon, down Bourbon, Esplanade, Decatur, Elysian Fields, Chartres, Desire, Tonti, France, and Royal to Canal.

In 1923 the Desire Line was re-routed from Canal and Bourbon, down Bourbon, Pauger, Dauphine, Desire, Tonti, France, and Royal to Canal.

Desire served the bar and nightclub section of the French Quarter along Bourbon Street, the shopping district along Royal Street and the residential districts today known as Bywater and Faubourg Marigny.

The last Desire streetcar ran the line on May 30, 1948, to be replaced by a Bus Line also named Desire. Plans have been drafted by the Regional Transit Authority to replace the large buses running the line today with a mini bus and later by a streetcar in a comprehensive transit improvement plan. Funding to begin this project was included in the U. S. Transportation Department's FY97 budget, and the preliminary study is underway.