Because of the Fourth of July holiday, the NOPD Sixth District has moved its weekly meeting of ranking officers to 3:30 p.m. Thursday, and the NOPD Second District has canceled its meeting. Continue reading »
Jul 042012
Jul 042012
Diana Bajoie
Jun 282012
The New Orleans Police Department will ask the city to fund 50 crime cameras at hotspots around the city, reviving a program abandoned nearly two years ago. Continue reading »
Jun 282012
Allan Katz and Danae Columbus
Today’s announcement that young people are moving to New Orleans in greater numbers than other Southern cities is just another notch in our city’s new success story. While there is an overall trend toward Southern migration, we are the most desirable city on the nation’s must-move-to list. Where else can you dine at a different fabulous restaurant or food truck every night and hear a wide range of live music in dozens of clubs? Or spend hours taking in the sights from a streetcar, pedicab or paddlewheeler? Continue reading »
Jun 282012
After a presentation by Costco officials on Thursday morning, the New Orleans City Council enthusiastically and unexpectedly took a vote to approve the Carrollton Avenue project and grant the wholesale retailer’s design requests.
“I knew we were doing OK when at one of the neighborhood meetings somebody stood up and said, ‘Enough outreach already. Let’s build it,’” Costco vice president Jackie Frank said during his presentation to the city council. Continue reading »
Jun 272012
The New Orleans City Council will hear a presentation from Costco officials on Thursday morning about the development planned for South Carrollton Avenue. Continue reading »
Jun 272012
The weekly internal meeting of the NOPD Sixth District ranking officers (known as Comstat) has been canceled this week, officials said in an email. Continue reading »
Jun 262012
A sketch of the Reginelli’s renovation of the former WOW Wingery, which will remain the same size in the same footprint, but restore the exterior windows, awning and doors of a traditional New Orleans corner grocery.
Reginelli’s proposed move across Magazine Street breezed through its hearing before the City Planning Commission on Tuesday, drawing no opposition and winning unanimous approval from the commissioners. Continue reading »
Jun 242012
A Broadmoor resident’s video of a trash crew running through yards, throwing water and placing an entire garbage can into the back of their truck has some neighbors asking for a city examination of what the contractor admits is “unacceptable behavior,” according to reporting developed in partnership with WWL-TV. Officials with Richard’s Disposal wold WWL that the workers were independent laborers, not company employees, that they were disciplined and that the matter was resolved to the homeowner’s satisfaction.
Jun 222012
The Show nightclub on Tchoupitoulas. (Robert Morris, UptownMessenger.com)
A 22-year-old man was shot several times as he left a club in the Lower Garden District that is drawing increasing scrutiny from police, city and state officials, authorities said. Continue reading »
Jun 212012
Diana Bajoie, appointed earlier this month by Mayor Mitch Landrieu to represent Uptown-based District B on the City Council until a replacement can be elected in the fall, may have been one of the local politicians who “steered public money to sham charities run by members of then-U.S. Rep. William Jefferson’s family,” based on testimony by a government witness in last year’s trial of Renee Gill Pratt, reports Michelle Krupa of The Times Picayune. Bajoie has never been charged with any crime and denied “any wrongdoing,” but declined to answer specific questions about the case, Krupa reports, and a spokesman for Landrieu said Bajoie was chosen based on her record and instead questioned her service on a charity run by the Times-Picayune.
Jun 192012
T.J Quills
Jun 192012
The former yoga studio now slated to become a Mellow Mushroom pizza restaurant on Oak Street. (Robert Morris, UptownMessenger.com)
As Oak Street’s status among New Orleans “going out” destinations continues to rise, a number of residents’ groups have engaged a planning firm to help them ensure that the “mixed use” commercial corridor evolves into something more diverse than a strip of bars and restaurants. Continue reading »
Jun 182012
A map of game-day restricted access zones (via tulanestadium.com)
Tulane University described its plans Monday night to shuttle football fans to its proposed Uptown stadium from parking lots around the city, but nearby residents continue to question how they will access their own homes on game days. Continue reading »
Jun 182012
Owen Courreges
New Orleans has certainly received some good press in recent months regarding our business climate. A recent survey by Thumbtacks and the Kauffman Foundation ranked Louisiana one of the top five friendliest states for small business. The Wall Street Journal’s Marketwatch named Greater New Orleans the “most improved” in its 2011 “Best Cities for Business” list. Forbes Magazine named Greater New Orleans “America’s Biggest Brain Magnet.”
In a nutshell, New Orleans is riding high in the saddle when it comes to economic PR. We’re gradually escaping the popular perception of New Orleans as insular, bureaucratic and corrupt. Continue reading »
Jun 172012
A rendering of the proposed football stadium on Tulane's Uptown campus. (via TulaneStadium.com)
Over the past week or so, the prospects for Tulane’s proposed Uptown stadium appear to have improved considerably.
A measure that would have required the university to receive the city’s approval for the project (known as an interim zoning district, or IZD) received a negative recommendation from the City Planning Commission, whose members said Tulane should only be held to current law, which allows construction of the stadium by right. Even if the City Council passes the IZD anyway, it is unclear whether its proponents could then muster five votes to overrule a veto by Mayor Mitch Landrieu.
(Tulane will hold its second community forum on the stadium, concerning traffic and parking issues, at 6 p.m. Monday at the Audubon Tea Room, 6500 Magazine Street.)
What do you think? Is Tulane within its rights to build a football stadium on campus? Or is the stadium too big for the residential Uptown neighborhoods altogether?
Jun 152012
T.J Quills
Jun 152012
An overnight film shoot at 925 Jackson Avenue on Saturday evening and early Sunday morning will restrict parking in the surrounding blocks and include simulated gunfire, city officials announced. Continue reading »
Jun 142012
Red arrows mark the block of Joseph Street that will become one-way for a six-month trial starting Friday morning. (map by City of New Orleans)
Jun 142012
A rendering of the proposed Tulane stadium. (via TulaneStadium.com)