Nicolas Girod (1747-1840) was a commission merchant and property owner in New Orleans. He served as the city's mayor from 1812 until his resignation in 1815. His home at the corner of Chartres and St. Louis Streets in the Vieux Carre is said to have been selected as the refuge for the Emperor Napoleon had he been successfully removed from his island exile.

By the terms of his will, Girod left $100,000 to the city of New Orleans for the construction and operation of an asylum for orphans of French ancestry. The will was challenged by his heirs, however, and after lengthy litigation the city received only $28,000. That sum formed the basis of the Girod Fund which, through investments, grew to over $70,000 by the late 1860s when the city commenced the erection of the asylum buildings.

Designed by J. N. P. DePouilly, architect of the St. Louis Hotel and for the 1850s renovation of the St. Louis Cathedral, the buildings were sited behind St. Patrick's Cemetery, near the present-day intersection of City Park Avenue and Canal Boulevard. They never did house the French orphanage envisioned by Girod, but were used instead as the Boys' House of Refuge and later as the "Colored Waifs' Home," where Louis Armstrong learned to play the trumpet.

Some of the original asylum buildings were condemned by the Board of Health and subsequently were demolished and replaced by new structures (DePouilly's chapel and part of the main building were retained). All of the Asylum buildings were demolished sometime in the 1930s and the site is now occupied by the Third District station of the New Orleans Police Department.