2324 Toledano (photo via Preservation Resource Center)
The Neighborhood Conservation District Committee will meet today to consider a number of demolition requests through Central City, Carrollton and Hollygrove neighborhoods. Continue reading »
5428 St. Charles Avenue (photo by Preservation Resource Center)
This past Thursday, the New Orleans City Council did a curious and terrible thing. It voted to overrule the National Conservation District Committee and allow the demolition of a historic St. Charles Avenue mansion designed by a prominent architect. Continue reading »
A new restaurant on Magazine Street, a new nightclub on Freret Street and a new home in place of a historic one were all given approval by the City Council on Thursday, though each project has drawn its share of objections.
Johnny V’s restaurant next to Monkey Hill bar and the proposed Publiq House in the first floor of the Neighborhood Housing Services building on Freret were given tentative approval to step forward, receiving an affirmative vote that will not go into effect until good-neighbor agreements are signed. Meanwhile, a historic home on St. Charles Avenue can be demolished, after the council decided that the home that will replace it represents an improvement to the showcase street. Continue reading »
Allan Katz and Danae Columbus
Every resident of Uptown New Orleans has reason to be afraid today. On Halloween night, shootings in the Vieux Carre, on Canal Street and in two neighborhoods left two dead and 16 wounded. While the violence didn’t occur Uptown, it was surely close enough to send a ripple of fear through the community. Continue reading »
Three Uptown land-use projects that have each generated a fair amount of controversy — the proposed demolition of a historic home on St. Charles Avenue, permission for a restaurant to open in spite of unpermitted additions and a new nightclub on Freret Street — are all slated for New Orleans City Council hearing on Thursday, according to the agenda. Continue reading »
Audubon Charter School's Broadway campus.
Where they disagree is whether the traffic plan must be finalized before the renovations can proceed, as the school seeks neighborhood support for some setback changes before the city’s Board of Zoning Adjustments this month. Continue reading »
The Second District’s weekly leadership meetings will be held at Children’s Hospital, 200 Henry Clay Avenue, at 10:30 a.m. on Thursdays for the foreseeable future. This week’s meeting will be in the second-floor meeting room.
The meetings are open to the public.
Owen Courrèges
Here in New Orleans, we’re no strangers to the idea of police officers breaking the law. This city has seen members of its constabulary sent to death row at Angola Penitentiary for the most reprehensible crimes.
Given this background, it is hardly surprising that New Orleanians are un-phased, if not downright blasè, about minor acts of police misconduct. Alas, being the Big Easy’s resident Grumpy Gus, I’m definitely the exception to this rule. This past Saturday evening, I noticed an NOPD cruiser parked in front of the fire hydrant across from my house. I believe the officer lives somewhere nearby, as this is hardly the first time I’ve seen that cruiser blocking the hydrant. Continue reading »
The Lorraine Apartments (Sabree Hill, UptownMessenger.com)
The 91-year-old Lorraine Apartments on St. Charles Avenue have a new lease on life and can move forward with renovations after the city council corrected a zoning problem last week that could have kept the historic building shuttered indefinitely. Continue reading »
The developers of a proposed reception hall in the 2000 block of Felicity Street will seek commercial zoning for the property at Tuesday’s meeting of the City Planning Commission. Continue reading »
The street in the 2300 block of Calhoun seems to be cracking more and more, and calls to the Sewerage and Water Board since August have not yet shown results, neighbors tell Bill Capo of WWL-TV.
Freret Neighbors United president Andrew Amacker, left, and Freret Garden Center owner Byron Adams examine plans for cosmetic repairs along Freret Street after a Monday night meeting. (Robert Morris, UptownMessenger.com)
The final plans for upgrades to Freret Street’s curbs and sidewalks were met Monday night with disenchantment and deep-seated frustration that merchants and residents did not have more of a say in the planning of a project that will disrupt traffic for months on a street struggling to come back to life.
No one spoke in opposition to the $500,000 project itself, but a number of people in the audience who have been seeking a meeting with city officials for months were dismayed that the message of the meeting was that the time for discussion is over.
“There’s a lot of valuable information that would have come from the neighborhood if you had been in communication with us,” said neighborhood resident Jane Dimitry. Continue reading »
Owen Courrèges
It’s downright un-American. When it comes to being unpatriotic, it’s on par with burning the American flag, kicking the President’s dog and muttering disparaging remarks about Abraham Lincoln’s mother.
I’m speaking, of course, of eating chicken wings without a brewski. Drinkin’ and eatin’ wings is a quintessential part of the American experience. Continue reading »
The details of an upcoming project to upgrade signage, sidewalks, curbs, streetlights and trees along Freret Street will be described by city officials Monday during a 6 p.m. meeting at the Neighborhood Housing Services building at 4528 Freret St. Continue reading »
After nearly a year of discussions and negotiations with neighbors and the city, Whole Foods Arabella Station will now be able to stay open an hour later on Sundays and display plants for sale on its front patio, with the official approval Thursday of only the least controversial of its requested changes to its operating agreement with the city. Continue reading »
A rendering of Costco Wholesale store proposed for New Orleans by MulvannyG2 Architecture of Seattle.
Over the past six years, the Carrollton-Hollygrove Community Development Corporation has been involved in countless meetings focused on the fate of the large empty lot on South Carrollton near the interstate.
On Wednesday evening, surrounded by drawings and renderings of the Costco Wholesale store proposed for the site, CDC member Joe Sherman told store officials he has high hopes for their plans.
“You guys have addressed all of the concerns that came out,” Sherman said during a community meeting with Costco representatives and architects. “I just want to congratulate y’all on a job well done.” Continue reading »
A request for for alcohol sales at a new CVS Pharmacy on South Claiborne Avenue, a handful of modifications to the Whole Foods operating agreement and the addition of a new building at the Poydras Home retirement community are all returning to the City Council agenda on Thursday. Continue reading »
The NOPD Second District will hold its weekly meetings of the district’s ranking officers on Thursdays “for the foreseeable future,” according to an email alert. This week’s meeting will be held at 11 a.m. Thursday at the Second District station at Magazine and Napoleon.
The meetings are open to the public.
One of the most intriguing blighted properties in the city, on Simon Bolivar Avenue (photo by Jean-Paul Villere)
Jean-Paul Villere
Two weeks ago I wrote a piece contrasting the Hornets “I’m In” campaign to the city’s “Fight the Blight” with mixed responses. And that’s to be expected. Along with this, recently the city facilitated yet another round of tax sales for delinquent property owners in Orleans Parish, and some of these properties are, yes, blighted. By city ordinance, a successful bidder on a tax year for a property is entitled to a certain percentage of ownership of that tax year for that property. Depending on the outcome and competitiveness of the bidding process some times that ownership is 100% and other times as little as 1%. It gets more layered, so stay with me. On paper, the goal of the tax sale is to get these properties righted on their parish debt and back into commerce, whether through a prescriptive period of delinquency and subsequent sale or the offender’s righting of their own tax debt themselves. If the property is not deemed blighted the prescriptive period is 3 years, and if it is blighted it’s cut in half to 18 months. This all seems relatively simple and plainly spelled out, right? It is, kinda. Continue reading »
City officials suspended a Central City grocery’s liquor license Tuesday afternoon after the business failed to pay fines it owed over back taxes. Continue reading »